
The other day, I came across an article that I knew I would regret reading…
The article was defending poor posture.
What the author of that article apparently doesn’t know is that posture can affect seemingly everything:
• hormones
• weight
• organ function
• poor immune function
• headaches
• fatigue
• bladder control issues
• sleep issues
• back pain
• sciatica
• vision problems
The list of negative health effects from poor posture goes on, which makes that article all the more insane to me.
They claimed that the good posture movement was just fear mongering and reinforcing stereotypes.
The topic of the article was solidly about posture…
… but the actual concept of posture was circumnavigated with cultural junk that has no place in a discussion that claims to be scientific.
For example, when someone says that the science shows huge variation in spines across the population…
… did they look at how healthy those people are?
As in, what made them decide that the variations they found were actually healthy?
There is actual, peer reviewed research that proves what the ideal spine is.
That research was done by Dr. Don Harrison, creator of the chiropractic technique Chiropractic BioPhysics.
As a side note on research, he could only get published under his Ph.D. credentials, the exact same paper was refused when he used his Doctor of Chiropractic (D.C.) credentials.
Anyway, in these studies, they were absolutely able to determine the ideal spine.
How do we know that it’s the ideal spine?
With the ideal spine, a healthy spine, it all comes down to health and function, which are all things that can be measured.
For one, in the ideal spine, the spinal cord is suspended without stress on it.
The spinal cord is attached by tiny ligaments (called dentate ligaments) within the spinal canal, if the curve is wonky, the spinal cord gets pulled along (stressed).
This is a huge issue with forward head posture (and other postures), as eventually you will pull that delicate spinal cord up against the inner wall of the canal.
That means the spinal cord is mechanically rubbing against that wall.
This leads to demyelination – without myelin, the spinal cord and the affected nerves can’t conduct signals properly anymore.
Demyelination is the hallmark symptom of Multiple Sclerosis.
With Multiple Sclerosis demyelination is usually due to infection, toxicity, and nutrient deficiencies, but no matter the cause, demyelination is always bad.
Secondly, beyond the spinal cord, poor posture also affects your mitochondria.
Mitochondria are commonly known as the powerhouse of the cell, which greatly underplays how important they are.
For example, mitochondria are involved with producing energy, synthesizing molecules, producing heat, proper cell death, producing antioxidants, etc.
It was proven that mitochondrial function is drastically reduced by poor posture.
And third, another thing to consider, and you can test this on yourself, is lung function.
Go ahead and slouch (you’ll probably never hear me suggest slouching again), and now take a nice breath.
Feels a bit restricted, yes?
Organs gets squished with poor posture, affecting their functioning.
Proper breathing is one of the most important things we do, so you can see how something that diminishes the breath is also going to diminish overall health.
So, considering all of this, I think we can all agree that posture is important, yes?
