Good Posture is Bad for Your Back

I meet a lot of people who have been injured doing yoga and are afraid to try it again. Others who have never done yoga may be fearful of the “pretzel” poses that they see on the covers of yoga magazines. I’d like to give you some helpful tips so you can do yoga safely, even if you’ve never tried it before.

1) Warm up before moving to more difficult poses or deep stretches

Don’t start your practice with Uttanasana (a standing forward bend) in a cold room (I pulled my hamstring muscle once doing this!). Instead, you can do a pose that will warm your body up, such as Utkatasana (“chair pose”).

In this pose you stand with your feet about hip distance apart and bend at your hips and knees as if you are sitting in a chair. You can decide how much to bend your knees. Be careful not to lift your chest and overarch your lower back. Let your front ribs descend to keep your back long. Make sure your knees are as wide as your feet, and keep your weight mostly in your heels.

Once you feel warmer (which this pose will definitely do for you!), you can move on to poses that stretch your hamstrings. Sun Salutations are especially good for warming up and stretching the whole body.

For an interesting article about stretching, you can check out: http://sportsmedicine.about.com/cs/flexibility/a/aa022102a.htm

2) Make sure you know the alignment details of a pose when you’re doing it

Don’t just jump into a new pose (especially a difficult one) without some instruction in how to do the pose safely. So if you practice yoga with the help of a book or DVD, you might want to have a live yoga teacher check your alignment when you add a new pose. It’s hard to correct yourself, and a teacher can show you what to focus on and what to avoid. This will help you when you’re practicing at home.

3) Don’t rush your poses

If you move fast, you don’t have time to check your form and can more easily hurt yourself. This is one of the dangers of practicing a fast flow-type class. A “slow flow” or Iyengar style class will be easier to navigate with safe alignment. Iyengar style yoga is usually done slower with an emphasis on alignment.

Yoga is a mind-body discipline rather just a form of exercise. It’s important to be aware of your body when practicing, rather than rushing. Going slower helps you to have more body awareness, which helps to bring you into the present, to relax, and to prevent injuries.

Want More Tips?

In March of 2010 I wrote an article on “How to do Yoga Without Back Pain.” You can go to my blog to find the 5 tips I gave there as guidelines (www.sonomabodybalance.com/blog).

Use these tips to help you stay safe while you’re enjoying your yoga practice. If you’re interested in attending one of my “Yoga for a Healthy Back” classes, you can find the schedule at http://www.sonomabodybalance.com/html/yoga.html.

©2011 Dana K. Davis

Check out these photos from Russia, taken between 1909-1912. Notice the bending at the hip crease, sitting on the sitz bones. Beautiful!

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/08/russia_in_color_a_century_ago.html?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed2

When I was in India in 1988 studying yoga and meditation, I took an intensive meditation course one weekend. We had little squares to sit in on the floor – maybe 2 feet by 2 feet. It was hard to stay in the little square all day without squirming. I got more and more uncomfortable, and my back started hurting. The pain radiated out to more and more parts of my body, until my entire body ached intensely. At that point, all I could do was sit there and cry. I had no idea what to do to get comfortable.

Whether you are a regular meditator or someone who sits on the floor only when you have to, sitting without a chair can pose problems for most people. While this may come naturally to people in some cultures who grow up sitting on the floor, many Americans experience pain and discomfort if they sit without a chair for too long.

Why is it so uncomfortable?

One reason is that in the US, almost everyone has grown up with the typical American posture, which is out of alignment with gravity. That usually leads to a tightening of the hamstring muscles (on the back of your thighs). If you don’t do any stretching, the hamstrings get even tighter. Then when you try to sit on the floor, tight muscles in your legs and hips, as well as your postural habits, lead you to feel squirmy and fatigued, or in pain.

Why Is This Important?

When you are sitting on the floor (or on any surface without back support, such as a bench, bleachers, etc.), most people try to “sit up straight” and tighten their back muscles in the process. Then as they get tired, they end up collapsing and sitting like a “cashew”. This is a dangerous position for the spine, because it compresses the intervertebral discs, as well as the internal organs. It crimps the arteries in your neck which bring blood and oxygen to your brain. This makes you tired. Sitting this way often leads to postural changes which can be difficult to reverse, as you get shorter and curvier.

