Good Posture More Important Than You Thought

A lot of people underestimate the role of good posture in maintaining a healthy back. I believe that poor posture is responsible for most of the back pain the population suffer. If you look to your self or people living around you, you will find that every one of them makes at least one postural mistake in his/her day.

For example yesterday I saw my mother leaning on the couch while watching TV with her back bent and her two shoulders unequal in height. My sister was studying in poor posture too. We make many activities that hurt our backs unintentionally and later on we find our backs aching. So we have to stop these activities or do them in a healthy way.

I know it is difficult at first but it is the most important part for eliminating back pain for ever. You may feel uncomfortable or even feel pain while taking good posture but that's only at the beginning. You may even forget to take the right positions every moment but keep reminding yourself before your back pain does.

Your back is always under the effect of gravity which is trying to pull it down and changing its position from being straight to bending forwards and downwards.

On the other hand, your back muscles act to oppose this action of gravity and straighten your back.

In this era most of us work at an office and spend most of their time reading, writing or most common on the computer. All of these activities implies sitting which means more load to your back and more bending over to read your work or see what is on the computer's screen.

This bend to your back while doing such activities is harmful because it causes lengthening of your muscles and consequent decrease in tone so they become weaker and result in more bending and increase your back pain.

But How to maintain a good posture??

I am not going to tell you unhelpful advices like those I have heard before like "keep your back straight" but instead I am going to tell you exactly how to make and maintain good posture. This can be summarised in the following four points.

Distribute your weight equally to your legs. I mean that you should not stand and load your weight on one leg more than the other.

Keep your chest inflated, this can be done by taking a maximum breath in and then breath it out but during breathing out hold your position of maximum chest inflation (as when you were breathing in).

Contract your abdominal muscles such that you create a tension in them. If it is difficult to you then imagine that someone is going to punch your abdomen and you are defending your self by contracting your muscles.

Take your head as much back as possible. While doing so you will find your chin coming closer to your neck and chest.

Your muscles are adapted to the bad posture you used to take before, so it might be uncomfortable at the beginning while taking the healthy position but you have to keep on.