Straighten up: A lesson in proper posture -- and what it can do for your health

MILWAUKEE -- Do you suffer from poor posture? It's a problem that's become more prevalent. Dr. Nicholas Wilson joins Real Milwaukee to talk about the issues your poor posture could create -- and offer some advice on straightening up.

Poor posture is an epidemic:

Something that most of you already know is that we are all heavily dependent on technology and have a much more sedentary life than past generations. This is the root cause for why our posture is such a significant problem in today's world.

Two very important things:
1. How does posture affect the function of the body?
2. What three simple things you can do today to work on better posture?
How it affects the function of the body:

That being said, it is very important that those messages get transmitted properly or your body will not function to the best of its ability:

FIXES -

The great thing about posture is that it can be fixed, and you can start fixing it right now! And you will see immediate improvement on the functions we just discussed.

When sitting at your desk: Ideally you should have your computer monitor at eye level or higher, legs at 90 degrees, and elbows at 90 degrees.

Sitting on an exercise ball. There is no support so it forces you to sit properly. It`s also quite a work out, and not something I recommend you doing for a full day when you first start.

Holding Cell phone eye level

Lifting using your legs (have host pick up exercise ball) and when carrying something avoid twisting to move the object. The discs in our spine are much weaker when you twist and could cause an injury.

A great exercise you can do that is called Brugger`s posture breaks (demonstrate and have hosts follow along) you should do this every 30 minutes and hold the position for 10-20 seconds.