I drove to Cardiff last week for our annual conference. I started looking at the posture of drivers in the cars along side me on the motorway. The slumpers far outnumbered the upright drivers. One gentleman was so bad he even had his chin over the steering wheel – yikes!

For the last few years I have been advising patients a very neat little trick to keep reminded of maintaining a good position in the car. Here’s how it works.

Before getting into your car. Stop and look at the position you are about to get into. Once in, perform all your usual adjustments like adjusting the seat to ensure you can reach the pedals, gear stick and steering comfortably without over reaching or even being too close. Set your head rest so that the little bump on the back of your head is approximately lined with the middle of the head rest. Many car seats these days are a bucket style seat and are difficult to get in and out of, in addition to placing your body in an unnatural position. If this is the case you can get hold of a seat wedge which reduces the bucket effect and minimises the pressure on your spine during the long distance drives.

Now here comes the tip. Lift your chest up so you are comfortably touching the back of the seat with your shoulder blade, usually a slight lift of the chest is sufficient, around 5 degrees. If you are feeling uncomfortable then you may have gone too far (like in the middle of the 3 postures in my first post picture). Now re-adjust your rear view mirror so you can see clearly out of the back window using your eyes mainly and only a small movement of your neck.

From here on in, when you are driving and unable to see out of the back window using the rear view mirror and mainly your eyes – you know you have slumped again from your upright position. It’s kind of a biofeedback technique as a reminder that you have changed position.

I would always recommend you get a trained professional to help you find the ideal position the first time, so you can be sure of getting it right in the future.

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