How to Sit Comfortably

The best way to start is to learn how to sit comfortably in a chair, leaning against the back of it. You can find instructions for this in my blog post entitled “10 Tips for Pain-Free Sitting” (www.sonomabodybalance.com/blog/2009/12/). The next step is to learn how to sit forward on a chair, without back support. I teach this in my Balance Your Body courses. Then you can learn some stretches for your hamstrings and hips to open up those areas in preparation for sitting on the floor.

One other helpful tip is to use a pillow or some other support to sit on when you’re on the floor. There are various options sold for meditators that can be helpful, such as benches or zafu cushions. Try to sit so that your knees are not way higher than your hips, if you’re sitting cross-legged.

If your back is already hurting, or you’re afraid it might, don’t be afraid to get a chair. In many meditation groups, this is completely acceptable. If you’re at an event, grab a pillow or some other prop to help yourself sit a bit up off the floor.

If you are a regular meditator, you might have practiced just “being” with the pain. While that can be an interesting focus, I prefer not to meditate on my pain unless I have to! If you learn to sit more comfortably, your mind will be free to focus on or be aware of other things besides pain. This could open up a whole new world for you.

So the next time you are meditating or sitting on the floor, try sitting on a prop and see if your back feels more comfortable. Of course, there’s a lot more to this than I can go over in this article, so I’d suggest also reviewing the blog post I mentioned above on pain-free sitting. I’m wishing you peace and comfort in this New Year!

If you’d like some instruction in how to sit on the floor without pain, come to my upcoming workshop on Friday, January 28 – “How to Sit for Meditation Pain-Free”. For more details, visit www.sonomabodybalance.com/html/workshops.html.

©2011 Dana K. Davis

Thanks to Anneli Rufus for her great article about me in the East Bay Express this week (1/5/11)! To check out the article, you can go to:

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/sitting-up-straight-with-dana-davis/Content?oid=2335223

The workshop this Sunday in Berkeley is full, so if you want to get on the waiting list, go ahead and register online at www.sonomabodybalance.com.

When I was 17 I didn’t pay too much attention to the warning to “wear your seat belt.” One day I was driving with a friend, going about 30-35 miles an hour, when she crashed into the car in front of us. Afterwards, when I asked how that big crack in the windshield got there, she said, “That was your head!” I had no memory of it. I developed a huge egg-shaped bump on my forehead and went to the doctor, who found nothing wrong with me.

Later, when I was in India studying yoga & meditation, I was in a bus accident where I broke my front tooth by smashing into a railing in front of me. Then I was rear-ended about 10 years ago. All these accidents didn’t seem to bother me much until shortly after the 3rd one, when I was in a stressful environment. I developed frequent tension headaches which would send me to bed with an aspirin.

I have found that working with the Balance posture method and doing some daily stretches have made a huge difference in the number and severity of my headaches. I’m now at the point where I can back off almost every headache without taking any kind of pain reliever.

Types of Headaches

There are several different types of headaches, including migraines, sinus headaches, cluster headaches and tension headaches. Common causes of headaches can include: lack of sleep, hormone fluctuation, stress, diet, pressure in sinuses, use of pain relievers, sensory overload, perfumes, sleeping position, dehydration, low blood sugar, caffeine withdrawal, and poor posture.

When should you see a doctor for headaches? Check out this resource from Medline if you have concerns (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003024.htm).

How to Prevent Tension Headaches

Tension headaches are often associated with tight neck, head and shoulder muscles. I’ll be addressing these types of headaches here. The above resource from Medline (National Institutes of Health) suggests several ways of preventing headaches, including “Stretching your neck and upper body, especially if your work involves typing or using a computer”, “Learning proper posture“, and “Learning to relax using meditation, deep breathing, yoga, or other techniques”.

Learning healthy posture is extremely important for the health of your entire body, and can help relieve or prevent back pain, neck pain and headaches, as well as reduce muscle tension and fatigue. As you’re reading this right now, check out how you are standing or sitting. Is your back rounded and your head jutting forwards? The more that your head moves forward of your spine, the more work your neck muscles have to do.

