We have recently come across the article in women’s health stating how incredibly strenuous texting could be on you neck and shoulders. For every inch your head inclines forward, you add 10 pounds of weight for your body to carry. Your spine becomes like a fishing rod, with a decent sized trout on the other side.

These technology driven devices are unavoidable yes, but we need to be informed about the effects of these small little things we do on a daily basis that could determine our state of health later on in life

The weight of the head is more like a bowling ball than a golf ball, so holding it forward, out of alignment, puts strain on your neck and upper back muscles. The result can be muscle fatigue and all to often an aching neck. Loss of the natural curve of the cervical spine, leads to incrementally increased stresses on the cervical spine.

The part of the neck that is particularly affected by forward head posture is the lower part of the neck, just above the shoulders. Prolonged shearing of the vertebrae from forward head posture eventually irritates the small facet joints in the neck as well as the ligaments and soft tissues. This irritation can result in neck pain that radiates down to the shoulder blades and upper back. This can lead to conditions such as degenerative discs, cervical osteoarthritis or a cervical herniated disc.

Spinal decay, normally seen in the 40 year old and up populations, is now appearing in teenage and college age populations.  Not correcting spinal misalignment at a young age will set that person up to have all the aforementioned issues.

We often times realize the impact of our bad habits too late, when we’re already in pain, or when conservative treatment options are no longer an option, and surgery becomes the next option.  And one thing they forget to mention in most of these articles, is the fact that correcting your posture will not all of a sudden fix the problem.  The effects of our long term bad habits can not be reversed so easily . Yes it will prevent the condition from getting worse, but a slipped disc will not be healed with improved posture unless corrected very early in teen or twenties before disc degenerations takes it’s toll. See the spinal curve needs to be restored.

The problem goes far beyond that of neck pain only. When someone drops their head forward and rounds their shoulders, it becomes impossible for them to take a full breath in because of the restriction through the muscles and because the ribs can’t move properly, so the heart and lungs can’t function to their full effectiveness.

A chiropractor works with both your posture and restoring proper spinal curves by using a combination of different techniques. We take care of the cause of the problem, and equip you with the right tools to avoid it in the future, to regain flexibility and if no red flags arise, we skip the surgery route.