What happens when you slouch while sitting?
If you’re sitting at a computer or hunched over your iPad or phone chances are you’re slouching a bit with your shoulders hunched over. Excessive sitting isn’t new to the working-from-home world, In fact, the average American sits for 6.5 hours a day. Due to prolonged sitting, poor posture with work, working at a computer, sitting at home in poor posture watching TV and a host of other common poor postures, changes in your body can occur over time. The normal curve in your neck can reduce, the length of the spine can decrease and muscles in the neck can become weaker. This can lead to a variety of symptoms from neck and shoulder pain, to headaches and even impinged nerves radiating pain into the upper extremities.
Why is slouching when sitting so bad for you, and how can you fix it? To put it in simple terms, your muscles are strained. The muscles in a lengthened or shortened position can become inhibited and can actually get stuck. Muscles in these positions create more tightness and pain, and prevent normal function since your joints won’t move properly. When muscles are underactive they don’t play a role in bringing the shoulders back to a normal resting position. It’s a cycle that feeds into itself, and the only way to break out is to reset your muscles.
What to do about it?
The solution to dealing with shoulder, back and neck pain is to lengthen your muscles that are too short, while activating the muscles that are too long, bringing balance back to your muscle groups.
Beyond simply fixing your posture while you sit, here are some reset tips.
Use a vibrating sphere across your chest
Use a vibrating sphere across your shoulder blades and upper traps
Use a vibrating sphere along your neck
Use a lacrosse ball Rolling your neck
Do this shoulder stretch Shoulder Stretch
Still in Pain? How does physical therapy help?
Physical therapy works in a variety of ways to improve your posture and actually change your neck posture over time. With our proven Reset Method including: hands-on therapy, Point Reset ™, special exercises and postural re–training, our physical therapists work with you to improve your posture, alignment and neck strength. In addition, we train you on proper postural positioning and techniques to adapt your work and home areas to reduce the strain on your neck.
Call us today to discover how we can help quickly reduce your neck pain and improve your posture!