Sitting at a computer or driving may be your most challenging positions. For specific tips on healthy sitting and driving posture you can read my blog posts from November, 2009 (“10 Steps to Pain-Free Sitting”) and June, 2010 (“5 Tips for Pain-Free Driving”). The most important thing here is to sit on your sitz bones (ischial tuberosities) and not on your tailbone or sacrum. Think “Sit on your butt, not your back.”

If You Have a Headache Already…

I do neck and shoulder stretches on a daily basis because of my history of whiplashes. This has made a huge difference in my headaches. With a few of these tools I can back off a headache that I feel coming on. One wonderful tool is to lie on your back on the floor and place a tennis ball under your upper back around your shoulder blades or just above them. You can place the ball right where you feel the most tense and take some deep breaths until you feel a release. Then move it to another spot and repeat.

I’m teaching a Headache Relief Workshop next Tuesday, December 7th (visit www.sonomabodybalance.com for details). The holiday season can be a time of extra stress for many people. Take some time to check in with your body, notice your posture and to give your body a little extra attention. You may find that this can be really helpful if you feel a headache coming on.

I’m wishing you Happy and Healthful Holidays!

©2010 Dana K. Davis

I just came back from 5 days of training at the Balance Center (www.balancecenter.com) where I studied with 2 of the teachers from the Aplomb Institute in Paris. This is the school of Noelle Perez-Christiaens, who is the originator of the posture work that I teach. Georgia and Christine have elegant, graceful posture, and look fabulous. Their spines are very elongated, their necks are long, and they move with such ease. We worked a lot with the breath, and I’d love to share with you an exercise to help you elongate your spine using your breath.

The main theme that they brought up again and again is to elongate the spine. How can you do that? It can be done in any position. When you are sitting in Balance in a chair, if you are sitting on your sitz bones you will have a good foundation for your spine. The spine can’t go up if you are sitting on your tailbone with your pelvis tucked. So if you are sitting “out of Balance” right now, here’s what to do to get more comfortable:

- pull your feet back underneath you
- lift your pelvis up off your chair and re-place it on the chair aiming the front of your pelvis (“fig leaf area”) towards the chair
- make sure you are scooted all the way back in the chair
- come back to an upright position
- relax your legs and place your ankles under your knees
- make your feet follow the same angle as your thighs
- relax your belly
- let your front ribs descend to give space to your lower back
- draw each shoulder back and down
- draw your chin in towards your throat and stretch the back of your neck up
- bring your face back up to vertical
- relax, relax, relax

Now begin to notice your breath. As you inhale, can you feel your spine elongating upwards? If the spine is in a Balanced position, then on an inhalation your ribs will naturally act like levers to open the space between each pair of your thoracic vertebrae. This creates more space in your spine and feels wonderful.

Notice what happens when you try to take in a deep breath. Do you lift your chest and do your front ribs jut out? This compresses the back and doesn’t allow you to get the space in the spine mentioned above. You can also try imagining that as you inhale, your breath is going up your back. Imagine your back ribs lifting upwards. Try this for a few minutes and see how spacious your back can feel.

One other thing I noticed about my time with the Aplomb teachers is that because we were so focused on body sensations during the classes, in a meditative way, my mind was extremely still at the end of class. Focusing on body sensations will really bring you into the present moment. If there’s something you’re worried about, this is a wonderful way to shift your attention.

This is one thing I love about Iyengar yoga as well. With the focus on body sensations, it’s very difficult to worry about things during class! I’ve gone to classes when I was really upset about something, and at the end of the class I couldn’t even remember what was bothering me before!

So when you’re feeling stressed out, try this breathing exercise, really focus internally on your body sensations, and see if this helps to bring you more into the present moment and less in your head (as well as to elongate your spine). This is a wonderful exercise to do as we go into the Fall, which is a time of letting go and going inward. You may be surprised by what you discover in the stillness.

Yikes! Someone forwarded to me a link to this article on Scholastic’s website (www.scholastic.com) today, entitled “Classroom Organization: The Physical Environment.” I got annoyed at how persistent unhealthy posture is in our culture, and how it’s promoted by adults. So I had to write them a letter. I reprinted it for you below. If you care about children’s posture and health, take a look at it, and maybe you can pass this information on to a teacher you know.

