Are You Ahead of The Curve?

Do you wish you weren't so tired when you got home from work? Do you get headaches towards the end of the day? Do you feel tightness in your upper back? Do you feel tightness in your chest muscles?

If you answered ‘yes’ to any of the above questions, then you may be suffering from a rapidly growing problem in our society called forward head posture. Notice right now how you are sitting at your computer hunched over, head forward and shoulders rounded. Think about your necks position when you go to bed and how you prop your head up with two pillows.

These poor postural habits that we have grown into as a society are decreasing our quality of life exponentially. At least 3 times a day I hear someone complain about having a headache and when I ask them what kind of headache they are having they respond ‘a normal one’. I graduated college a biology major and am currently a senior in Chiropractic school and not in one anatomy or physiology book have I read about normal headaches.

Our posture is the window to our spine and the more forward we move our head then the more stress we put on our spine. Science has proven that the strongest engineering structure by which to build a bridge or dam is with a 45-60 degree curve. The purpose of that curve is to support all stresses that will be applied to that infrastructure. Like the bridge or the dam, physics does not change for the curve in our neck. Our curve in our neck on an x-ray is designed to look like a smooth flowing C-curve, so it can handle the daily stress of gravity and other forces we put upon it. As time progresses and we constantly put more stress on our neck from improper sleeping habits, sagging in our car, or hunched over in front of the computer, we begin to lose the C-curve in our neck.

Ever think that the reason we have tight muscles in our upper back is from the stress of our head being forward. These tight muscles are not coincidental and you are not unlucky to have received the ‘tight upper back gene’. There is a reason everything happens in our body and the more we allow this disease of forward head posture to progress the worse our quality of years will last. If you were to bend your elbow and hold a 10 pound bowling ball out in front of you compared to holding it straight up, which would tire you the fastest. The obvious answer is the arm that you hold the bowl in front of you rather with extra support of your arm. Can you imagine the stress of your neck from holding your head out in front rather than upright?

So sit up, bring your head back, unround those shoulders, and start getting yourself ahead of the curve.

How do you know if you have a C-curve?

· The best way to determine if your neck is out of its proper juxtaposition is to have an x-ray taken of your neck. This is best done at a chiropractors office who does corrective care work and restores neck curves. There is a website called http://www.IdealSpine.com/ where you can find corrective care chiropractors in your area. On the website you can see x-rays before the patient walked in and post-x-rays from the time period that their curve was restored.

What exercise can I do now to help restore my curve?

With all of my patients I also start off recommending the Bruegger exercise. Here are the steps toBruegger. I recommend doing this exercise and holding for at least 30 seconds for 25 times a day.

1. Sit at the end of your desk chair

2. Sit up straight in your chair

3. Bring your hands behind you facing outward, thumbs upward, chest out, and neck back.

4. Hold for 30 seconds.

Be sure to check out Posture Excercises blog for some amazing posture exercises to perform whether at work, home, or the gym.