Other than just getting you from point A to point B, walking is a great way to get exercise, relax your mind, and restore alternating rhythm in your body.
But how do you know you are walking well? And what can you do to get all these benefits mentioned above?
In this series of posts, I will go through five simple steps on how you can be a better walker, and by doing so restore freedom and flow in your body with every step.
Before we get into what you can do to walk better, let’s consider why you would even want to pay attention to how you walk.
Asymmetries Become Magnified
Walking is a symmetrical activity, but the body that does the walking is inherently asymmetrical.
We are asymmetrical in our internal anatomy but also in how we use our bodies. For example, we may always use the same hand to reach for something, always kick with the same leg, always read from left to right.
When we do a symmetrical activity like walking with an asymmetrical body, any asymmetries become magnified.
Inevitably, one leg will be more flexible or stronger, one arm will swing further or stay closer to your body (and yes your arms are involved in walking), and your brain will perceive the right and left sides of your world differently.
Soon we are no longer walking efficiently, no longer pumping air in and out evenly, and we start to create harmful torque on joints and tissues.
So what can you do to walk better?
Free Your Arms
You can start with liberating your arms!
Arms are very important for walking. They provide a counter force and counter balance to the legs, and more importantly your shoulder blade on your ribcage provides a compressive downward force on the opposite leg as the arm swings back, providing your brain with an increased sense and awareness of the ground beneath you.
This tells your brain that you are safe and your whole body can relax into the flow of walking.
One simple thing you can do to walk better is to let your arms just do their thing. Of course you have to carry things sometimes, but try to walk a little bit each day without carrying anything.
Let your arms swing naturally.
That means no dog leashes, no groceries, etc. If you walk to work or school, consider wearing a well fitting backpack instead of a shoulder bag.
ummm, can we see a little arm swing please?
Make sure your hands are open (not clenched or in a fist). Don’t force your arms to swing, just let them move naturally with the rotation of your trunk.
What’s this about trunk rotation? Your trunk (i.e. ribcage) and pelvis rotate in opposite directions as we walk. While walking, the arms literally just hang off our torso. The arm swing is actually just a pendular motion of relaxed arms as the trunk rotates side to side.
So it’s not helpful to “make” your arms swing. Let them do what they do naturally, but make sure your trunk/torso is moving well.
I mean, that’s a little excessive, but you get the idea.
This takes us to our next tip for walking better…
Twist your torso!
Stay tuned for how appropriate torso movement improves your walking.
Make sure you subscribe to the blog to get the next post with the second tip on walking better as soon as it is published đ
Almost everyone will struggle with back pain at some point in their lives. For some it comes and goes, for others it’s a once in a while thing, and for others it becomes a part of their lives.
What’s even more concerning is that the outcomes for surgery for back pain are not that great. Several studies have shown that long term results for patients who had surgery for their back pain were the same as those who were treated with exercise and cognitive therapy.
Why doesn’t surgery work?
Our spines are complex, we humans are complex! The thinking that the source of the pain is always at the location of the pain is almost always wrong unless you had a direct trauma to that area.
This is because we compensate, and we do it really darn well.
Have you ever had to wear a cast or boot after spraining (or breaking) your ankle or your foot? Maybe you even had to use crutches. Soon, your arms, neck, and hips and probably some other body parts will start to hurt. (Don’t worry, I’ll get back to the back pain soon, stick with me here!)
But there was no direct injury to anything except your ankle! The pain in those other areas occur because you are compensating for not being able to use your foot properly.
The problem is, we all have histories of injuries that make us compensate slightly, and underlying all of that we have an asymmetrical brain and an asymmetrical body that will make us prefer to do things differently on one side than the other.
That’s not really a problem if you’re a wild human foraging for berries or climbing trees all day. But if you’re a modern human, you’re forced into positions (sitting at your desk or your car) and actions (writing, typing, opening doors) that your body will do over and over and over again on the same side.
This creates asymmetries that become ingrained, and now we have to compensate somehow.
So what does this have to do with back pain?
The Postural Restoration Institute, or PRI, clarifies how these asymmetries affect us and can cause problems. Here is a brief synopsis of why and how our asymmetrical nature impacts our lives…
We have a more stable, domed, strong diaphragm on the right accompanied by a flatter, weaker diaphragm on the left. this makes us feel much more comfortable standing over our right leg.
This orients our pelvis slightly to the right.
