Understanding the importance of posture and your spine

Posture is so important, yet its impact is quite hidden. Rarely is it highlighted to us until something goes rather wrong and we are in pain, or when we a striving to reach goals but something is (sometimes literally) pulling us back and we can’t quite reach them.

Hidden impact

Why is the impact hidden? Our posture is a continual state of our body’s position(s) rather than a sudden one off occurrence – as such it is very reasonable to say our posture is ‘normal for us’ as it is probably how it was the week before and the week before that.

Our body is fantastic at compensating and quite often we can’t tell when there are subtle changes, and when these happen over a period of time they will slowly accumulate. Only when it has built up do we get an insight into what has happened if we haven’t already had our spine and posture checked by a professional.

Postural insights

We often need an insight into the importance of posture for us to be aware of it, and that insight either comes from:

• Visual awareness = we can clearly see our posture is not very good.
• Auditory awareness = someone (hopefully politely!) informs you your posture is not good.
• Mild sensory = you can feel that your body is stiffening up and can’t get into a position that you used to be able to do comfortably.
• Strong sensory* = you feel a lot of pain getting into certain postures (bending, straightening up etc) *it is usually at this level that people book an appointment

When you have pain you all of a sudden become very aware of the postural impact i.e. when you bend over to get your socks on, stand up from sitting, or turn your neck to check your blind spot whilst driving. It is very common for poor posture to be a contributing factor in problems such as neck pain, low back pain, headaches and sciatica.

Take it from dentistry

Lets make it really clear here, if we viewed our spinal health in the same as we do with our teeth then we would have a spinal check up WAY before the point at which most people do. We can clearly see the state of our teeth and will probably check them at least twice a day. Even if you didn’t pay attention to yours you can clearly see the state of people’s dental hygiene when they smile, laugh and talk.

What if your spine was the same and we could see all of the bones and joints in our neck and back, and visualise how well they were working? Well we can’t as they are all tucked away! Dental hygiene and spinal hygiene should be in the same category and it seems odd to me that professional spinal check ups are not integrated from an early age across all health care.

The only way you can see how well they are working is indirectly through your posture, how good you feel with yourself and how many problems you have.

There is another method – and just to ensure you know this isn’t an advertisement tactic and you can take it as advice, go and get a spinal check up FROM ANYONE! I honestly would rather everyone in Duffield and Derby had regular spinal check ups even if they didn’t all see me!

People will usually call to book an appointment when something has gone wrong and they are in pain, and to be honest a lot of us do that with the dentist too to a lesser extent (we have all seen a dentist before at some point, but quite often people are in their 40’s and 50’s and never had a spinal check up from a Chiropractor).

If however you want a deeper understanding of how to improve your posture now, check our availability for a spinal check up with an initial consultation from the Chiropractor at the clinic – we know and understand the importance of posture and integrate this into both our assessment and our treatment plans.

By doing this you move away from pain and towards improving your performance.

Andrew Harlow – Derby Chiropractor