When you were younger, you always heard about correcting your posture for your health, but you did not pay much attention to what adults told you. When you played video games or read, you slouched and craned your head forward instead of keeping your back straight. Do you remember how many times you were reprimanded for how you sit or stand when you were young? After years of maintaining bad posture, it should come as no surprise that you experience neck pain as an adult.
Our chiropractor who offers neck pain relief in Lakeland FL—Dr. Debra Pavlovic—is a witness to how posture affects people’s overall health. In this article, we will talk about poor posture and how it can lead to neck pain. Lastly, we will discuss some basic steps on correcting your posture and a natural way to get relief from painful neck aches.
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The neck does a tough job of balancing the weight of the head. Without the neck, the head is stuck in the same position, unable to move. On average, the human head weighs about 10-12 pounds. Carrying this weight is not an issue for the neck. However, embracing poor posture will only make our neck’s job more complicated.
If you neglect the importance of correct posture by craning your head forward all the time, you are only adding more pounds of tension to your neck. This excess pressure can harm the discs, joints, ligaments in the neck region, and the surrounding tissues, leading to neck pain. This describes the connection between poor posture and neckache.
In simple words, keeping your neck straight does not add additional stress on the upper cervical spine. However, when you lean at a 15-degree angle, you add 27 pounds of stress to the neck. Even worse, when you lean at a 60-degree angle, you add around 60 pounds of tension to the neck.
From the average weight of 10 pounds, your neck will have to support 60 pounds of weight, five times more than it can, all because you crane your neck forward. If the image is still unclear, an average male husky weighs 60 pounds.
In short, those who seek lasting neck pain relief in Lakeland FL should, first and foremost, fix their posture. Keeping your neck straight can help avoid adding a husky-weighted pressure to your neck.
Most of the time, people develop bad posture when they overlook tiny tasks that affect the curvature of their spines and necks. Here are two of these activities:
Everyone is familiar with the text-neck syndrome. You might have seen it in some memes or in real life. Text-neck syndrome refers to your posture when using your phone. Most people tend to lean towards their phones instead of bringing their phones to their faces.
As discussed previously, craning your head forward even at a minor angle puts additional tension and stress on your neck. Hence, the text-neck syndrome can lead to a lot of strain in the ligaments and joints of your neck. If that repeatedly occurs throughout the day, it might also cause poor circulation, breathing issues, fatigue, and of course, neck pain.
If you work at a desk for your usual 9-5 work, you are at risk of neck pain, especially when you always look down while working. Leaning towards your computer instead of adjusting your chair and monitor to support the proper sitting posture can lead to neck pain.
The strain from this position might result in neck pain, especially when desk workers neglect to correct this posture even after long periods. Slouching and crouching down can accelerate the wear and tear on the neck, resulting in stiffness and pain.
To correct these posture issues, we have to make a habit of checking our posture throughout the day. Here are some changes you can do to repair your bad posture:
However, for some people, simply correcting sitting habits won’t make all of the soreness go away. Poor posture can accelerate the degeneration of the spine, which is irreversible. In some cases, the spine may have been locked into a stressed position. Hence, these individuals will have to find an alternative method for relief.
If that is your situation, we would like to introduce a branch of chiropractic to help you correct your neck issues and get you back to feeling pain-free. If you are looking for neck pain relief in Lakeland FL, upper cervical chiropractic care might be what you’ve needed all this time.
Without addressing the underlying cause of your neck pain, you ruin your chances of recovery and living pain-free. Thankfully, an existing alternative medicine can potentially correct the root cause of your neck pain. If you have never heard of upper cervical chiropractic before, here are a few things to help enlighten you:
Upper cervical chiropractic practitioners are specifically trained in diagnosing and correcting any misalignment in the two topmost bones in the neck (the atlas and the axis). These bones take on the responsibility of protecting the brainstem as well as supporting the head for movements. Even a slight misalignment in this area can result in several health conditions that can extend from the neck down to the rest of the body’s limbs.
Upper cervical chiropractors employ modern assessment methods to diagnose the misalignment. The word “chiropractic” might sound intimidating to many. However, upper cervical chiropractic care procedures consist only of gentle, safe, natural, and accurate adjustments to guide the bones of the neck back to their original positions. Getting help from an upper cervical chiropractor is also cost-effective as adjustments are only made when required.
If you or someone you know is suffering from chronic neck pain, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. If you need neck pain relief in Lakeland FL, contact us at (863) 393-4169 or set an appointment with Dr. Pavlovic through this form. Here at Atlas Wellness of Lakeland, your health is our top priority.
To schedule a consultation with Dr. Pavlovic, call our Lakeland office at (863) 393-4169. You can also click the button below.
If you are outside of the local area, you can find an Upper Cervical Doctor near you at www.uppercervicalawareness.com.