It’s not their fault for promoting unhealthy posture; they just don’t know any better. It’s like the proverbial fish swimming in the water that doesn’t see the water anymore. I didn’t realize that I too had this typical American posture until it was pointed out to me. Once I was awakened to this, there was no turning back! I hope some of you will join me in my quest to return to us our birthright of healthy, pain-free, natural posture.

I’ve also included a couple tips for you to share with the children in your life.

I’m wishing you a wonderful Harvest season!

Dana
—————–

Hello,

I am a Certified Yoga Teacher and a Certified Teacher of the Balance Posture Method, and someone forwarded to me a link to this article on your website: “Classroom Organization: The Physical Environment”. In particular I wanted to comment on the paragraph below:

“Establish informal furniture arrangements where students can sit on soft chairs or pillows, or lounge on the carpet. Another myth is that children learn best when sitting up straight in hard chairs. About 75 percent of the total body weight is supported on only four square inches of bone when humans sit up straight in a hard chair, so it is easy to understand how the resulting stress on the buttock tissues causes fatigue, discomfort, and the need for frequent changes in posture. Research supports the common-sense notion that many students pay better attention and achieve higher grades in more comfortable settings.”

The Balance Method is based on decades of research on populations of people without back pain who stay straight and active into their old age. I have taught this method since 1997 and seen hundreds of students achieve reduction in pain, increase in comfort and even regain lost height.

I think the paragraph about children sitting in this article above is dangerous to children’s health. Humans have been sitting on those few inches of bone for hundreds, if not thousands, of years with no apparent problem. Rather, our modern posture in the US since about 1920 has led to a huge incidence of back and joint pain, lost height, and tension. If we can teach children healthy posture from the start, they will be able to concentrate better, and they won’t be destined to a future of back pain.

All children in all countries, and of all races, have healthy, natural posture up until age 3. After that they begin to imitate the adults and older children around them and lose their natural alignment. More and more children are experiencing back and joint pain, as well as sports injuries. This can be prevented by encouraging children to maintain their natural alignment and not to abandon it in favor of “lounging” on the carpet.

Children (and adults) need to make frequent changes in posture when they are uncomfortable, and unhealthy posture makes people uncomfortable. Children may move around also because they are children, and are full of energy and learning to use their bodies in new ways. This shouldn’t be taken to mean that they shouldn’t sit on chairs.

Of course, chairs don’t need to be hard in order to provide healthy support. I teach using folding chairs that are firm, but with some padding. This provides the optimal balance of firmness plus cushioning.

I don’t believe there is any stress on the buttock tissues from sitting on the buttock bones (ischial tuberosities). Rather, the stress happens when we get OFF those bones and sit on the buttock flesh. It feels softer because we’re sitting on more padding, but this is extremely damaging to the spine. People all over the world sit on those bones for their entire lives and maintain healthy spines as a result. In the US, 80% of people experience low back pain, so we know there is a problem.

Let’s start kids out right by reminding them of their natural, original posture, and provide trained adults who can model this healthy posture. Then kids can concentrate better, feel more comfortable and age gracefully with comfort and strength.

If you’d like more information, you can visit my website at www.sonomabodybalance.com or the website of the Balance Center at www.balancecenter.com.

Sincerely,
Dana K. Davis, MA
——————————
A Couple Tips to Teach the Children in Your Life

1) Remind kids to bend at their hip crease (at the top of their thighs) rather than their waist. Children under 3 do this naturally; older kids start to lose this.

2) Remind kids to sit on their sitz bones (ischial tuberosities) – the hard bones under them. If they sit on these bones, their backs will be straighter and they’ll be more comfortable.

3) If you tell kids to “sit up straight”, most likely they’ll tighten their backs and lift their chests. Instead, if they are sitting on their sitz bones, they’ll naturally be straighter.

I’ve been enjoying the hot weather lately (after such a cold, foggy summer!), and I was taking a walk last night down a peaceful country lane. I saw a garden at almost every house, and some of them were really abundant. I’m glad to see so many people growing their own food and contributing to a more sustainable world.

