We can all remember our mother telling us to 'sit up straight.' Well, she was on to something. It made sense to us that leaning too forward with your head would cause neck, shoulder and mid back pain. But what about the effect on your mood? Top Nepean chiropractor explains here.

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How does Anterior head syndrome affect your mood in Nepean?

Different studies have been done to explore the effects of posture on mood and our overall health.

Department of Clinical Psychology out of University of Hildesheim of Germany studied 30 depressed patients. They investigated the effects of posture on depressed individuals to recall a higher proportion of negative self-referent material.

They were randomly assigned to sit in slouched posture or proper posture. The people who had proper posture had no bias with a recall of words while those in a slouched posture recalled mostly negative words.

In another study in 2015, Health Psychology did a randomized trial on how posture affects stress responses. In the study, 74 people were strapped into either a slouched or upright posture. The people with good posture reported higher self-esteem, more arousal, better mood, and lower fear compared to the slouched group. The slouched group used more negative emotion words, sadness words, and fewer positive emotion words during speech.

Researchers concluded that proper posture maintains self-esteem and improves mood while poor structure resulted in more stress and potentially leads to chronic stress.

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So, what is slouched posture or more importantly Anterior Head syndrome?

It's when your head moves more than 1 inch over your shoulders. This causes your head to weigh an extra 10 pounds.

Your spine now starts to send your brain stress signals that increase stress hormones in your body because of the shifts in the neck. When you lose proper alignment, your joints send these stress signals to the different parts of your brain. More stress hormones increase your stress response.

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Where is all this Anterior Head syndrome coming from?

It's coming from our lifestyle. Using all these devices like computers, smartphones, tablets, driving, reading - all the daily positions that put our head forward. The smaller devices like phones create more AHS.

So, it's important to make sure you are doing your assigned structural exercises to be certain you have the great structure of the spine.

Call Capital Chiropractic in Nepean today to schedule an appointment.