New Anti-Aging Strategy: Good Posture

I'm back to seeing a chiropractor again. The first time that I went to one was a few years ago and I had an unfortunate incident. She grabbed me by the neck and jerked my head side-to-side violently. It really hurt and I was sore for about a week. She claimed that it was just "toxins leaving my body." That's bull. The soreness was there because she injured my neck.

The chiropractor that I am seeing now is a friend of mine. I have known her for ten years and I trust her. She normally uses very gentle adjustments, sometimes using a tool. The reason that I'm going is that I read where chiropractic can help carpal tunnel syndrome, and after working in restaurants for 30 years, I got it bad.

I also have terrible posture and I'm working on that with her as well. My regular doctor told me that if I live long enough I'm going to be one of those old men that you see that are all hunched over when they walk. The vertebrae in their necks are all frozen. The thought of having a joint that doesn't move is not appealing to me, so I thought that I would do something about it before it was too late.

Now I see that there may be an added benefit to having good posture other than being able to move around better: a longer life. According to the Healthy Planet Magazine:

"Studies now show that a loss of height as we age might also indicate a shorter life span. Simply put, the taller we stand, the better we move and the better our heart, respiratory, and gastrointestinal systems function. You have to keep moving as you age to keep moving well as you age."

I don't think that many of us would object to living a long life as long as we are not confined to a wheelchair or walker, and a lot of us will probably make it well into our eighties with all of the advances in medicine that are just around the corner. And it seems that the key to not being crippled is to keep our balance and posture in tune as we grow older.

A lot of us have bad posture from years of hard physical work or sitting at a desk all day hunched over a computer. Good posture and balance can help keep you from falling and falling is the number one cause of injury in older adults. And if a senior falls once, there is a 50% chance that they will fall again in the next 6 months.

As we get older, our bones become thinner and more brittle from the loss of calcium. If we fall there is a good chance that we will break a hip, and if that happens there's a good chance that you will be in a wheelchair, maybe for the rest of your life.

So talk to your chiropractor or doctor about exercises that will help improve your posture. These exercises can be done in as little as 10 minutes a day. You may also look into taking some Tai chi classes as that is an excellent way to improve your balance and posture. It also has other health benefits as well.

Source: http://www.thehealthyplanet.com/feb2011_introducing.htm