A lot of people are interested in sustainability these days, but is your posture sustainable? Another way of saying this is, “Do you have a sense of comfort and ease in your body when you’re going about your day, or do you struggle to have good posture and end up in pain?” If you’re not trying to have “good posture”, then are you just collapsing when you sit and stand?

This is so common today everywhere you look. A recent student told me that after taking the Balance Your Body course, she saw examples of unhealthy posture everywhere she looked. It’s our basic default posture in the U.S. But this can be changed at any age – it just takes some practice. Let’s look at posture in the garden, and I’ll give you some helpful tips from the Balance Posture Method as well as from Permaculture, so you can enjoy your time in your garden without sacrificing your back.

(I wrote about “Pain-Free Gardening” last year in August and September, and if you missed those articles, you can read them by going to the archive.)

Tips for Healthy Posture in the Garden

One thing we have learned from observing people in Balance (with natural, healthy posture) is that they use their feet to get to where they want to go. I described healthy bending in my August, 2009 article. One other aspect of healthy bending, in addition to bending from your hip joints, is to get close to the item you are bending toward.

If you want to pick something up, don’t try to grab it from 2 feet away. I’ve been known to do this in my “pre-Balance” days – to be in a hurry and think I don’t have the time to walk right up to the thing I want to pick up. People in Balance walk up to the object until they are usually standing right over it. If you do this, you’ll be in a much safer place to lift the object. Use your feet, not your back.

When you’re digging, again it’s important to bend at your hip crease, not your waist. If you’re shoveling dirt, don’t leave your feet facing one direction and then twist to dump the dirt into a wheelbarrow. Instead, like I mentioned above, use your feet! That way you won’t be twisting your spine, which is dangerous, especially with a load.

Use your abdominal muscles (we call this “bracing”) when you’re digging or pulling tough weeds out of the ground. This helps to protect your back by stabilizing your spine. I teach bracing in the Balance Your Body course. You need to first of all make sure your spine is fairly straight and elongated, then brace to stabilize your spine in that position. This gives you a lot of strength when lifting, carrying, digging, etc.

I’ve been asked numerous times about weeding, and how to work close to the ground. Some Balanced people squat to work low, especially in Asia. Others sit on a low support (in Portugal they may sit on a coffee can). Most of us in the U.S. will do better sitting on a low stool or chair than squatting, since squatting causes most people’s backs to round. You can also kneel to do some weeding, if your knees will allow it. Try a pad under your knees so they won’t be sore later. You’ll also need to make sure your back is straight & elongated in this position.

Tips from Permaculture

Finally, some of the things I learned from Permaculture (Regenerative Design Institute – www.regenerativedesign.org, Daily Acts – www.dailyacts.org) can be really helpful to make gardening more comfortable. Plan your garden for ease by putting things you need to tend to often in “zone 1”. This zone starts right at your front or back steps and extends out from about 0-25 feet. In other words, don’t put plants that you need to harvest daily at the far end of your garden. Make it easy on yourself.

Using perennial plants is another way to lighten your load. These plants don’t need to be replanted every year, thus saving you lots of work if they do well in your climate. You can reap the harvest from one planting for many years. Finally, consider where your water source is and put plants that need a lot of water close to it. Drought-tolerant plants can be placed farther away.

If you pay attention to your alignment while you’re in the garden, you’ll be more likely to keep gardening for many years in comfort. If you also plan your garden with some Permaculture principles in mind, you can save yourself extra work and time. Both the Balance Method of posture and Permaculture can help you to create a more sustainable life – for your garden, the environment, and your body.

© Dana K. Davis, 2010

I just got back from co-teaching a Yoga in Balance retreat in Philo (Mendocino County) with Kristen Walker, a yoga teacher in Philo. The retreat was at Wellspring Renewal Center, which is in a beautiful location on the Navarro River. Their garden was gorgeous, full of flowers blooming, bees buzzing and lots of fruit and vegetables ripening.

We taught a combination of gentle and more active poses, focusing on healthy spinal alignment at the core of every pose. I made sure to include poses and stretches for opening the shoulders and releasing neck tension. The food was great and the sun came out on Sunday for a beautiful day!