But nobody walks around with their body pointed to the right! No, we compensate to bring our chest back around to the left, so we can see where we’re going.
So, basically, our pelvis is pointing right, while our ribcage is pointing left. With walking and other alternating activities, we alternate by turning our pelvis to the left and ribcage to the right, but because of the strong anatomical tendencies listed above, we can lose this ability to alternate symmetrically.
Over time, or with repetitive activity, or injuries, we can become “stuck” in this twist. Some degenerative changes can occur, but the research unequivocally shows that disc degeneration or arthritis is usually NOT the cause of back pain (in studies where they scanned hundreds of people, some with back pain and some without, there was no correlation with back pain and arthritis/disc disease or other imaging findings. In fact, some people had severe pain and no findings on imaging, while others had severedegeneration, arthritis, and bulging discs, but no pain)!
The key to getting out of back pain for good is not going under the knife, but rather learning how to bring your pelvis back around to the left, and your trunk back around to the right.
To do so, breathing must become re-organized and re-balanced (remember that the diaphragm is the start of all this asymmetry!) and new movement patterns need to be established.
One very simple thing you can do to start training your body out of compensation is working on getting your left lower ribs down, in, and back. This will promote doming of the left diaphragm and bring your trunk back to a neutral position over your pelvis.
Here’s how to start re-orienting your ribcage to untwist your spine:
References:
Weber H. Lumbar disc herniation. A controlled, prospective study with ten years of observation. Spine (Phila Pa 1976). 1983;8(2):131.
Chou R, Baisden J, Carragee EJ, Resnick DK, Shaffer WO, Loeser JD. Surgery for low back pain: a review of the evidence for an American Pain Society Clinical Practice Guideline. Spine (Phila Pa 1976). 2009;34(10):1094-1109. doi:10.1097/BRS.0b013e3181a105fc
Brox JI, Nygaard ĂP, Holm I, Keller A, Ingebrigtsen T, ReikerĂ„s O. Four-year follow-up of surgical versus non-surgical therapy for chronic low back pain. Ann Rheum Dis. 2010;69(9):1643-1648. doi:10.1136/ard.2009.108902
Rao D, Scuderi G, Scuderi C, Grewal R, Sandhu SJ. The Use of Imaging in Management of Patients with Low Back Pain. J Clin Imaging Sci. 2018;8:30. Published 2018 Aug 24. doi:10.4103/jcis.JCIS_16_18
WĂĄng YXJ, Wu AM, Ruiz Santiago F, Nogueira-Barbosa MH. Informed appropriate imaging for low back pain management: A narrative review. J Orthop Translat. 2018;15:21-34. Published 2018 Aug 27. doi:10.1016/j.jot.2018.07.009
Lateef H, Patel D. What is the role of imaging in acute low back pain?. Curr Rev Musculoskelet Med. 2009;2(2):69-73. doi:10.1007/s12178-008-9037-0
Those are the general guidelines for focusing our attention on the breath. This awareness makes us feel calmer, more relaxed, and releases tension from our bodies.
But How? Why does changing our breath change our mood, and many other factors?
Research has shown that slower, deeper breathing reduces heart rate and risk for cardiovascular disease, as well as improves athletic performance. (yes, all you athletes out there, breathe slower to go faster).
The reason all these magnificent changes occur within us when we deepen our breath, especially our exhales, is because of a very special molecule that usually gets a bad rap.
I’m talking about good old carbon dioxide, CO2.
I know what you’re thinking…is she talking about the very same carbon dioxide that we are trying to reduce in our atmosphere to slow global warming? The same carbon dioxide that is considered a waste product of our bodies- something useless to to be rid of as soon as possible?
Well, yes, I am.
But what if I told you that this special little molecule was not only a useful component in improving your health, but an essential one for you to be able to thrive?
You see, for our bodies to get oxygen from our lungs to our tissues, we need carbon dioxide. To get a proper inhale, our receptors in our neck need to sense a certain amount of carbon dioxide in our bodies.
Not to mention, carbon dioxide is stored as bicarbonate in your blood stream, which is essential for maintaining the pH balance of your whole body.
Did I mention that carbon dioxide is critical in weight loss? Most of your body mass lost is due to breathing out carbon dioxide. In fact, more than 80% of weight loss is due to breathing out CO2, and only 15% or so is lost via sweat and urine.
So, if you’ve been dieting, exercising, doing all the right things and still not losing weight… you may want to look at how you’re breathing.
