Before you correct your posture, you need to know what caused it in the first place. This post will reveal 8 common causes of bad posture.
8 Causes of Bad Posture
1) Sitting
By far the biggest killer of good posture is sitting. On average, we sit 8 hours per day, that’s 30% of our lives we spent sitting. When humans came into existence there were no chairs. The natural human resting position is the squat.
This is still common in less developed countries.
Sitting causes, you to get anterior pelvic tilt as well as shoulder roundness and hunched back. Also, makes your core disengaged which further worsens posture.
Solutions:
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- Get a standing desk
- take breaks between sitting sessions.
2) Phones
When we are not sitting, we are walking or standing and looking at our smart phones. The problem with that is we must lean towards the screen to see, which puts stress on the neck.
Solutions:
- Try to consciously be in neutral neck position.
- Spend less time looking at phone.
3) Sleep Posture
There are 3 sleeping positions.
- On the back – when sleeping on the back either do not use a pillow or use a small pillow, to avoid neck pain. This sleeping position is the best for good posture.
- On the sides – use a pillow that is proportionate to your shoulders and a pillow between the legs. This sleeping position is okay, but if you can sleep on the back.
- On the stomach – avoid this sleep position. Transition to sleeping on the sides or the back.
4) Walking in Shoes
Shoes and foot apparel are not natural, we are intended to be walking barefoot. However, we can’t really change that because its ingrained in our society. Women suffer especially from this when they wear heels. Shoes are not the only bad thing, it’s the concrete surfaces that are to blame as well. We are intended to walk on uneven grass and terrain. Shoes don’t allow us to be in natural position and causes all kind of posture defects.
Solutions:
- Wear flat footed shoes.
- Whenever you can go walk barefoot on grass and ground.
5) Carrying heavy backpacks
This mostly applies to students, parents should monitor their children’s backpack weight. It’s important to not ruin your posture when you are still growing. The obvious problem with backpacks is rounded back and shoulders.
Solution: If you are a student leave your textbooks at school.
6) Not exercising
Bones are supported by muscle, if your muscles are too weak you will have bad posture.
Simple solution is to exercise and stretch. Bodyweight exercises are perfect for getting good amount of muscle and not undermining your posture.
7) Too much exercising
On the other side of the spectrum is making your muscles too big. Making muscle imbalances causes your posture to be in an unnatural state. A good example is rounded shoulders, people who have overdeveloped front muscles and lacking back muscles. Also, when weight training, incorrect exercise posture can lead to bad body posture.
Solutions:
- Exercise your muscles evenly.
- When working out with heavy weights try to do the exercises correctly to avoid further imbalances.
8) Being nervous
Your mind is connected to your body. If you have low self-esteem it will show in your body posture. It often results in having your head down and arched back. You have to man up and not care what other people think.
In conclusion, you can see that the cause of bad posture is basically the modern world. We wanted to make our lives easier in turn we made ourselves dysfunctional.
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