Kristen and I both completed the Balance Center’s teacher training program and we also went through the Yoga Room’s 3-year Advanced Studies Program together. So we both approach our teaching from the same background. Unfortunately, Wellspring will be closing in November, so we’ll be looking for another spot for the next one. Stay tuned…

Have you ever felt sore shoulders, fatigue in your back muscles, or an aching neck after spending a few hours surfing the web or at the end of your work day? Students often ask me how they should align themselves at their computer to relieve pain. I’m going to give you some tips here to help you reduce pain and get more comfortable when using a computer at your job or at home.

Because we use computers so much today, many people experience Repetitive Strain Injuries (like Carpal Tunnel Syndrome) from doing a repetitive motion, like using a mouse. Problems can also result from holding a static position with tension for long periods of time.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) can result when there is a narrowing of the carpal tunnel due to position or other conditions such as fluid retention or arthritis. The median nerve passes through the carpal tunnel (a “tunnel” that passes between ligaments and the carpal bones in the hand) and can be compressed when the tunnel narrows. Certain positions, such as cocking the wrists up in typing, can also narrow the carpal tunnel.

Posture can play a big role here. Sitting in a slumped position with the head and shoulders forward can compress nerves that travel to the arm, shoulder and chest, leading to numbness, pain and restriction of movement, and even nerve damage.

Timothy McCall, MD, in Yoga as Medicine, says “Medical textbooks mention that posture can play a role in CTS, but in my experience, physicians rarely address the issue in clinical practice.”

Of course, posture is not a big area of focus for physicians, so you’ll need to look elsewhere to find help in this area. But if you have muscle weakness in your hands, you might want to get looked at by a physician to make sure you don’t develop permanent damage from nerve compression.

The Balance Method of postural alignment can help you align your spine in a more healthy position, so that you can minimize any potential wrist problems (not to mention back and neck problems, and much more!).

Here are some tips to help you keep your wrists healthy:

1. Sit on Your Sitz Bones

You may be getting tired of me saying this, but you have to sit on your sitz bones in order to have any kind of healthy alignment in shoulders and neck. Sitting with the pelvis tucked collapses your spine and makes your head and shoulders round forward. Now, the other extreme is also a problem – that is, tightening your back and lifting your chest up as if you are trying to “sit up straight.” This strains your back muscles, and eventually you’ll get tired and collapse back into a rounded shape.

So, sitting on a wedge can help if you are sitting forward on a chair, like when typing. When you sit forward, you’re not resting on the back of the chair, and so the position of your pelvis is essential to creating a healthy spine position.

2. Relax and Elongate your Spine When Sitting

Think of making your spine a column above your pelvis – neither arching it forward or rounding it back. Relax your back and let your front ribs release downward. This gives space to your back and helps elongate your spine.

3. Don’t Hunch Your Shoulders Forward

If you have aligned your pelvis well as mentioned above, you’re off to a good start. Now, without lifting your chest, you can do a shoulder roll with each shoulder to stretch and realign them. Relax your right arm down. Take your shoulder slightly up, then back, then down, drawing your shoulder blade down your back. Repeat with the left shoulder. Now relax, rather than “holding” your shoulders back in a forced position.

4. Find a Healthy Wrist Position

Place your elbows directly under your shoulders and place your forearms so they are parallel to the ground when typing on the keyboard. Your wrists should be straight, rather than cocked up (with the knuckles higher than the wrists).

5. Use Your Fingers Wisely

When typing, let the weight of your hands fall into your fingers, rather than resting your wrists on the computer. Keep your wrists straight as above, and let the tips of your fingers hit the keys rather than the pads of your fingers.

Pay attention to your alignment when working at a computer or doing other activities that require you to use your hands a lot. This, combined with some regular stretching (I’ll go over this in a future article), can help you prevent or reverse common wrist problems.

If you need some extra guidance to help you find a healthy sitting position or would like to learn some good stretches for your arms, shoulders and back, come to my workshop on Yoga for Healthy Shoulders & Wrists on Tuesday, September 28 from 7-8:30 pm. For more information, visit http://www.sonomabodybalance.com/html/workshops.html.

© 2010, Dana K. Davis, MA