An alignment resynchronizes your vertebrae, promotes range of motion, and encourages your body to heal itself. But in order for adjustments to work, they need to have something to work on. Simple things like posture mistakes or the way you arrange your office could be undermining your time in the back doctor’s office. Steer clear of these pitfalls.
Build a Workstation That Keeps Your Neck Honest
The most frequent way people negate spinal adjustments is by sitting poorly for eight consecutive hours. Ergonomics does not mean an expensive chair, it means alignment. Your ears should be directly above your shoulders. Not an inch or two in front of them. For every inch your head drifts forward, your cervical spine is effectively working overtime, mechanically supporting an additional 10 pounds of your head.
Position your monitor at eye level. Don’t look down and jut your chin. If you are using a lap top at a desk, get a stand and an external keyboard. Then every 30 to 40 minutes, which should be often btw, take a micro-break. Stand up. Roll your shoulders back, reset, sit down. It takes 90 seconds. And it’s more important than you think.
Walk to Hydrate Your Discs
The reason for this is that spinal discs don’t have their own direct blood supply. Instead, they draw in vital nutrients, including water, through a process known as imbibition. Basically, the movement of the vertebrae squeezes the disc and then releases it, which causes the disc to pull the fluid in. This is also how they expel waste. When you sit for long periods, this process stops.
The best part is you don’t need to go for long walks. Research shows that taking a 20-minute walk broken up into two 10-minute sessions is more effective for disc hydration than taking a 60-minute walk once a week. But that’s not all. While it’s incredibly important to continue to do these movements at home, walking and stretching alone sometimes can’t reach the kind of deep-seated compression that occurs in the lower lumbar and cervical spine. This is where a ring dinger chiropractor can help as they have the tools to get mechanical decompression where pushing lifestyle habits can only maintain function, but not fully correct it.
Sleep Position is Spinal Position
You spend about a third of your life lying down. The way you do this can either support your spine’s natural S-curve or work against it.
If you sleep on your back, put a knee bolster or roll a towel and put it under your knees. This will help reduce the pressure on your lumbar spine. If you sleep on your side, use a contour pillow to fill the gap between your ear and your shoulder, and keep your cervical spine even. Lastly, if you sleep on your stomach, your neck will be rotating for a long time and your lumbar discs will be compressed. It may be difficult, but it’s worth changing this position if it is your go-to.
Breathe to Decompress
This tip is often overlooked because it seems too easy to be effective. However, diaphragmatic breathing, which involves taking deep breaths that expand your belly rather than your chest, actually causes a slight reduction in intra-abdominal pressure. This pressure relief can directly impact your lumbar spine.
Try this exercise intentionally: inhale to allow your belly to expand for four counts, hold for two counts, exhale for six counts. Do this for five minutes in the AM or after long periods of sitting. It won’t be a solution for structural decompression, but it will reduce the amount of pressure your discs need to work against all day.
Strengthen the Posterior Chain Eccentrically
The structure is modified by your chiropractor. Your muscles are responsible for maintaining it. The muscles that play the greatest role in supporting your adjustments are those that run along your posterior chain, glutes, hamstrings, spinal erectors.
Eccentric training, in which you control the phase of lengthening of a movement, is used to develop the necessary strength in those muscles. Romanian deadlifts, Nordic curls, and slow bodyweight squats in which you lower yourself with deliberate control are worth more for spinal stability than raising maximum weights quickly. Core stability is not achieved with crunches. It requires the deep abdominal muscles to learn to stay braced while bearing a load.
Audit Your Shoes Before You Blame Your Back
The way you walk has an impact all the way up to your lower back. When you wear flat shoes without proper support, your foot tends to roll in, causing the ankle to shift, the knee to rotate, the pelvis to tilt, and eventually putting stress on the lumbar spine. We have had patients who suffered from persistent lower back pain improve significantly after fixing their footwear, and others who hit a plateau until they did.
This doesn’t mean you should all go get custom orthotics. In many cases, a good shoe with proper arch support and adequate cushioning for the heel that suits your foot will do the job. If you’re not sure, go get checked out at a proper running store. It’s a cheap solution compared to the problem it solves.
Feed the Inflammation Down
While an anti-inflammatory diet isn’t going to magically replace the need for regular chiropractic care, the fact is that a state of chronic systemic inflammation can prime your joints and discs to become more easily irritated post-adjustment. Omega-3 fatty acids found in fish, walnuts, and flaxseed actually interfere with the production of certain pro-inflammatory enzymes and chemical messengers in the body which can reduce inflammation in your joints. Not overloading your system with sugar and refined carbs has also been linked to lower measures of whole-body inflammation in multiple studies in peer-reviewed journals.
Second, a lot of people are just plain dehydrated, all the time. Your spinal discs are about 80% water when you’re good and young. That percentage drops as you age and degenerate. Be proactive and keep your discs plump; drink more water.
This is your structure. Your chiropractor puts it in the right place, and these habits protect that adjustment.
