Most of the people we treat feel that their posture could do with improving. Having good posture will certainly help prevent back pain from occurring, but it is worth mentioning that it is not possible to have perfect posture all of the time.
Sitting upright at a desk will, of course, be better for you than slumping, but sit there with your ergonomically correct posture for long enough and you will still get a backache.
The key as always is movement. It is actually ok to slump for a short period of time. We evolved without seats and would have had to sit and rest in all sorts of awkward positions. If you watch young children play on the floor they contort themselves into plenty of postures that are not “ideal”. The key is that they do not stay in these postures for long. Without them consciously realising it, a child’s nervous system will inform their brain that ligaments are starting to stretch and they will change position.
The problem is that this monitoring of our posture, by the nervous system, about when we should move will diminish if we ignore it for long enough – think desk-based jobs with prolonged sitting day after day, week after week.
Little and often makes all the difference. At work set an alarm for every 20 minutes and simply stand up (preferably walk on the spot or move away from your desk for a few seconds) and sit back down again. Cumulatively, this can be a big help over time.
So go a bit easier on yourself the next time you think you have poor posture, no one has perfect posture all the time. Standing straight and sitting upright are important for back health but moving through various postures over the course of a day is more important than being stuck in the same static one for prolonged periods.