Let’s explore some of these in a little detail…
Firstly, how the heck does carbon dioxide help your body get more oxygen?
Think of carbon dioxide as the Fedex guy, and oxygen as your packages. When outside air hits your lungs, it makes it’s way down to alveoli, the tiny air sacs that interface with the blood stream. The oxygen molecules (packages) get loaded from the alveoli onto the red blood cell, which in this analogy is the Fedex truck.
The truck travels all over the body, delivering oxygen to all the cells as they all need oxygen to survive and flourish. When exercising, certain muscles need even more oxygen more quickly.
This is where our good buddy carbon dioxide comes in.
Oxygen cannot get off the truck unless there is a carbon dioxide molecule there to unload it.
When the oxygen gets to its destination, the carbon dioxide triggers the packages (oxygen) to be unloaded off the Fedex Truck (red blood cell), and be delivered to the cells (your mailbox).
The more carbon dioxide present, the more efficiently the oxygen can be offloaded to cells.
So, when you’re exercising and you really need to get oxygen to those tissues, perhaps try breathing slower instead of faster.
Why does the amount of CO2 in your body determine how you inhale?
I’m constantly telling my patients, don’t worry about the inhale! If you get a good exhale, the inhale will just come.
This is for two reasons, the first of which is purely mechanical.
When you exhale completely, the lungs become essentially “empty” of air, which creates a vacuum. New air has to flow in. It must follow the laws of nature! It must flow from the higher pressure (outside your body) to the lower pressure (inside your lungs). You don’t have to use your accessory muscles (aka your neck) to pull air in, it just goes in! Easy.
The second reason is neurological.
Deep in the reptilian brain, the most primal part of our brain that was present when the first creature crawled out of the primordial goo and decided to walk on land, there is a simple neural network that says, “breathe.”
This network senses levels of oxygen and CO2 in your body to decide when to inhale or exhale. Basically, when your body senses a certain level of oxygen in your body, that circuit makes you exhale. Similarly, when a certain level of CO2 is sensed, the circuit makes your body inhale.
Unfortunately, for many of us, this circuit gets messed up.
We breathe shallowly because we are less active, or stressed, or both, and we do this so much that we end up overriding the part of the circuit that senses CO2 and tells you to inhale.
We get stuck in this cycle of inhaling without ever getting to the bottom of our breath; we lose that primal trigger to inhale, so our inhales get all wonky, a.k.a. you end up pulling your ribcage up with your neck.
In addition to all these important factors, carbon dioxide is the main reason that you feel relaxed with deeper breathing.
Carbon dioxide makes you chill out.
Think about it. What do they tell you to do when you’re having a panic attack? Breathe into a paper bag. You’re breathing back in the CO2 you exhaled. Get that CO2 flowin’ baby!
Carbon dioxide relaxes you by causing your blood vessels to relax, which allows blood to deliver oxygen to all your tissues more easily.
Also, as mentioned above, CO2 lets your body unload oxygen from red blood cells to tissues.
These two factors together mean that your brain gets more oxygen and blood flow. This tells your body that you are safe, and you feel calmer and, well, more chill!
So how to insure that you get more CO2, but not too much?
The answer is simple, and I think you know what I’m going to say.
Breathe deeper, quieter, regular, slower.
5-6 seconds for each inhale and exhale, resulting in about 5-6 breaths per minute, is the ideal for balancing the CO2 and O2 in your body.
Below is a short video on how to do just that and harness the power of this special molecule.
Are you ready to breathe better to move better, to improve the health and resiliency of your lungs without any medication or procedures? Click the button below to find out if will benefit from working with Dr. Derya.
Wait a minute, I already know how to exhale. I do it hundreds of times a day, without even realizing it! Why would I need to learn how to exhale?
Good question.
As I work with my patients, the comment I often get is, “wow, I didn’t realize that I was never really exhaling!”
But how can that be? Read onwards, my friend, and I’ll explain it all.
When we breathe, we have many degrees to which we can move air in and out. There is simple survival breathing, which is just enough air to keep us alive, some may call this a “shallow breath.” This is how many of us breathe when we are still and not moving.
If we spend a lot of time still and not moving, or if we have life events that put our nervous system in a state that tells us we are not safe, and we should be as still as possible as a survival mechanism, we can get stuck in a shallow breath.
“Form follows function and function follows form” is a tenet of how our physical structure adapts to our environment. When we don’t breathe deeply, our ribs and surrounding structures don’t move. When our ribs don’t move, it’s harder to breathe well.
