How summer can affect your posture
Summer tends to bring a change of pace. Longer days, more time outdoors, holidays and a general shift in routine that most of us welcome. What people don’t always realise, is that this change in habits can gradually take a toll on your posture and spine in ways that are easy to miss, until something starts to ache.
Posture problems don’t only affect people that hunch over a desk every day. They can creep in through the things you do on holiday, the summer sandals you wear, or even how much water you drink. This summer, it’s worth knowing what to look out for.
Dehydration and your spinal discs
Most people know they should drink more water in summer, but few think about what happens to their spine when they don’t. Your body’s level of hydration has a direct impact on your back.
The discs that sit between each of your vertebrae are made up of roughly 80% water. They act as shock absorbers, keeping your spine flexible and cushioned throughout the day. When you’re dehydrated, these discs lose some of that fluid and compress slightly under the load of your body weight. Over time, that can contribute to stiffness, reduced mobility and discomfort.
In summer, dehydration is a lot more likely. You’re sweating more, spending time in the sun, and perhaps not drinking enough to keep up with it. It’s a gradual process, so you might not notice it happening at first, but your back will.
What helps:
The general guidance for adults is 6-8 glasses of water a day, but in summer that goes up. If you’re spending time in the heat or regularly exercising, aim closer to 2-3 litres. A good rule of thumb is to drink before you feel thirsty, as thirst is actually a sign that your body is already playing catch up.
Starting your morning with a glass of water a day is a simple habit worth building. If you’re out in the sun, keep a bottle with you to sip regularly rather than waiting until you feel the need. Foods with a higher water content, such as cucumber, watermelon, strawberries, and oranges, can also top up your hydration in a way that feels less like a chore.
If you’re drinking alcohol or caffeine over the summer, both contribute to dehydration, so it’s worth balancing these out with extra water alongside them.
Slumping and poor sleep
Summer has a way of making you want to slow down, and while relaxing is healthy, the places you may end up sitting are the problem. Low garden chairs, sun loungers and sofas tend to lack proper spinal support. Unlike a well-adjusted chair in the office, these surfaces let your lower back round and your shoulders curl forward.
Sleep is another one. Hot nights have a habit of disrupting your usual routine. You might find yourself kicking off the covers, moving to a cooler room or waking up in awkward positions that you wouldn’t normally sleep in. Sleeping on a different mattress, even for a night or two on holiday, can also throw things off. Your neck and upper back are particularly sensitive to this kind of disruption, and a few nights of broken sleep can leave you waking up stiff and sore in a way that lingers.
What helps:
If spending a long time sitting by the pool or lounging on the beach, try to keep some structure to how you sit. On a sun lounger, the sweet spot is a gentle recline, somewhere around 135 degrees, where your lower back feels supported rather than arched or rounded. If it has an adjustable headrest, use it to keep your head in a neutral position rather than craning forward to look at your phone or a book. If you’re going to be on it for a while. Getting up and moving around every 30 – 45 minutes gives your spine a chance to decompress and rest.
For sleep, keeping your bedroom as cool as possible before you get in is worth the effort. A supportive pillow that keeps your neck aligned matters more than most people realise, and if you’re a side sleeper, placing a pillow between your knees can take pressure away from your lower back.
What you carry and what you wear
Summer tends to mean lugging more around with you. Loaded beach bags, a festival backpack filled to the brim, or a travel bag thrown over one shoulder at the airport. When you carry a heavy load unevenly, one side of your body compensates for the other. Over time, that pulls your spine out of alignment and creates a muscle imbalance that can lead to aching in your neck, shoulders and lower back.
Footwear plays into this too. Flip flops and flat sandals are a summer staple, but most of them offer very little arch support. Your feet are the foundation of your body, so when that foundation shifts, the effects travel upwards through your ankles, knees and hips, and eventually reach your spine. Worn regularly, unsupportive footwear can quietly change the way you walk and the way your spine loads with every step.
What helps:
Where you can, spread the load. A backpack worn on both shoulders distributes weight far more evenly than a single shoulder bag, and keeping it close to your body makes a difference too. If you’re travelling, pack as light as you practically can, and switch sides regularly if you are carrying a shoulder bag.
On the footwear side, there are sandals out there that offer decent support. Look for options with a contoured footbed and some arch support built in. Alternatively, bring a spare pair of trainers for longer walking stretches between time at the beach.
Long journeys
Summer usually means travel, and travel usually means long stretches of sitting in positions that your spine isn’t particularly fond of. Car, plane and train seats all have one thing in common – they’re designed around convenience rather than spinal health. Add in the fact that you’re often in them for hours at a time and it’s easy to see how a journey can leave you stepping off feeling stiff, achy and a little hunched.
When you sit for a long time without moving, the muscles supporting your spine start to fatigue and your posture gradually collapses. Your hip flexors tighten, the curve in your lower back flattens, and the pressure on your spinal discs increases. It’s a slow process, which is partly why people don’t connect the dots between a long journey and the back pain that follows a few days later.
What helps:
Movement is the most effective thing you can do. On a long drive, regular service breaks, where you can make a real difference. On a plane or train, getting up to stretch your legs when you can, or even shifting your position regularly in your seat, helps to keep things from seizing up.
A small lumbar support cushion or rolled up jumper placed behind your lower back can help maintain the natural curve of your spine during the journey. Keeping your feet flat on the floor and your knees roughly at a right angle is a good position to aim for, where the seat allows it.
Summer activities
One of the better parts of summer is getting you active and outdoors. People who spend most of the year at a desk suddenly jump into hiking, paddleboarding, playing tennis, hiring bikes and swimming in the sea. That shift in activity is genuinely good for you, but the jump from relatively sedentary to suddenly very active, is where things can go wrong.
When you ask your body to move in ways it hasn’t in a while, the muscles and joints around your spine are underprepared for the load. Without a proper warm up, or by doing too much too soon, you put unfamiliar strain on structures that need time to adapt. The result is often muscle soreness that goes beyond the usual post-exercise ache, or a twinge that doesn’t quite shift the way you expect.
What helps:
Easing in gradually is the ideal approach, even when the weather makes you want to get out every day. A decent warm up before any physical activity, even something as simple as a brisk ten minute walk, prepares your muscles and joints for what’s coming. Cooling down and stretching afterwards is just as important, and often the first thing people skip.
If you’re trying something new this summer, starting with shorter sessions and building up over time gives your body the chance to adapt without the risk of overdoing it. If something doesn’t feel right during or after an activity, it’s worth paying attention to that rather than pushing through.
What to do if things aren’t improving
It’s easy to put summer aches and pains down to overdoing it and assume they’ll sort themselves out, and often they do. But if you’ve been dealing with stiffness, discomfort or tension that’s been hanging around for more than a couple of weeks, it’s worth getting it looked at rather than waiting it out.
A chiropractor won’t just treat the area that hurts. They’ll look at how your whole body is moving and try to understand what’s actually driving the problem. That might be a combination of several things we’ve covered. Identifying the root cause is what makes the difference between short term relief and longer lasting improvement.
If several of these things have been stacking up over the summer and something still doesn’t feel right, a thorough assessment is a good place to start. You don’t need to be in serious pain to benefit from a check up. Catching things early is usually a lot simpler than waiting until they become harder to ignore.
Come and see us
If you’re new to Anglia Chiropractic, a new patient assessment is a good place to start. We’ll take a look at what’s going on, walk you through what we find, and talk you through the treatment options that make the most sense for you.
If you’d like to book or have a chat first, you can call us on 01603 414740 or request a callback through the form on our website.
