4 Better Posture Practices for Sitting at a Desk All Day
Sitting at a desk and staring at a computer is a common activity for so many of us these days. Now, more than ever, your work station set up is so critical to your own and your family's comfort and health.
Sitting at a desk and staring at a computer is a common activity for so many of us these days. Your work station set up is so critical to your comfort and health.
The position we place ourselves in for many hours each day has a significant impact on our bodies and one hour of yoga or stretching or working out doesn't magically reverse the damage we do to our spines during 8 hours of slumping and rounding and rolling backward on our pelvic bones.
Here are some tips for ensuring an ergonomically sound set up for your workday:
1. Start with your eyes. Your entire musculoskeletal system will organize around where you are looking, so set up your computer screen directly in front of where you will be looking the majority of the time. In other words, as you sit slouched on your sofa with your laptop on your lap (as I'm doing as I write this now), or at the dining table, notice that you have to look downwards. Just notice what you do with your eyes, neck and spine.
Essentially what’s happening is that your heavy head pulls your spine along behind it. One or two hours, here and there, is okay. But 8+ hours each day, 5 days/week will have an effect on your overall well-being.
2. Find a chair with a firm flat seat that allows you to sit with your thighs parallel to the floor and your feet flat on the floor directly under your knees. The firm seat will allow you to sense and feel your contact with your pelvic bones. Try rolling your pelvis a little bit backwards and feel how you round your spine—and notice how this affects your neck. When you roll your pelvis backwards so that you’re sitting on the back of your sitting bones, your head and chin are forced to jut forward in order to see your screen.
Now, roll your pelvis slightly forward until you notice a natural arch occurring in your spine.
And now, find the place somewhere between the two extremes where you can have a slight arch in your lower back and you feel centered on your pelvic bones. This position allows your shoulders to stack on top of your pelvis and your head to sit lightly on top of your neck. When your bones are stacked on top of one another, you won't need to use so much muscular energy to hold yourself up.
3. Allow your belly to be soft as you slightly arch your lower back and feel how much easier you can breathe when your belly is relaxed, than when you "engage your stomach muscles."
I know that conventional fitness coaching wisdom tells us that we have to "engage our abdomen to protect our lower back," but I beg to differ. Contracting your abdominal muscles might be useful when you're lifting something heavy or working out, but is not helpful or necessary during the day or for healthy sitting posture and constant contracting inhibits easy, flowing breathing.
4. Allow your arms to hang in a relaxed manner from your shoulders and bend 90 degrees at the elbow. Your wrists and forearms are resting on the desk surface. Muscular tension is not necessary in your arms, wrists and hands.
How the Feldenkrais Method® Helps to Alleviate Stress and Chronic Pain
The Feldenkrais method is a process that helps a person shift out of old patterns for good. It helps you identify and change habits that might be causing you pain and discomfort in exchange for long-term healing and relief.
The Feldenkrais method
When a person has experienced a stressful life event that has left them holding relentless tension in their body, chronic musculoskeletal pain and chronic anxiety often result. We think the only way to relieve this tension is to stretch or get deep massage. What we don’t understand is that the brain is responsible for directing all bodily functions, including directing our muscles to tense and “hold” our bones when it perceives instability or a lack of mobility.
In addition, when we’re in a sympathetic state of fight, flight or freeze, our nervous system dysregulates and we might feel constant anxiety and/or disconnect from our body. We try to meditate or rest as we’re told to do, but it’s almost painful to be still. We lose connection with ourselves, physically and mentally and our emotions can be all over the place.
Emotional tension = physical tension.
The Feldenkrais method is a process that helps a person reconnect to themself by identifying and changing chronic tension patterns, and shift out of them for good. To learn more about Feldenkrais®, click here.
This method helps a person identify and change habits that might be causing pain and discomfort in exchange for long-term healing and relief.
Feldenkrais® is a method of "learning" for the brain and nervous system that uses physical movement to help identify and then permanently change a person's musculoskeletal patterns or biases that cause chronic discomfort or pain.
