Positive Posture 3: Sleep, Exercise and Your Spine
November 23, 2010 No Comments
Welcome to the third and final installment of Positive Posture. In our previous episode we spoke about the importance of work place posture, and what you could do in order to limit damaging your spine. Now, lets focus on the two other important areas where we can work on our posture: whilst exercising and sleeping.
Exercise:
- Maintaining an appropriate level of exercise helps promote good posture. Daily exercise will help maintain spinal joint motion and keep good tone in postural muscles.
- Don’t forget the tips I gave you in the first Positive Posture article about working at the gym. Focus on an all over work out. If you are going to do strengthening work, make sure you include your extensor muscles (i.e. triceps, quads), the posterior muscles of the trunk (i.e. rhomboids, latissimus dorsi) and the core muscles (i.e. transverse abdominals). More specific strengthening routines can be developed by your Chiropractor or a Personal Trainer.
- Lift weights that are appropriate for your current level of strength. Build your way up, and don’t let your ego cause an injury. Also have a PT or Chiropractor show the correct way to lift weights when working on different muscles.
- When on a cycle machine sit up nice and tall, keep your chest puffed up, relax your shoulders back and keep your head over the top your spine (not in front!).
- If you go walking, try to keep nice even strides, swinging your arms in time and never limp.
Sleep:
- Because we spend on average 8 hours a night sleeping, posture is very important here as well.
- A good sleep posture is all about maintaining the three spinal curves, supporting your neck and ensuring there is not increased pressure on your hips and shoulders.
- Taking these three things into account you should only be sleeping on your back or side.
- If on your back, have a pillow that supports your neck, fills the gap between base of the skull and shoulders and does not “prop your head upright”. A memory foam contour pillow provides exactly this.
- If on your side, you need to keep your neck in a neutral position, filling the gap between head and shoulders. Once again we do not want the head to “sink” down too much or “prop up” too much either. A memory foam contour pillow will again provide the appropriate level of support.
- Avoid twisting in the low back, and do not sleep with your hand under your pillow, this can cause impingement within your shoulder.
In our last article we focussed predominately on “office posture”, but of course not everyone works in an office do they! For instance, even Dr Sean and myself have to be conscious of our posture as we work or we could cause injuries to our low back, mid back or shoulders… not mention our thumbs and wrists!
Furthermore, each of us like to exercise in different ways, be that at the Gym, Pool, Court or Field. And sleep is a very personal event, everybody having different preferences and needs as far as comfort and support.
The point is we all have individual circumstances that require personalised attention and discussion. Therefore, when you visit one of us at Hillarys Chiropractic we will help to tailor your care and lifestyle advice in order to suit your particular requirements. So please, if you have specific questions about your situation ask Dr Sean or myself at your next visit.
Thanks for reading team!
Happy living!
Dr Christopher Hodgetts is a chiropractor at Hillarys Chiropractic, Perth Western Australia. Read more…
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