Healing Forward Head Posture

in #health7 years ago (edited)

I'm 43 years old and finally broke down from neck and shoulder: pain, swelling, and cramps. This often happened after sitting or standing and programming for long hours. I always knew I should have good posture but I never really figured out how to do it. I was advised: stand up straight, exercise, which basically means use will power. This did not work for me. It was a lot of effort for little to no results and no intricate way to measure progress.

Fortunately, I have found the best answer to date. I'm upright nearly 100% of the time and exerting almost no effort to do it. I'm getting fantastic results. The message is simple, but I suggest to really listen very carefully. If your going to pull it off you'll probably be repeating the advice in your head many times. So here it is:

Key take-away points are:

  • put the tail bone back and out
  • when the base is correct the spine stacks neatly allowing for a relaxed posture
  • again: keep tweaking lower posture until correct posture is achieved in a relaxed position

Now this is for me.. Get the foundation right and the maintenance cost is near zero. This means I rarely use the backs of chairs now, I'm often sitting on the front edge of the seat. This is not a big deal since I'm using very little effort to do this and I constantly tweak my position to make it easier. Now that I know what I need, I will over time get better furniture.

Another important thing to consider is how many things can go wrong when the posture is off. I was starting to have heart arrhythmia as a symptom. That is a real wake-up call. I quickly ruled out Kratom (lol, recently started this new wonder plant for pleasure) and linked it instead to posture (thanks John Bergman on YouTube).

Arrhythmia is kind of specific to my case, so here is a more generalized video of what you can expect to experience from bad posture. Hats off to Dr Mandell for briefly (at the end) pointing out the psychopathic tendencies of traditional medicine to basically medicate humans for the purpose of extracting money and leave us with degenerative diseases. Makes me wonder if this had anything to do with the design of our child car seats (in the video above).

Finally, restore the curves during sleep.. This is very powerful stuff.. I recently had a wonder experience in Mexico attending several plant based medicine ceremonies. I brought a sleeping bag and on the carpet used pillows and towel roles to support my lymphatic curves. It really makes a big difference and occasionally a hard bed can make this more pronounced. Sleeping in my regular bed, I come on and off the towel roles during the night and basically do what feels good.

Hope this helps you! We are very lucky to have global access to knowledge, take advantage of it.. Use your TV like a computer screen and load up on knowledge like this. If your still suspicious, we need to be honest and overcome fear first. I was defiantly tricked so I did not seek this knowledge for some time. My standard American education and culture was enough to leave me literately falling apart by my 40s and feeling afraid to seek non-standard changes.. So, I suggest to question everything and be very open to changes. Fortunately is also my experience that we can heal and even re-generate a lot faster and more completely than we may realize. There is never an age that I consider too old for healing.

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If I may add a few things that helped me a lot.

Esther Gokhale's book.
https://www.amazon.com/Steps-Pain-Free-Back-Solutions-Shoulder/dp/0979303605

Talks about how to sit, how to stand, how to walk, how to lay, etc. Once you get that, you can start applying it 24/7 instead of the usual "do these shitty exercises with a rubber bands twice a day" that physiotherapists prescribe. NO ONE DOES THOSE. haha

The one thing I would caution about her approach is that she OCDs on neurtral spine. Make sure you do plenty of mobility exercises during your day to make sure you keep a healthy spine :)

Final thing I'd say is that to position your pelvis (the "first/huge/ vertebrae) simply squeeze your glutes. Instead of over thinking it, just squeeze dat ass and voila, pelvis aligned and ready to stack the rest on top. This is from Kelly Starret's book Becoming A Supple Leopard.

Well damn. I couldn't see the first video you linked (didn't load) It's Esther's TED talk haha.
Anyway her book is awesome.

I liked your link @cob because I didn't really understand the pelvis position as stated in the post. Can't wait for the book to arrive. I really suffer from this. My head is always forward and I get a lot of shoulder pain from sleeping.

Healing upper crossed syndrome, forward head posture and forward shoulders

Important advice, I have problems with the sciatic nerve, the lumbar area. I always experience intense pain from the neck, back, hip, leg, knee, calf and foot, it is a very painful sensation and some exercises of the video helped me to reduce a little the discomfort, thank you very much @jamesc for sharing this.

Firma Steemit.png

There is never an age that I consider too old for healing.

And we should always look to keep ourselves balanced. When something doesn't work we should always continue searching. I'm glad to know being more aware of your posture and consciously changing it made things better for you. Life without health is nothing.

The head posture video is very informative for me. Its really new to know that wrong head posture cause many problems. Thanks for such fabulous work.

Hey James, do you think would work for 5'11", 250-pounders like me?

I constantly have to think about sitting up straight, because if I don't, that dang gravity just takes over all the time.

This is a very valuable article! I am aware of almost all of it as I have been passionate about health for about 18 years. Thanks for taking time to share truly valuable content. Hope a lot of people find this and help improve their lives in simple yet profound ways!

Oh are you going to the blockchain unbound in Puerto Rico? Hope to meet you one day soon!

Blessings~*~

i do yoga it helps my spine but will check this video

I'm currently slouched in a chair reading this. I've always had great posture when standing, but lately I can feel the difference (probably since I joined Steemit, with being on my phone all the time). I'll have to be more mindful, and use these steps you're showing us...

My mom has heart issues, and it's funny you wrote about the link between heart problems and posture. Her chiropractor told her the same thing just last week. I never heard about the connection between digestive issues and posture though. Great post!! :) Upvoted and resteemed!!

I was slouching myself until I started reading this! I was also surprised to learn of the link between heart problems and posture, though in my case it's me with the issue. Let's be team "sit up straight" from now on 😊

Wonderful article. Glad you are seeing results. I have an uncle who's also experiencing this pain all the time especially after lying down and he also has heart issues. I never knew they were linked together.
This link also talks about head and shoulder pains
https://plexusco.com/blogs/news/neck-and-shoulder-pain-causes-and-relief

Hello @jamesc
Thanks for this wonderful post.
I have a bad posture while sitting and standing...
Most times i get conscious of it and immediately correct myself.. But unconsciously i go back to the same position almost immediately.
I am so glad i was able to watch the first video because i almost missed it, no thanks to my bad internet service.
Even as i type this message in a bad posture while sitting, I must say I've learned a lot within 6mins of seeing that video and reading this post.
I'll look for more of her clips on YouTube...I'll probably download this one first and pray i find others.

Just like you said:

If your going to pull it off you'll probably be repeating the advice in your head many times.

This is the key to maintaining a good posture... It will be difficult but I'll have to do my best to stay conscious at all times.

I'm really glad i found this.
Truly i find this very useful....
Thanks again!


Steem On!!!