This allows permanent relief for chronic pain and tension so that a person can move more freely and with ease, breathe more deeply, and regulate emotionally when stress arises. Feldenkrais gives a person back her life so that she can begin to participate in activities that she thought were out of reach and that make life worth living!
There are two aspects to the Feldenkrais method:
group classes
"Awareness Through Movement®” (ATM) classes are practiced in a room or on Zoom with other participants, similar to a yoga class, often lying on a mat while led through a series of movements by the instructor. These classes are cost effective and help empower individuals by giving them tools they can apply in their every day lives to make changes little by little.
Unlike other types of activities most of us are used to, in these classes students do the movements very slowly, make them very small, and avoid any and all discomfort. There is no stretching, forcing, straining or doing lots of repetitions. In fact, improvements happen after only two or three movements done with focused attention on ones’ own comfort. It’s a paradox — the smoother and easier a person makes a movement, even if they’re barely moving, the quicker and bigger transformation they experience!
Private in-person sessions
The other aspect of Feldenkrais is private sessions (called "Functional Integration"), that are done on a table, similar to a massage table. But that’s where the similarity to massage ends!
During these sessions, the practitioner moves the client very slowly into movement patterns that have been intelligently sequenced based on human physical development. We never force, stretch or impose any agenda on a person. In fact, as patterns of tension emerge in each person, we follow their body, and in a sense, do the work of their muscles for them so that these chronic unconscious musculoskeletal patterns of stress and tension unwind on their own.
I often suggest beginning with one session to see if it’s a good fit, and then move on to a series of ten sessions done fairly closely together so that the unwinding of these unconscious habitual muscular patterns and the creation of new, healthier neural pathways can be reinforced. Each person responds differently, which is why each person will have a unique treatment plan for the desired outcome. For more information about how to determine how often to schedule sessions, click here.
Your Guide to Self Care: How Often Should I Schedule Massage Therapy?
The question my clients most frequently as is “how often should I receive a massage?” There is not a one-size fits all answer, but here are some questions to ask yourself when deciding how often to schedule.
The question my clients most frequently as is “how often should I receive a massage?” There is not a one-size fits all answer, but here are some questions to ask yourself when deciding how often to schedule.
1. What are you coming in for?
Do you have an injury, frequent migraines, recovering from surgery, chronic muscle pain or tension, stress from work or are you pregnant or nursing? Or do you generally feel good and you just want to relax and restore?
If you’re dealing with chronic pain, I suggest considering The Feldenkrais Method® as a method that can work with chronic pain in a more permanent way. To learn more about Feldenkrais® and how it works with unconsciously held muscle tension , click here.
2. What makes sense for your schedule?
3. What do you want to budget for bodywork?
Do you consider massage therapy to be part of your health and wellness program or is it purely for relaxation? There is no wrong answer, but understanding the value of massage to you will help you feel clear about how often to receive the work.
Here’s a rule of thumb I suggest:
Once/month or every two months
Come once a month or every two months if you’re generally content with how you manage your mental and physical stress level, if you feel you’ve got physical muscle tension and/or pain under control, and you are coming for massage purely for relaxation.
Once/month
If you are generally managing well, but find yourself stressed with muscular tension a few weeks after your last massage, then schedule a monthly session. Are you a runner, cyclist, or have a regular work out or yoga practice? Do you use your body regularly and feel fairly “well-oiled,” but need a “reset” every once in awhile, then once/month is for you.
If you’re pregnant, then I recommend scheduling one 60-minute massage/month until around the 30th week, and then once every two weeks until you deliver. And remember to schedule your partner, who may be beginning to feel the pressure about this huge life transition as well!
More frequent and then taper off to once/month
More frequent sessions may be better for you at first if you have a demanding or stressful job or life, and this stress is manifesting as jaw, neck, shoulder, or back tension or pain; if you have migraines; if you’re recovering from an injury; if you’ve had chronic muscle pain for more than 3-6 months; if you have sciatica; and so on. If you are living with any kind of pain or discomfort, I suggest scheduling more frequent sessions for the first couple of months, and then taper them off to once/month.