Oh, well the solution to that is easy, just breathe deeper!
For some reason, our common societal belief is that to breathe deeper, we need to take more air in.
While this is true for some people, it’s definitely not true for many. And, almost EVERYONE needs to first get air OUT before you can effectively get air back in.
This Ribcage is Too Big!
Some ribcages are “hyperinflated.” Barrel-chested, military posture, ribs pushed up in the front, all these positions indicate that there is some dead air hanging out in those lungs, for who knows how many years.
How are you supposed to get new fresh air in if your lungs are already full of dead air?
These people can’t get air OUT.
Think of it this way. Your lungs are a balloon (this is a gross analogy, but just go with it đ ). You fill the balloon with air (inhale), then let a tiny bit out (exhale). Next breath, you need to fill the balloon with air again because you need oxygen to survive. But still, you let out just a little. Over time, that balloon will get bigger and bigger, despite feeling like you need more and more air!
Of course it would feel like you need to inhale, because each breath in is so small since those lungs are already packed full. But what you really need to do is get that dead air out!
Getting a complete exhale, all the way to the bottom, gets that dead air out. For these individuals, when they feel that they have exhaled completely, they are often surprised to find that there was still more air in there to exhale.
Once that dead air is out, the ribcage and diaphragm positions can return to normal, and functional breathing can be restored.
This Ribcage is Too Small!
Some ribcages become rigid and small, collapsed in on themselves. They can’t get air in OR out. Their diaphragms can’t do the magnificent action they were designed to do, simply because there is no room to do it.
People with this kind of ribcage absolutely need to invite some expansion into their lives, but in order to do that, a diaphragm needs to be awakened and revitalized.
Achieving a complete, relaxed exhale triggers the reptilian brain to restore the breathing pattern that is primally wired within each of us.
Getting all your air out in a relaxed way is like a reset button for your nervous system.
When you reset in this way, you don’t need to try to get air in, it just flows in! You may need to do some specific exercises to open and expand your chest wall and lungs and bronchi (in certain places and directions, but I won’t get into all that here), but by simply getting your air out, you’ve already done an amazing thing for your whole system.
How does air just “flow in” after a complete exhale?
When you exhale completely, you let all the air out of your lungs. This creates a vacuum- air HAS to flow into that space due to the laws of physics- air will flow from an area of higher pressure to lower pressure.
It’s like when you open a hot oven and all the heat blasts out- the high pressure hot air must flow into the lower pressure cooler room. You don’t have to do anything the make the hot air flow out, you can’t even stop it flowing out! It just happens.
When we try to actively pull air in, we end up using accessory muscles, i.e. your neck. Just trust me on this one, you don’t want to breathe with your neck. Your neck has enough work to do already managing your head on the rest of your body. Using your ribcage to breathe is a much better way to go.
This Ribcage is Juuuust Right.
The human body is an amazing design! Sometimes it’s just hard to get out of our own way and let it do what it needs to do.
Allowing air to move out completely has so many more benefits than simply restoring ribcage and diaphragm position (although the restoration of those contributes to all these other factors I will share with you).
Benefits of Exhaling Well
Decreased heart rate (by stimulating “rest and digest” nerve fibers).
A more balanced inhale to exhale ratio, which reduces stress levels.
Reduced states of hyperinflation.
Improved digestive action of the gut.
So the question is, why wouldn’t you wan to exhale well?
Remember, exhaling is about softening, releasing, and letting go. Sometimes (or a lot of the time?) this can be harder to do than tensing, clinging, and holding on. So give yourself some patience and grace as you work towards a fuller exhale, and eventually a more expansive breath (and life!) as a result.
Here is a short video on how to get some air out, based on the primary breathing method from the Postural Restoration Institute, or PRI for short.
I used to hate hiking and running. I was always the slowest one, gasping for air, my neck and shoulders for some reason aching and killing me. I could really relate to the term âsucking wind.â
It just felt like I couldnât get enough air.
Even when I would diligently hike and run more often, I never got a sense that I could breathe better. I was getting better conditioned, but it always felt very hard. I didnât understand why, even though I trained regularly, friends of mine who hardly ran or hiked at all would zoom past me up the trail.
I thought, âthere must be something wrong with me.â
After I had a pretty severe bike accident, my symptoms became much worse. Instead of just feeling out of breath, when I got left behind in the group my lungs would literally close up. I couldnât breathe. I thought I might die. âIs this asthma?â I thought.
