I'd had in mind that I must write about the way we stand and sit which affects our physical wellbeing and I know when I have an intension in mind, when the time is right I act and it is usually because something comes along which has given me what I need to do that, a little snippet of info which enables me to make the right decision and this happened again recently, I was contacted by a lady called Meisha from Top Nursing Programs website, Meisha asked If I would link to an illustrative diagram on their website. I took a look and it turned out to be on this very subject I'd had in mind and provided a wonderful diagram covering all the points needed to be able to stand and sit in a way which does not lead on to tightness, tension and eventual back pain, hip pain or shoulder/neck pain, a diagram I wouldn't be able to create myself without expert help.
I remember when I started to work on my movement system to help myself with my back pain and hip pain, I found as my own self awareness increased, I became more immediately aware, rather than later when I had an ache or pain and with this discovered how my environment was also causing me problems, which of course is great news, as it provides an opportunity straight off to act. I use to sit diagonally at work and because of this my left shoulder was raised as I would rest my left arm on my desk, whereas my right arm was relaxed by my side. Each day I could feel tension within my left shoulder blade something that had never been prominent in my mind as my back pain took precedence and with one small change of moving my screen to look straight on, I could relax my left shoulder and eliminated this tension, it has not returned since 2008 and this is why we need to be aware of our environment and the damage it can be causing us.
This picture shows a great chair, the arms, height and back can be adjusted to suit us, so we sit totally supported in our middle back for our natural curve of our spine to be as it should, shoulders relaxed and our spine relaxed not slouching, upright but not rigid. We really can sit without causing any tightness and tension and the link provided below will help you further with this. The key thing is to ensure our shoulders are relaxed and adjust the height from there, this may mean our feet do not touch the floor and then a foot rest is needed, always ensure knees are hip level or lower and then notice the difference this makes. My 'listen to' clips provide the knowledge of how to find our sitting bones and when we sit straight up from them we are in our neutral position. Play around with this way of sitting, lean forward to notice tension created in our lower back, this is very common thing to do as we get engrossed in our work, so consciously keeping our torso and how it feels in the back of our mind is possible as we stay in the present moment, practice makes perfect or just draw attention to the way you are sitting from time to time and consciously relax and check out the link below for the full details.
Standing in a balance way is also very important, feet are hip width apart and by releasing the tension from the knees to notice the bottom of our spine tuck under, again play around with this to notice the different ways of standing and how they feel. The neutral standing position does not create any tightness or tension and when we lean forward we are perfectly placed to engage our core and use our legs rather than our lower backs, the more we practice this the sooner it becomes second nature to us and feels much better. Our poor postural habits do become normal to us and are detrimental as they cause imbalances within soft tissue wise, so it is important to relearn correct postural habits so when we do get into a position which is unbalanced, immediately we notice and can correct straight off so the tension created is much less, so is our aches and subsequent pain.
As I always say it is a combination of things which contribute to our pain and being conscious of our postural habits and ensuring our environment is right of us goes a long way to finding our perfect combination of lifestyle needs to eliminate our pain, so don't waste another minute, click here for the perfect illustration, scroll down for the standing and sitting pointers.
And lastly once again, I'd like to say thank you Meisha for asking me include your link on my website for the use of a wonderful diagram!
