Stop slouching
Shortness of breath, headaches, tight muscles and fatigue constitute a handful of ailments that can result from poor posture, a widespread condition today among those hunched over desks and computers all day.
Dr. Beverley Marr and her husband Dr. Christopher Sova, owners of Stamford and Norwalk based Stamford Healthcare Associates have over five years developed a solution with her SOAR Method for Perfect Posture. The couple opened Stamford Healthcare Associates last year.
“It began as a program for my equestrians,” said Marr. Marr, who is herself an accomplished rider, said it can be hard to correct back pain forever because often the culprit is behavioral.
“Shy of any single injury, if they just go back to sitting like a sack of potatoes the pain comes back,” said Marr.
Marr said at random health fair screenings 90 percent of people rate their own posture as terrible:
“Not OK, not poor, but terrible,” she said.
Marr became frustrated when patients would ignore directions to go to gyms and engage in stretching regimens.
“If it was going to work on a large scale, it needed to be done quickly, easily with very little aerobic; purely stretch and strengthen,” said Marr. “With something like Pilates, you spend more time transitioning between stretches. For the majority of people that”™s not realistic; they need to be able to do it every day.”
Marr said many of her patients are professional athletes and use the SOAR routine as a pre-workout. Marr has also put the stretches on a DVD in order to make the program easier for patients; it has since grown in popularity in athletic circles.
Marr said a large demographic in the world of back pain are those individuals sitting at desks all day.
According to the International Chiropractors Association, long-term effects of poor posture can include achy muscles, joint stiffness and pain, reduced lung capacity, progressive fatigue and compromised overall health. Studies have attributed neck pain, headaches, digestion problems, fibromyalgia and even anxiety to poor posture. Aside from medical factors, those with poor posture can look older, heavier and shorter and can lack self-esteem and confidence.
“Something I see every single day is this forward head carriage,” said Marr. “The head is out in front of the body, along with that comes very short pectoral muscle and the shoulders roll forward. Your neck muscles end up carrying this eight pound ball out in front of you like a tray.”
Marr said daily repetition of bad habits develops incorrect curvatures in the neck, pain at the base of the neck and back, and can develop a hump at the back base of their neck called a “dowager’s hump.”
Marr said the lumbar vertebrae take much more pressure everyday than they are meant to.
“Then we”™re getting in cars; these bodies are really being pushed down all day start-to-finish,” said Marr.
The acronym SOAR incorporates letters from both doctors”™ last names.
Marr said finding a good chair can be a start toward better health.
“You need to go and try them out,” said Marr. “Not everyone is the same.”
Marr said many of the SOAR method exercises can be done while sitting and only take a few minutes. She said she sees back issues starting at younger ages, with the younger population spending more time in front of computers than any generation before.
“People who have this chronic pain are living with it every day and it can certainly become depressing,” said Marr. “It”™s hard to feel like you are yourself when you”™re living like that. It can make it difficult to concentrate and definitely can affect your performance at work. A good percentage of the population has this low grade headache all the times.”
Marr said standing tall is often taken as a sign of confidence and is part of the reason women wear high heels.
“By stretching and sitting right you can increase your height and extra couple of inches, and even look thinner because you”™re spreading yourself out, said Marr. “Sitting like a ball in a chair you can”™t even take a full breath and with that comes fatigue, when we utilize our lungs fully we have clarity; our brains are oxygenated.”
Marr said “standing tall” comes with practice.
“The point is to become unconsciously competent,” said Marr. “It becomes part of how you are.”