Most of us spend most of our time sitting, sleeping, a combination of the two, or both simultaneously. Most of us do these two activities incorrectly. When it comes to sitting, one needs to be mindful of proper postures. Ever think of how hours, days, months, years, and decades of poor sitting may affect your muscular-skeletal system? The first thing to be affected is your muscular system. When you sit hunched over a desk looking down at papers, books, or the computer it makes the hip flexors, hamstrings, abdominal, and chest muscles shorter and tighter causing added stress to the hips, low back, mid back, and neck areas. When you sleep with your head in any position other than neutral, it causes a shortening of neck muscles on one side, and a lengthening of the muscles on the other side. The unbalanced and tight muscles that are now pulling unevenly on the spine do two things. First they interfere with the normal motion of the spinal vertebrae. This can cause nerve pressure and deterioration of the joint. Second, the taught muscles form trigger points that are areas of the muscle that spasm and build up toxins, causing pain. In our Charlotte Chiropractic office we deal with this problem in 2 ways. First we need to sit in the proper position and sleep in the proper position. We can achieve this by using a low back pillow to help maintain the proper low back arch, and a neck pillow to help maintain the proper arch in the neck we carry both types. In addition to setting up the proper position to sit and sleep we need to address the damage that has been done over months or years. Fixing this problem involves adjusting to spine to restore proper vertebral motion and alignment, stretching and massaging the proper muscles to relieve tension on the skeletal system, and strengthening the muscles that have been over stretched and are now week due to poor habits. There are a lot of situations that call for proper ergonomics, but sitting and sleeping seem to be my patient’s biggest problems. If you or someone you know has questions about proper ergonomics and posture please do not hesitate to call our office at (704)399-1300.
Yours for Better Health,
Ryan Giel
Charlotte Chiropractor