If you’re in this category and are dealing with chronic pain, I suggest considering a more lasting approach that works with the root cause of the issue. This method is called The Feldenkrais Method®. You can learn more about Feldenkrais® here.
The length of time it takes to train your tissue into a new pattern depends, of course, on several variables, including how long you’ve been suffering with the tension or pain, how frequently you are able to receive massage at first, whether you’re able to practice certain techniques at home, and whether adjustments can be made to influences that caused the patterns to begin with (for example, not slouching at your desk or finding the right size pillow for your neck at night).
If this resonates with you, and you are interested in making significant changes in your body, then let’s have a discussion about partnering together and coming up with a plan that works for your schedule and budget to gently train your tissue into a new pattern and release existing tension so that your daily experience in your body is one of ease and mobility. Schedule a FREE 15-minute phone or video consultation or email me here.
How to Relax Your Back and Relieve Stress with Blanket Roll Practice
This is a daily practice to help release all the muscles along your spine, as well as head and neck. It balances working out, sitting at a desk for hours, standing, being stressed and holding tension in neck, shoulders, and lower back.
This is a daily practice to help release all the muscles along your spine, as well as your head and neck, pelvis and legs. It balances working out, sitting at a desk for hours, standing, being stressed and holding tension in neck, shoulders, and lower back.
If you suffer from chronic pain that includes back, neck, shoulders, jaw, pelvis… this simple self care practice is designed to help you! To learn more about how to personalize your own self care practice, click here.
During this practice, I recommend that you give your arms, hands and eyes a rest from scrolling on your phone. Listen to your favorite relaxing podcast or music, or simply clear your mind. Use the time to relax.
Try it each evening for 15 minutes for 3 weeks and see what you notice. You can use this during the day to restore yourself or at home before bed.
Roll a dense blanket up so that it is the length of your head/torso and lay it on the floor perpendicular to a chair or couch. Make certain your entire head and pelvis fit on the roll. (The roll does not have to be large. It is simply a reference point for your spine. Do NOT use a foam roller. A yoga blanket is perfect.)
Place two bed pillows on the floor close to blanket roll for your arms and shoulders.
Lie down on the roll so that your head and tailbone are on the roll. Rest your lower legs (calves) on the couch or a chair. (Your knees should be at a 90 degree angle, parallel to the sofa; your feet are neither lower or higher than your knees.)
Rest your shoulders and arms on the pillows. Push the pillows close to your spine/the blanket roll so that your shoulders are fully supported.
Optional: place a small rolled up wash cloth underneath your neck (not as a pillow, but as a support for your cervical spine only). The towel roll should “kiss” your neck, not lift it— simply touch it so that your neck muscles can relax and feel supported.
Imagine that all the muscles of your entire back body are "draped" over the blanket roll.
When you are ready to come out of this resting pose, roll to the side and remove the blanket roll, then lie flat for a few minutes on the floor and notice the how your back feels on the floor. Do you feel flatter? Wider? Does your back feel as if it’s “spreading” onto the floor?
This is the feeling of relaxed muscles that are not in contraction.
The more you practice this, you will prime your brain. And the more quickly your muscles will release.
Enjoy!
How to Soothe Aching Feet at Home in 5 Minutes
Do your feet need some loving care between massages? This is a quick and easy tip for runners or anyone who has tired, achy feet!
Do your feet need some loving care? This is a quick and easy tip for walkers, runners or anyone who has tired, achy feet!
Firstly, have the attitude of “less is more!”
When you force or do this in a way that it causes pain, your tissue will contract as a protection response. So go slowly and gently and trust that your tissue will respond when your nervous system feels safe.
Racket ball acupressure:
Get a racket ball (not a golf ball, tennis ball or lacrosse ball). A racket ball is the perfect size and has just the right amount of “give” for this practice. (Golf balls are too hard.)
Imagine there are 3 vertical lines from the ball of your foot to your heel: inside (from big toe), middle, and outside (from pinky toe).
