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12 wellness<br />
focus<br />
Posture & Back Pain<br />
Sitting with poor posture for<br />
hours together, day after day, year<br />
after year, causes back pain. The<br />
stress that wrong posture places on<br />
your spine can lead to anatomical<br />
changes in your spine. This, in turn,<br />
can provoke back pain through the<br />
constriction of your blood vessels<br />
and nerves. In addition, the stress<br />
from poor posture can lead to back<br />
pain by causing problems with your<br />
muscles, discs, and joints. Back pain<br />
caused by poor posture may have<br />
the following characteristics:<br />
• Back pain that is worse at certain<br />
times of the day<br />
• Pain that starts in your neck and<br />
moves down into your upper and<br />
lower back<br />
• Pain that subsides after switching<br />
positions while sitting or standing<br />
• Sudden back pain that coincides<br />
with a new job, a new office chair,<br />
or a new car.<br />
How to maintain a<br />
good posture<br />
If poor posture can lead to back<br />
pain, it logically follows that good<br />
posture can help you avoid back<br />
pain. Here’s how to maintain good<br />
posture while walking, sitting, and<br />
lifting:<br />
Avoid drooping shoulders. While<br />
walking, it’s important to look<br />
straight ahead of you and to keep<br />
your head balanced straight above<br />
your spine. Additionally, avoid<br />
drooping your shoulders while you<br />
are walking, and make sure to land<br />
on your heel and then roll forward<br />
to push off the front of your foot.<br />
Always sit with support. One<br />
common posture mistake many<br />
people make is the ‘office chair<br />
hunch’, where a person sits at the<br />
front of their chair and hunches<br />
forward to reach their computer<br />
screen. Instead of hunching forward,<br />
here is how to sit with proper<br />
posture at your office:<br />
• Keep your back flush against<br />
your chair with your shoulders<br />
tall and your head level over your<br />
spine.<br />
• Keep your arms flexed at a 75 to<br />
90 degree angle at the elbows.<br />
• Keep your knees level with<br />
your hips or sit with your knees<br />
slightly above your hips if seated<br />
at a desk.<br />
• Keep your feet flat on the floor. If<br />
you are unable to reach the floor,<br />
use a footrest.<br />
Lift carefully. Improper lifting<br />
techniques can cause injury to the<br />
muscles, joints, and discs in your<br />
back. To help you avoid back pain,<br />
here are three simple rules for<br />
lifting both light and heavy objects:<br />
• Bend your hips, not your lower<br />
back, and keep your chest out.<br />
• When changing directions while<br />
lifting, lead with your hips to<br />
avoid placing additional strain on<br />
your back.<br />
• Keep the object you are lifting as<br />
close to your body as possible.<br />
yourwellness.com
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