Two Easy Ways to Keep Perfect Posture While Driving
With the amount of time many of us spend in our car, driving can be detrimental to our health. Sitting in hours of traffic getting honked at can make for a stressful environment that leads to neck pain or low back pain. And, bad posture in the car leads to bad posture while we’re sitting in other situations. Since Americans sit, on average, for over 9 hours a day that can lead to a lot of problems.
First off, ditch the wallet.
Sitting with a wallet in one of your back pockets raises up one side of your hips which puts a lot of stress on your low back. Muscles adapt to static positions that they are in for long periods of time. This can lead to adaptive lengthening and shortening of muscles every time you’re sitting. This causes muscles to pull on the spine in abnormally and can lead to a scoliosis type curve in your back.
Secondly, sit up TALL!
Most people can only sit in perfect upright posture for a few minutes without cueing. So, in the car, when we are focused on road safety, we instantly curl up into bad posture. To prevent this, set up little reminders in your car. The first thing to do when you sit in the car, sit up tall and adjust all the mirrors in the car. Now, when you break good form and try to use a mirror, you won’t be able to see what you’re looking for. This will be a constant reminder. Also, you can mentally check yourself. Set up your own reminder. An Example could be “every time I am at a stop light I need to straighten up my posture.” Or, “every time I change the radio station I need to do a self-posture check.” This can make a huge difference in your daily driving routines!
After doing these for a couple weeks you will notice huge differences in posture and comfort. Especially if you’re already suffering from low back pain or neck pain. It’s the details in life that reduce chronic pain or help prevent pain from occurring in the future. And, since driving has become such a staple of everyday life, proper driving posture is one detail you don’t want to miss!
Dr. Dustin DebRoy