The Health Effects of Poor Posture

Didn’t listen when your mom nagged you to sit or stand up straight? You should have. If you’re a serial sloucher, you can probably trace your neck and shoulder pain, stiffness and aching back right back to your posture.

Ignoring advice on good posture can affect your overall health and set you up for neck and shoulder strain, back pain and even joint damage. You may dismiss the discomfort for a while, but it’s your body’s way of getting your attention.

Here, we explain the effects of poor posture on your body.

Bones become misaligned

Good posture (called the neutral position) holds your bones in a precise alignment that balances your body and supports healthy movement. Every time you move, especially when walking or running, your bones sustain a tremendous amount of shock and stress.

Proper body alignment (good posture) distributes the pressure among multiple structures. This prevents injuries by ensuring one bone, muscle, or joint doesn’t take on more stress than it can handle.

Every time your posture leaves the neutral position (poor posture), your body compensates by placing more pressure on one structure. The imbalance that poor posture causes leads to injuries and other problems that limit your ability to stay active.

Back and neck pain begin

Your spine’s natural curves distribute your weight, add flexibility, and absorb shock caused by movement. If your vertebrae were stacked straight up and down, they would sustain excessive stress, making your spine vulnerable to injuries and degeneration.

Prolonged sitting, standing, bending, and slouching due to poor posture flatten your spinal curves. As a result, you’re at risk of disc damage, slipped vertebrae, pinched nerves, and other problems that cause chronic back and neck pain.

Another posture problem occurs if you spend too much time looking down to use your smartphone or other electronics. Bending your head places the equivalent of 50 pounds of stress on your neck. As a result, you end up with the pain and stiffness of a strained neck.

Joint damage escalates

Your joints experience a lot of pressure as they repeat the same movement, support your weight, and transfer pressure from one bone to the next.

As poor posture puts your body out of alignment, the joints are forced to manage more stress and shock than they can handle. The extra wear-and-tear causes joint injuries and accelerates degenerative changes leading to arthritis.

Soft tissues tear

Your muscles, ligaments, and tendons can’t function properly if you have bad posture. Like your bones and joints, all of these supporting soft tissues are designed to share stress, with one muscle absorbing some and passing the rest on to other tissues.

When this well-designed system is disrupted by changes in your posture, some muscles bear more stress than others, causing injuries ranging from muscle fatigue and cramps, to stress fractures and painful tears.

Lungs struggle to breathe

Poor posture causes problems beyond your musculoskeletal system. When your posture bends the spine, it also contracts your rib cage. This reduces the space around your lungs, affects your diaphragm, and makes it hard to take a deep breath.

Body loses balance

Most people take balance for granted, but it requires extensive coordination among bones, joints, muscles, and your sensory system.

Movements like twisting, turning, bending, or a sudden response to catch a falling object rely on your body’s ability to adjust its posture to maintain balance. Chronically poor posture throws this system off, causing balance problems that make it hard to move.

The good news is that chiropractic care can retrain your body and restore optimal posture. If you have ongoing pain without an obvious cause, it may be time to schedule a posture assessment.