Why does Postural Alignment matter?
Many of the people who come to me for help are people in chronic pain that don’t associate their pain issues to improper posture alignment. This is understandable since their sources (the medical community or traditional physical therapies) are not focusing their attention on the whole body as a system, but rather the individual parts of the body. They are assuming that wherever the pain is, it must be that isolated part of the body that is creating the problem. This same mindset can apply to illnesses of the organs as well. Wherever an organ is not working, surely that must be where the problem is. But a hyperfocus on just treating these issues in isolation can lead to a lot of frustrations and endless medical treatments and costs. These hyperfocused specialties and treatments can be incredibly effective in the right situations, but sometimes they can also be blinders when the issue is more complex than this.
When it comes to muscular pain issues, there are different sources of pain:
Injury pain, which is caused by trauma to certain parts of the body, or any injuries that occurred by unexpected force.
Chronic pain, which is caused by the misalignment of joints and manifests as pain at spine, hips, knees, shoulders or other joints. It is not created by an obvious injury and it gets triggered by simple actions such as bending, walking, or extending legs or arms in certain ways. It usually takes months or years for the pain to manifest and it doesn’t go away with traditional methods of treatments.
For example, if someone were to call me and ask whether I could help with shoulder pain. I would ask whether the pain is triggered by injury to a shoulder. If that would be the case, I would suggest trying physical therapy first. However, if after a few months of physical therapy there seems to be no improvement, then this person definitely needs to consider postural alignment therapy since the shoulder might be compensating for dysfunctions happening elsewhere in the body.
After all, pain is a messenger from your body to let you know that something is not working as it was originally designed, and figuring out what dysfunction is causing that symptom to emerge is the first step in your healing process.
This is something I experienced personally when I was injured in a car accident 20 years ago. The car accident created numbness in my right arm and pain at my lower back and my hips for a few years. I also experienced a lot of fatigue and headaches which made it hard to manage simple everyday tasks, which led to lots of frustrations and expenses. I underwent a shoulder surgery, a cervical procedure that cut off the nerves which led to distorted depth perceptions and a health crisis due to a prescribed overdosage of medications that had been issued to help manage the pain, the headaches and the fatigue.
This experience eventually became a blessing in disguise for me as it became a catalyst for me to investigate holistic ways to restore my health and be pain free. This shift of mindset also helped me redirect my path to be a postural alignment therapist, which would allow me to be able to teach and help others to be pain free and take charge of their own bodies and health.
So in what ways is the body interconnected? What impact does it have?
As mentioned before, it’s important to think of the body as a large interconnected system, not as a series of isolated parts, and the central nerve system works interdependently with the body.
In order for the spine to maintain its proper curve to support the head optimally, the joints in the body need to be properly aligned vertically and horizontally. And the reason it’s important that the spinal cord maintain its proper curve is because the spinal cord serves as the main highway for the communications going back and forth between the brain and the body. The nerves originating from the spine affect the muscles and all the organs of your body. This is the main principle in which Chiropractic treatments are based on. Their focus is on keeping your spine in this neutral position which will help maintain balance in your body and keep you healthy.
However, this approach alone is not sufficient enough for a long term result since it only addresses the skeleton system (your bones) and not your muscles or the neuromuscular coordination-bio feedback. Also it misses out the alignment of the lower body and its own stability to support the spine. This means that your body will constantly be realigned by someone else which is a passive approach and also the muscles don’t need to be activated to support the bones at their proper joints.
This is not to say Chiropractic treatments have no positive impact. There are amazing benefits of chiropractic treatments, all the nerves which originate from the spinal cord will affect muscles and organs as well, and it also helps to shorten time the recovery time for spinal related injuries (narrowing of vertebrates, herniation, etc). Regardless of method, the important thing to note is that the spine needs to maintain a proper “S” curve in order to be in healthy alignment and pain free, with the support of the hips and lower body for stability.
The lower body (core, hips, legs and feet) needs to be aligned and stable as well in order to support the spine and to keep it in its ideal “S” curve. This will help your respiratory system, your digestive system, your heart and brain to function optimally which will keep you pain free and maintain optimal health. For this reason, I typically assign exercises that reinforce the alignment and strength of the lower limbs, so that they can provide proper stability for the body. These exercises can be deceiving! For those who are active, these exercises will appear very easy. However our bodies are made of many complex muscles that have different functions, and while these exercises appear easy, they are specially built to target your weakest and most neglected muscles. You will quickly find out that no matter how strong or athletic you are, if you are experiencing pain, you will find some blind spots in your body!
Your feet are also critical in keeping your body stabilized. The central nerve system uses your feet as the main sensory input to keep your body standing up straight and balanced (after all, gravity has a huge impact on your body’s alignment).
Our muscular skeletons (muscles and bones), central nerve systems and brains need to be in sync to keep everything working together as one whole unit to help our bodies function properly. This proper alignment will allow for our bodies to be pain free and give us the freedom to enjoy life and participate in the activities we love.