What your posture says about you
Posture is so important. It expresses, in the moment, our mood and our intention and over time, it shows who you are. Once you get to know it, posture can tell you a lot about a person. But posture is too often used in arts like tai chi, yoga, pilates and other movement based therapies as a kind of stick to beat people with. Even in zen you hear about the old master who beats the new student if they do not sit “correctly”. What is “correct” posture anyway? Continue Reading
Ido Portal’s blog
Though not really about yoga, Ido’s blog talks a lot about physical therapy through movement. Ido is an incredibly well trained athlete who seems to work a lot with gymnastics and Capoeira. Continue Reading
How to improve your posture with one easy exercise
Our posture is very important – most of us don’t pay enough attention to it, and it can be the cause of a many different types of aches and pains, from headaches to lower back pain. Keep holding yourself in bad posture for many years and chronic problems can appear. That’s right, I said keep holding yourself in bad posture – it actually takes more effort and strain to keep your body in bad posture than it does to keep good posture. The only problem is, posture is a habit, and we aren’t in the habit of holding ourselves well. Continue Reading
Makko Ho for Lower Back Pain
Lower back pain is one of the most common health related complaints in western society. It is estimated that 4 out of every 5 adults over 16 will at some time suffer from lower back pain ranging from a couple of days to several months at a time. Acute back pain is a huge cause of sick days at work and even though it often gets better of its own accord, it is important if you suffer from back pain to work out the root cause and remove it. Continue Reading
Too much work will kill you
Sitting at a computer for long stretches can lead to all sorts of nasty problems like back ache or repetitive strain injury and carpal tunnel syndrome. Staring at the computer screen can also cause eye strain, neck pain and headaches. and some research has show that you blink less often when working on a computer so your eyes can also get very dry and become bloodshot.
There are various ways to combat the potential problems of long hours at the computer. I’ll expand on some of them in the future, but we can break things down into:
- Posture – how you sit at your workplace
- Breath – keeping your breathing calm and even without unnecessary tension
- Breaks – taking frequent breaks, refocussing your eyes, or doing other tasks
- Blink – remember to blink
- Stretch – taking time out to stretch will help prevent many aches and pain
If you are experiencing any neck or shoulder pain or any other symptoms of sitting too long in front of the computer, take some time out now – get up, go get a glass of water, walk around a little, look out the window. These little things can help in a big way.