Do you regularly catch yourself that you are not sitting or standing upright? A wrong posture has a significant effect on your body, especially in the long term.
Now that we work from home more often, physiotherapists are increasingly busy. Common complaints are that we often suffer from neck, shoulders and back. One of the reasons is that we do not have a well-equipped workplace at home.
When we often sit for hours with our phones in our hands or working in front of our computers, we often don't consciously think about our posture. But bad posture can have many different effects on your body that can affect you for a long time. We will walk you through them all from head to toe.
Read also: 'How do you prevent back problems by working from home?'
Bad posture puts tension on the back of your head. This also puts tension on nerves in that region, giving you a headache. In addition, you can get a so-called 'text neck' by constantly looking down at your phone. With every two and a half centimeters that you move your head down, you double the weight that the tip of your spine has to bear. When you hold your head straight up (in line with your shoulders), it weighs about 10 pounds, but as soon as you move your head down a… it already weighs 10 pounds. All that extra weight is placed on your neck and is therefore guaranteed to cause neck pain.
Constantly bending your head forward or down puts stress on the muscles around your jaw joint, which can cause jaw pain and difficulty opening your jaw. Fortunately, adjusting your posture can help to alleviate this pain!
Bad posture puts extra pressure on your blood vessels. This prevents blood from circulating through your body as freely as it normally does, which can leave you feeling tired and energy-less. Also, your muscles and joints have to work harder than usual to compensate for your bad posture, which makes you tired and energyless even faster. Fortunately, this vicious circle can be broken by working on your posture.
Bad posture also has an effect on your shoulders. You can suffer a shoulder impingement due to the tension on your rotator cuff, the group of muscles that connect your upper arm to your shoulder. If you don't do anything about this, it can even lead to an actual tear that is accompanied by a lot of pain and a weaker shoulder.
A healthy back has three natural bends:an inward bend at your neck, an outward bend at the top of your back, and an inward bend at your lower back. Sitting or standing up helps you maintain these bends. Collapsing puts tension on the muscles surrounding these bends, which can cause pain. What can make the pain worse are weak abdominal muscles, because they can't absorb the tension of slacking. This puts all the tension on your spine. In other words, try to sit and stand upright!
Poor posture can cause your chest to contract, preventing your diaphragm from opening completely while breathing. Also, a study from the Journal of Physical Therapy Science shows that a position in which you hang or move your head a lot forward reduces your lung capacity. As a result, you don't get the oxygen you need, so you will feel exhausted faster.
Hanging out after a meal can cause heartburn, as it can push stomach acid in the wrong direction—up your esophagus. Also, your blood vessels in your gastrointestinal tract are compressed by hanging, which can also slow down your digestion. So make sure that you sit up and stand or go for a walk after a meal to get your digestion going.
When you're not standing and walking, you lean forward slightly and walk slightly bent, which can cause knee pain. This is because there is tension on your joints and your hips are not in line as a result. This ensures that your kneecap cannot move smoothly over your shin or thigh. In addition, your feet and ankles can no longer line up, which can cause inflammation in your heel and foot muscles.
