The Sleep Position Problem: How Sleep Can Sabotage Musicians
The Sleep Position Problem: How the Way You Sleep Can Sabotage Your Playing Dr. Lou Jacobs, Chiropractor – Acupuncturist – Portland, Maine Musicians often, and should, obsess over posture while practicing or performing—but they less often think about posture while sleeping. The truth is, we spend one-third of our lives in positions that can either heal or harm us. If your body rests in a twisted or compressed position for 6 to 8 hours a night, that stiffness, tingling, or shoulder ache you feel in the morning can directly translate into poor tone, limited reach, or reduced control of your instrument. This post explores how common sleeping positions can compound the same risks musicians face on stage and in the practice room, and how to fix them. 1. Side Sleeping: The “Safer” Option That Still Needs Attention The Risk Side sleeping is generally better for spinal alignment than stomach sleeping, but it can still create problems if your setup is off. A pillow that’s too thin lets your neck fall sideways, straining the same muscles you rely on for head and shoulder balance while playing. A pillow that’s too thick jams your neck the other way, leading to morning...
read moreThe Hidden Risks of Driving for Musicians
The Hidden Risks of Driving for Musicians: How Everyday Driving Habits Can Undermine Your Playing Dr. Lou Jacobs, Musician Health Specialist, Chiropractor & Acupuncturist – Portland, Maine Musicians spend countless hours refining technique and posture with their instruments, but few realize how much time they also spend behind the wheel. Long commutes, late-night drives to gigs, or endless touring miles can take a physical toll that creeps into your ability to play. We’re not talking about car accidents. We’re talking about the small, repetitive, cumulative stressors that musicians experience while driving. Stress that can compound the same issues you already battle with your instrument. Injury perpetuating and reinforcing factors are critical to recognize to help move beyond the injury you are dealing with, and when concerned about prevention. This post explores how driving habits can quietly sabotage your performance and offers practical, body-conscious ways to keep both your car and your body in tune. 1. The Driving Posture Paradox The Risk Driving posture often mimics poor playing posture: slouched back, forward head, shoulders rounded, and one leg extended unevenly. Over time, this compresses spinal joints, tightens hip flexors, and weakens postural stabilizers, many of the same muscles you...
read moreThe Kitchen Danger Zone for Guitarists: How Cooking Risks Can Threaten Your Hands, Wrists, and Music
The Kitchen Danger Zone for Guitarists: How Cooking Risks Can Threaten Your Hands, Wrists, and Music For guitarists, and other people too, the kitchen is often a creative outlet. It is another place where rhythm, timing, and precision matter. But few realize that the same space where you sauté and slice can also be a danger zone for your hands, wrists, and shoulders. The repetitive, awkward, or forceful motions used in the kitchen can compound the same physical stress patterns that affect your guitar playing. This can lead to confusing causes, and hard to identify perpetuating factors, for injuries that you are tying to heal from or prevent. This post will help you connect many of the dots. Remember, as dumb as some of these suggestions may sound, they aren’t as dumb as having had the information, ignoring it, and ending up with a career altering injury that results in surgery and relearning how to play your instrument around the scar tissue that impairs your finger movement. 1. The Knife Grip: Cutting Into Dexterity The Risk Repeated chopping with a dull knife or poor wrist posture can inflame the small tendons and joints in your hand, especially the thumb...
read moreIs there hope for the American healthcare system?
Is there hope for the American healthcare system? The U.S. healthcare system has had many strengths—innovation, world-class hospitals, and leading medical research—but in recent years has begun to face the consequences of serious and well-documented negative issues. Below is a breakdown of some of the major problems, along with how they interrelate, leading to problems for all of us. The purpose of this blog is to reinforce the need to “take the law into your own hands” and utilize preventive measures and self empowerment to stay as far removed from our failing medical system as possible for sick care. “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of ________?” You’ve heard this before, no? Using reactive sick care medicine to make people healthier doesn’t work. By the time western medicine stands up to “fix” your problem, you already have the problem. Maine Medical Center just added an HUGE cardiac extension to the hospital. Cardiac issues are some of the most preventable conditions through proper education and effort put on prevention. Instead of building a cardiac health, cardiovascular disease prevention building, they built one to do the same work they’ve been doing, but...
read moreThe Importance Of Sleep For Musicians
The Physical & Mental Toll of Poor Sleep on Musicians For musicians—whether hobbyists or professionals—the body is the instrument as much as the guitar, saxophone, piano keys or drumsticks. Like with any type of professional, when sleep is compromised by poor sleep posture, twisted alignment or sustained strain, the consequences ripple through both physical performance and mental wellbeing. By the time the pain and disability has manifested, you may already have big problems. Let’s explore how different sleep positions and habits can injure the body and mind of a musician, and how chiropractic care offers a drug and surgery path toward healing and prevention. 1. Physical Problems That Arise from Bad Sleep Posture a) Sleeping on the stomach When you sleep face-down (stomach sleeping), you must turn your head to one side for a prolonged period. This places significant strain on the neck, shoulders and upper back. Most spine experts will tell you: “Stomach sleeping is arguably the worst position… this head position puts a strain on your neck, head, and shoulders, and may lead to headaches, neck pain, shoulder pain, numbness, tingling, weakness.” For a musician, neck stiffness or shoulder pain after sleep means compromised posture when...
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