Sitting on the floor, in front of my wife and me, the other night, was our son, bolt upright with that perfect posture only young kids seem to manage, relaxed but not slumping.
I commented about this to my wife and we discussed how wonderful the young’s instinctive posture is; unsullied by years of poor school seating, lack of exercise and hours spent in front of TV or computer screen.
Any chiropractor will confirm that this upright posture is the best for the preservation and functioning of the spine, its associated muscles and the nervous system. The body we are born with has all the bits and bobs to develop perfectly well on its own; it’s modern man with our modern ways that disrupt the normal developmental processes.
How can sitting at a desk all day, let alone an hour on the train, be good for you?
We are sleepwalking into an epidemic of spinal developmental problems.
In young children, the curves in the spine need activity to develop. Running around and climbing trees is far better for your sensory system, cardiovascular system, nervous system, digestive system, lymphatic system, well just about every system you’ve got plus some sunlight to up your vitamin D levels, important for young and old bones alike (rickets is making a come back).
Playing on an X-Box or PS4 may give you some improved hand-eye coordination and strategy-making skills but you’ll get that outside when your friends are lobbing things at you or you’re climbing a tree. Plus if you fall out of the tree you’ll get a sense of your own mortality, possibly a free trip to the Royal Surrey hospital and a clip round the ear which will improve your mum’s hand-eye coordination.
The ripple out benefits are endless. We all need to be aware of poor posture. Slumping over a keyboard overloads the disc, which over time can cause a multitude of problems.
In offices get an agreement between yourself and your colleagues that if you see each other slumping you’ll shout “posture!”.
Have some fun and do yourselves some good in the process.
For exercises that could be useful to you, follow this link to Straighten Up UK, an incentive by the British Chiropractic Association to help us all improve our posture.
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