Have you noticed a growing habit of slouching? Do you experience neck or back pain after a day at work? If so, it’s time to fix your posture! Are you wondering, “How long does it take to fix your posture?” Read on to find out!
In the content below, we discuss why poor posture is bad, how good posture improves your overall health and wellness, explore how long it takes to fix your posture, and get you started with five posture tips.
Why Is Poor Posture Bad?
Did you know poor posture can lead to excessive straining on your postural muscles that may result in a relaxed structure over time? With heightened attention towards ergonomic chairs, proper shoe insoles, and avoiding slouched stances, many people are beginning to turn their attention towards improving posture.
Poor Posture Contributing Factors
The most common contributing factors to poor posture include:
- Stress
- Obesity
- Pregnancy
- Weak postural muscles
- Abnormally tight muscles
- High-heeled shoes
- Decreased flexibility
- A poor work environment and incorrect working posture
- Unhealthy sitting, sleeping, and standing habits
As you grow older, poor posture habits increase your likelihood of developing degenerative disorders that directly affect the spine such as osteoarthritis, spinal stenosis, and degenerative disc disease.
By neglecting to correct your posture, you risk a greater susceptibility to injury and additional body pain.
What Are the Benefits of Improving Posture?
By simply taking the conscious effort in fixing your posture, you can experience multiple benefits including but not limited to:
- Keeping bones and joints in correct alignment and correctly using your muscles.
- Reducing the stress put towards ligaments holding together your spinal joints.
- Minimizing the likelihood of incurring injuries.
- Increasing the efficiency of your muscles and use less energy doing so.
- Preventing muscle fatigue, muscle strain, overuse disorders, back pain, and muscle pain.
Therefore, take the next week to consciously assess your posture when working, standing, sleeping, and sitting. You may be surprised what needs correction!
How Long Does It Take To Correct Posture?
Unfortunately, there is no magic time that corrects all posture issues. Furthermore, the best way to accurately determine your postural health and spinal alignment is to have a medical professional take an initial x-ray.
With the results in hand, you can then understand what postural corrections need to happen to completely fix your posture. You might be surprised to discover one hip is higher than the other, your spine has an increased curvature, or you have several subluxations because of long-term issues!
One thing to note is that you can develop a new habit after 3 to 8 weeks of continual practice and intentional application. Therefore, the more effort you put in correcting it, the sooner you will see long-term results!
5 Posture Tips
To help fix your posture in a timely manner, there are several things you can start practicing now! Below, we explore five posture tips you can do at home and on-the-go to help correct your spinal alignment.
#1. Look up! Eliminate Text Neck
Current statistics show that the average person spends roughly 4 hours on their phone every day. With that said, if you spend copious amounts of time on your phone in the wrong posture, you could be negatively impacting your body more than you think.
When you receive a text message or scroll through your social media feed, what posture do you assume? Do you slouch over a little and look down at your phone?
Growing in commonality over the recent decade, text neck is impacting millions of unsuspecting individuals. Therefore, to combat the issue and break this poor posture habit, practice bringing up your phone towards your face and holding it at eye level. Doing so prevents lowering your head to view your phone at a downward angle and worsening your spinal curvature.
#2. Loosen up! Stretch and Exercise
When practicing proper posture, it might make your back feel stiff and uncomfortable. However, when pairing good posture with stretching and exercising, you can help your muscles adjust to better posture without feeling as stiff.
#3. Rest up! Sleep in Alignment
As nearly one-third of your day is spent sleeping, resting in alignment could make all the difference in your efforts to improve posture. Therefore, it is best that you sleep on your back with prescribed wedges and rolls to level out your neck, back, and hips.
Although it takes time to establish a new habit, especially while sleeping, practice each day by resting in alignment for at least fifteen minutes. Over time, your body will grow accustomed to sleeping and resting in alignment.
#4. Fix it up! Receive Chiropractic Care
To effectively correct a subluxation, whether derived from poor posture, a major car accident, or pregnancy, you must undergo a series of personalized chiropractic adjustments that help correct your spine. As a result, chiropractors are the only professionals who are experts in correcting spinal subluxations that improve your posture and overall health and wellness.
#5. Line up! Decompress with Traction Therapy
Traction therapy is a decompression exercise that encourages correct alignment from your neck and spine. Typically, this exercise occurs before a chiropractic adjustment and can also be done at home when prescribed by your chiropractor.
Depending on your individual x-ray results, your chiropractor will develop customized exercises catered to your body’s health.
Start Fixing Your Posture Today with Team Chiro
Anyone can crack a back, neck, or knuckles. However, only a spinal engineer can truly fix the spinal issues you are facing and generate the greatest long-term relief. At Team Chiropractic, our team of qualified spinal engineers works hard to create a custom treatment plan according to what your body needs for long-term restoration.
With over 25 years of service, we are the leading spinal adjustment practice in the Raleigh area and are uniquely suited to helping relieve your sciatica pain through safe, professional spinal adjustment. Our Certified Chiropractic Extremity Practitioners (CCEP) and Certified Chiropractic Sports Physicians (CCSP) enables us to correct the overall biomechanics, which enables you to hold your correction.
We believe in the six essentials to healthy living: spiritual/mental alignment, physical alignment, nutritional alignment, exercise in alignment, rest in alignment, and removing chemical stress. By offering both services and products that adhere to the six essentials, we help promote an overall health and wellness treatment for every client who comes through our doors.
If you or someone you know wants to improve their posture or is looking for neck or low back pain relief in Raleigh, we are here to help! Contact us online today or give us a call at 919-788-8881 to schedule your initial appointment and x-ray. We look forward to helping restore your health.
