There is an orientation of our frame where things just work better.
When in this particular alignment: our joints work as they were built to; we get optimum power out of our musculature; neurological communication throughout the body is unimpeded and clear; our respiratory and cardiovascular systems can achieve peak performance; it even promotes clarity of thought and a more positive outlook on life which means a person is more productive and more pleasant to spend time with.
Sounds good, right?
You can see this in our elite athletes. They work hard to optimise their bodies to achieve peak performance. You’ll also see it in the movers and shakers of your world ~ those leading the pack and moving forward with innovation; those with charisma whom others flock around to bask in their glow.
I’m talking about posture…a seemingly small and inconsequential thing that can have such huge impacts on a person’s every day. For each person, posture is the sum of a collection of habits: how they use their body; their fitness regime; their diet; their headspace. When posture moves away from the optimal there are consequences. This often takes the form of pain in the frame, but that can cascade over time to affect other elements of quality of life (such as state of mind and lung capacity) leading to dis-ease and dysfunction. Oh, posture is not the be all and end all of quality of life, of course, but it has wider reaching impacts on life than most of us are aware of.
We get one body. It’s designed to work a particular way. It’s pretty adaptable, but when you use it in a way it’s not designed to work, there are consequences. The same way using a flat head screwdriver as a lever to take the lid off a recalcitrant paint tin may leave the screwdriver in a condition that is less able to fit into a screw head and turn the screw efficiently.
Our musculoskeletal frame is adaptable/plastic and will wear and repair (within the limitations of matter). Our brain is likewise adaptable and plastic, but it is also ruthless on two fronts:
This means our brain can get into bad movement and posture habits while it is keeping us safe from experiencing that traumatic pain again, AND it can then think these new unaligned postures are “neutral posture”…or, in fact, that there are no other postural options - because it’s been so long since you’ve held yourself in true neutral posture and the glial cells have gone all Marie Kondo and edited out true neutral as a possibility through lack of use.
An example of this might be a person who sprained their right knee dodging while playing touch football or tennis ~ you can read the sequential nitty-gritty of what happens in the brain and body following the joint injury below.
What happens to George's body and brain when he sprains his right knee playing sport.
The right knee joint is swollen, painful and stiff while the brain and body work to heal and restore the damaged tissues. During this time George avoids putting weight on the right knee. Instead, he carries most of his weight on the left leg and walks with a limp to protect the right knee. So -
- During the healing time George’s stands with his weight over his left leg,
- the pelvis is loaded improperly
- there is a sideways curve in George’s spine to the right
- his head is canted to the left to compensate and keep his eyes level with the horizon.
In short, this abnormal posture requires the body to work a lot harder to achieve normal balanced movement. In actuality, it can’t achieve normal movement in this position and different parts of the frame work a lot harder, imbalances develop, and joints and tissues deteriorate.
Concurrently, George’s brain becomes hypervigilant about not re-injuring the tissues that were damaged in the sporting accident again, so it trains George to persist with this abnormal gait and posture beyond to keep the right knee extra safe.
Over time the glial cells in the brain see the neural circuitry dedicated to optimal posture is not being used so edits these postures out of existence in a drive towards efficiency and streamlining of procedures.
The rest of the brain then considers George’s current skewed post-knee-injury posture as neutral, and the compromises that the frame has made to keep-on-keeping-on while the injury was healing become the new normal.
Those compromises can play out across the years as low back pain, hip issues, neck trouble and even headaches…to name but a few.
All because of posture
This is a post injury example, but the process can be more insidious too. Computer based desk workers are a classic - there are so many issues of the spine and frame that spin out of control as a consequence of a wandering mouse! "Ergonomics" and "sedentary-ism" may be inconvenient concepts when a deadline is looming, but ignore them, and you will pay a postural price.
Another example is that cohort of people who turn their frame into a pretzel to chase down problems - plumbers, mechanics, IT people. Even people who are in transit - all day sitting in a vehicle, maybe twisting to one side to do computer work in the car or keep an eye on the seeder/harvester or to provide the small person in the back seat with whatever is needed in the moment. Using your body in these unbalanced postures catches up with you in the end.
To get the best out of this body of ours we need:
As a chiropractor, I’m working with people on their frame and their posture every day. We work to optimise alignment and retrain the brain, to encourage strength and good lifestyle habits. The vast majority of people walk in my door requesting help to resolve a pain. Working to optimise their posture ~ at work, rest and play ~ is a big part of how we get them back on track.
