Everyone’s guilty of poor posture once in a while, but if you often catch yourself hunched over when you’re sitting, standing, or walking, you could actually be harming your health. Bad posture can lead to a number of problems, including commonly known issues like back pain and spinal issues. But, constantly slumping can also have a variety of less talked about side effects, including causing digestive problems.
The Effects of Poor Posture on Digestion
When you eat, your diaphragm works to move food through your oesophagus and down to your gut, with a system to prevent stomach acid from rising up and into your mouth. But, if you eat in a slouched position, you put a whole lot of tension on your diaphragm that its not used to, causing it to stop working as it should. The result of this can be a mixture of acid reflux, heartburn. and bloating – neither of which are very comfortable. So, if you find yourself having to take tablets after you eat to prevent these unwanted problems, it could be time to take a look at your posture as you eat instead.
Tips to Improve Your Posture
If you think you might have some issues with posture and digestion, there are plenty of ways you can improve yours and help your food go down a little better.
- Eating at work – If you eat at your desk at work frequently it’s likely your hunching over your table, bending down to eat, which definitely won’t help with your digestion. To help stop this, make sure you have a comfortable chair that’s optimized to help posture, and hold what you’re eating in your hands, bringing the food to your mouth rather than going down to it.
- Eating at home – A lot of us have switched to eating at the table for slouching on the sofa, which is terrible for posture. Try and make more of an effort to sit at the table on a proper chair when you eat; this simple change will do wonders for your posture. As when at your desk, make sure you’re bringing the food to your mouth rather than bending to it, too.
- Be mindful – Try and think of your posture as you eat, making it a conscious decision to sit straight if your automatic response is to slouch. Eventually, you’ll retrain your brain to automatically sit like this.
- Workout – Strengthening your core muscles is a great way to improve your posture and help digestion. Take a look at yoga or pilates – both have great, gentle exercises that anyone can do to improve core strength.
Postural Correction Services
At Canary Wharf Chiropractic, we can help correct bad posture to ease a whole range of problems, including posture-related digestion. Our experienced chiropractitioners can show you how you should be standing and sitting, analyse how you currently are, and direct you to the right correctional treatments.
If you’d like to know more, get in touch with our team and we’ll answer any questions you have, or book in for a consultation today.
