Unhealthy Posture: What Causes It and How to Counteract It

“Many individuals attribute, to some degree, their neck or back pain to unhealthy posture. Can knowing the causes and underlying factors help guide lifestyle adjustments and seeking medical rehabilitative treatment?”

Unhealthy Posture Causes

Numerous factors can cause individuals to practice unhealthy postures regularly.

• Day-to-day activities and the effects of gravity on the body can cause unhealthy posture. (Dariusz Czaprowski, et al., 2018)
• Unhealthy posture can also be brought on by an injury, illness, or genetics.
• A combination of these factors is also common.

Practicing healthy posture is a form of exercise where the muscles support the skeleton in stable and efficient alignment that is present in stillness and movement.

Injury and Muscle Guarding

• After an injury, muscles can spasm to protect the body and help stabilize injuries and protect against further injury.
• However, movements become limited and can lead to pain symptoms.
• Prolonged muscle spasms lead to weakened muscles over time.
• The imbalance between muscles guarding the injury and those still operating normally can lead to posture problems.
• Musculoskeletal treatment with massage, chiropractic, and physical therapy can help restore optimal functioning.

Muscle Tension and Weakness

• If certain muscle groups become weak or tense, posture can be affected, and pain symptoms can develop.
• Muscle weakness or tension can develop when individuals hold a prolonged position day after day or when performing routine tasks and chores in a way that places tension on the muscles or uses them in an unbalanced way.
• A study found how muscle tension, strength, and flexibility affect posture. Dariusz Czaprowski, et al., 2018)
• Postural retraining and physical therapy adjustments can help strengthen the muscles and relieve pain symptoms.

Daily Habits

• As individuals find ways to accommodate muscle spasms, weakness, tension, and/or imbalances, the mind and body can forget and abandon healthy posture.
• The body then begins compensating using alternate, awkward, and counterproductive muscle contractions and stretching that compromise body and spinal alignment.

Use of Technology

• Technology – whether sitting at a desk/workstation, using a tablet or cell phone, or working with several devices can gradually shift the body out of alignment. (Parisa Nejati, et al., 2015)
• Individuals constantly looking down at their phone may develop a text neck, a condition in which the neck is held in flexion or forward tilting too long, which can lead to pain.

Mental Attitude and Stress

• Individuals under stress or are experiencing stressful situations can begin to have posture problems. (Shwetha Nair et al., 2015)
• Stress can contribute to over-contracting muscles, which can cause muscle tension, shallow breathing, posture problems, and pain symptoms.
• Being aware of body position and correcting and adjusting posture can help to counteract stress. (Shwetha Nair et al., 2015)

Footwear Choice and They Are Worn

• Footwear can affect body posture.
• High heels shift the body’s weight forward, which can cause misalignment. (Anniele Martins Silva, et al., 2013)
• Wearing down the outside or inside of the shoes faster from things like weight-bearing habits will imbalance kinetic forces that translate up the ankle, knee, hip, and lower back leading to pain symptoms in any or all of these joints.

Heredity and Genetics

• Sometimes the cause is hereditary.
• For example, Scheuermann’s disease is a condition in which adolescent males develop a pronounced kyphosis curve in the thoracic spine. (Nemours. KidsHealth. 2022)

Consult Injury Medical Chiropractic and Functional Medicine Clinic for an evaluation, and let us help you by developing a personalized treatment and rehabilitation program.

The Path To Healing

References

Czaprowski, D., Stoliński, Ł., Tyrakowski, M., Kozinoga, M., & Kotwicki, T. (2018). Non-structural misalignments of body posture in the sagittal plane. Scoliosis and spinal disorders, 13, 6. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13013-018-0151-5

Nejati, P., Lotfian, S., Moezy, A., & Nejati, M. (2015). The study of correlation between forward head posture and neck pain in Iranian office workers. International journal of occupational medicine and environmental health, 28(2), 295–303. https://doi.org/10.13075/ijomeh.1896.00352

Nair, S., Sagar, M., Sollers, J., 3rd, Consedine, N., & Broadbent, E. (2015). Do slumped and upright postures affect stress responses? A randomized trial. Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association, 34(6), 632–641. https://doi.org/10.1037/hea0000146

Silva, A. M., de Siqueira, G. R., & da Silva, G. A. (2013). Implications of high-heeled shoes on body posture of adolescents. Revista paulista de pediatria : orgao oficial da Sociedade de Pediatria de Sao Paulo, 31(2), 265–271. https://doi.org/10.1590/s0103-05822013000200020

Nemours. KidsHealth. (2022). Scheuermann’s kyphosis.