Hold onto something to support yourself (wall, chair back or counter), stabilize yourself with your standing leg, and place the ball on floor under one foot.
Begin to GENTLY press into the ball, gradually giving your weight to the ball. Do this “to tolerance.” There is no value to pressing harder and feeling pain. Slowly move the ball down the imaginary line towards your heel (about 1/4 inch) and press again. Keep doing this, pausing to breathe during each press.
Note: this is a “pressing” movement, not a “rolling” movement. There is nothing generally wrong with “rolling,” but this is different from acupressure, which is what we’re doing here.
You will find some sensitive spots* along the way. When you reach your heel, move up the next line, pausing to press and breathe, and so on.
When you complete both feet, take a moment to notice any difference. People often report their feet feel “wider”, “more alive”, “more flexible,” their legs feel more energized, and their calves feel looser.
Do this on each foot once or twice each day. It takes approximately 5 minutes. Rather than multitasking, see if you can pay attention to what sensations you’re feeling as you tune in to your body.
If you found this helpful, then perhaps you can make it a part of your own self care practice. To learn more about what “self care” actually means, and how you can personalize your own self care practices to feel appropriate for you, read this article, “What Is Self Care? How to Prioritize Your Wellbeing in Daily Life
*If you have plantar fasciitis, do not press into the area that is inflamed -- instead work around the painful areas to loosen the fascia of the entire rest of the foot. (And, of course, contact me for some therapeutic advice!)
DID YOU ENJOY THIS POST?
Make sure you sign up for our newsletter below to get other tips sent to your inbox and get a FREE audio recording!
How to Choose the Best Massage Style for You
I offer three types of massages: Table, Thai and Prenatal. Prenatal massage speaks for itself, but here are descriptions, guidelines and benefits to help you decide whether to schedule a Table or Thai session.
I offer three types of massages: Therapeutic, Table Thai and Prenatal. Prenatal massage speaks for itself, but here are descriptions, guidelines and benefits to help you decide whether to schedule a Therapeutic or Table Thai session.
Therapeutic Massage
Description:
Done on a massage table.
Tailored to each client’s specific needs.
Combination of different styles and techniques (including some Thai stretches, muscle compression, Swedish (what most people think of as a traditional massage), myofascial (working with the fascia), trigger point therapy, range of motion (movement), reflexology, and craniosacral therapy.
Book this style if:
you have specific issues you’d like me to work with therapeutically -- for example: lower back, neck, or shoulder discomfort, “knots”
you just want to get on the table and relax and restore
you can’t go wrong with this option!
Benefits:
People report feeling rejuvenated, restored, relaxed, looser, and relieved significantly of discomfort.
Table Thai Massage
Description:
Done on a treatment table.
You wear either yoga clothes or something stretchy or loose.
This method incorporates compression of your muscles and stretching your limbs and joints Thai massage is often referred as “Lazy man’s yoga!”
Book this style if:
You have a few knots here and there, but generally want to feel looser and relaxed.
You have tight legs, tight hips, tight back
You work out a lot, don’t work out at all, sit at a desk all day, or are simply curious about it!
Benefits:
People report feeling completely relaxed and restored, and much looser than when they came in.
The Feldenkrais Method®
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that, for those who have chronic pain such as jaw, neck, shoulders, back or pelvic/hip pain, you may be best served by receiving a bodywork method called The Feldenkrais Method®. This is a somatic method that works with the wisdom of the nervous system. It works with the root of the chronic condition and the results are more permanent than a massage, whose benefits only lasts for a few days at most. To learn more about how The Feldenkrais Method® works, click here.
Whichever bodywork modality you decide is right for you, your self care routine will reduce your stress, increase your strength and productivity, increase your self esteem and boost your immunity. To read more about how to identify the best self care practices and routine for you, click here.
When practiced regularly, self care practices can help boost your immune system, reduce your stress, increase strength and/or productivity, and increase your self esteem.
DID YOU ENJOY THIS POST?
Make sure you sign up for our newsletter below to get other tips sent to your inbox.