Slumped Posture Symptoms

The skeleton helps support your whole body.

It's easy to spot someone with bad posture. A rounded upper back and shoulders are telltale signs. If you've had bad posture for a long time, you may not even notice it. Poor posture over a long period of time can cause pain, injury and deformity.

Pain

The simple act of slouching with your head, shoulders and back rounded forward can cause pain in the jaw, shoulders and back, and cause chronic headaches. In "Illustrated Human and Social Biology," author Brian Beckett said good posture helps you stand upright using the least amount of muscular effort. The worse your posture becomes, the more effort you will need to exert to sit, stand and even run. When the body is unbalanced, it carries excess weight and is prone to fatigue, aching and chronic pain.

Injury

Bad posture can cause the spine to become unaligned. The spine plays a vital role in holding your body together, so when it is out of alignment, you may experience pain and/or damage to the rib cage and its encased organs, including the heart and lungs. Both the organs of the digestive system and the blood vessels may be compressed, as well, Beckett said. This may eventually lead to gastrointestinal, breathing and heart issues.

Deformity

Good posture promotes proper bone and organ alignment, and allows your muscles, joints and ligaments to work properly. Rick Allen, a chiropractor, massage therapist and dance student, said long-term bad posture may cause changes in your bones and soft tissues, resulting in bone spurs, intervertebral disc damage and fibrotic scar tissue. He said it also can affect blood flow to the spinal cord, which may cause damage to neural tissue. If you use bad posture on a daily basis out of habit, you could over time change the structure of your bones and tissues.

Tags: Beckett said, cause pain, posture cause, shoulders back, your bones