Great posture and slowing down your spinal aging process
Posture is important. Movement is important. Your spine adapts to what you do.
Prior to cell phone, laptops, etc. people's necks used to be in what's called a lordosis curve. Having this lordotic curve in the spine alleviated pressure on the spinal cord for people and having neck pain was something that was more commonly seen with people who weren't as active.
Now, with the rise of technology and in combination with a society that is primarily considered sedentary, younger and younger people are complaining of neck pain. We're seeing this lordotic curve diminishing and the curvature in the neck actually straightening out or even reversing in the opposite direction--due to people looking down so much and not moving as much.
Your spine wasn't meant to be in a reverse or diminished curve... When this happens, most of the load from the weight of your head gets transferred to the front (anterior) part of the vertebrae in your spine, which has an average of 1/3 of the tensile strength as the back (posterior) aspect of your vertebra. What that means is, your aging your spine faster when you put more weight on the front part of your vertebrae (when you’re looking down with your neck). When under persistent stress, your spine can try to create stability to support the vertebrae by creating bony growths (arthritis).
How can you help slow down or reverse the aging process on your spine?
It starts with maintaining good posture.
For some quick tips on getting started to having better posture, visit my blog at:
https://www.drsamanthajennings.com/single-post/2016/09/29/Tips-to-Easily-Improve-Your-Posture