These days, I am the one zooming up the trail.
I surprise myself at how sometimes, even after I havenât been training at all, I can easily hike or run without getting out of breath. I never get that feeling of my lungs closing up. Now it’s way more enjoyable to run and hike, and I look forward to it! I feel that I am getting fitter and can go further each week.
So what was going on with me?
Two things. The first was poor lung compliance and perfusion, a.k.a. my ribcage and therefore my lungs werenât moving well, which didnât allow me to exchange enough oxygen into my blood stream.
So, even though I was constantly exercising, my tissues werenât getting the oxygen they needed. No wonder I always felt out of breath!
Turns out the reason my neck and shoulders hurt while hiking and running was because I was trying to pull air in with my neck! My ribcage, lungs and diaphragm werenât working well together to pump air efficiently in and out, so my neck and shoulders decided to take over.
The second thing holding me back was trauma.
Since my bike accident, if I exerted myself too much, especially with other people around, my body would go into a state of “freeze.” I would check out mentally, close off socially, my lungs would seize up and I would have to sit on the floor and gasp until I could get up again. I think some people might call this a panic attack.
I know now that my ribcage mobility and my trauma were related.
Because I didnât breathe well in the first place, it was harder for me to breathe and sense the fluctuating rhythms in my body.
Through a lot of trial and error, I eventually found that PRI techniques, in addition to working with a skilled somatic therapist, I was able to overcome both of these obstacles. And because of the huge impact it has had on my life, I now I help others do the same.
The way our bodies work is NOT like a mechanical machine.
We can’t pretend that a breathing issue only affects our lungs. We are constantly affected by what’s going on inside of us and around us, both physically and mentally. We need to be able to shift side to side in our lungs, our bodies, our minds, and our spirits. Stuck ribcages prevent lungs shifting. Stuck mindsets prevent bodies shifting. Stuck beliefs and trauma prevent our spirits from shifting.
The reason overcoming stuck patterns in the body and mind is difficult is because itâs about softening and letting go.
This means allowing air in and out instead of forcing our bodies to breathe a certain way. Releasing tension instead of holding on.
So many of my patients struggle with softening and letting go (myself included).
If I tell someone to tense a muscle, they can almost always do that. But if I ask them to soften and relax a muscle, it is much harder.
Similar to how our muscles become rigid, our minds can do the same thing. Here’s an example:
Someone asks you about an issue that you are strongly against. Very likely, you get worked up and talk fervently about all the reasons you think it is wrong. But if you are asked to see where the other person is coming from, and why they might feel the way they do, it will probably be much harder for you to give an answer.
This is just one way we become rigid- with our beliefs. It’s much harder to change the way we think about something than it is to keep thinking what we always have.
Can changing the way our lungs move help us overcome trauma?
Trauma is a state of being disconnected from our bodies. It’s a survival mode where thereâs no room for feeling, because before our feelings were so terrifying and painful that we donât want to risk going there again.
Trauma lives in our bodies, not in our thoughts.
We canât think our way out of trauma. But we most certainly can feel our way out.
Sensing the breath is one way to sense our bodies again, which is the first step to overcoming trauma. We must learn to sense the ever-changing flow that is always occurring in our bodies. And at the center of our bodies lie our lungs, whose function is to manage flow. Flow of air in and out, flow of oxygen to our tissues, flow of byproducts back out into the world.
*Please note that sensing the breath is not appropriate for everyone who is working with trauma. So, if you find that noticing your breath feels uncomfortable for any reason, take a break for now and consult with a provider to help guide you in this process.
Our lungs remind us of how connected we are to everyone and everything around us.
We use our lungs to create air for our voice so that we can communicate with others. The carbon dioxide that we donât need is expelled by the lungs to provide nourishment to trees and plants. And those very plants provide oxygen back to the bronchial trees within us.
“…we are all connected to each other In a circle, in a hoop that never ends”
(Sorry, couldn’t resist the Disney reference!)
Do You Find Yourself Holding Your Breath?
When we donât breathe, we donât shift. When we donât let go, we become rigid. Letting air out is an excellent way to start bringing flow back into your body via the breath.
Most people think of the inhale as the main part of the breath. But an inhale is only as good as the exhale before it.
Think of it this way. If you didnât get all your air out, your next inhale will not bring in much fresh oxygen! There’s just not enough room with the lungs partially full of old air.
Furthermore, if you donât exhale all the way, your lungs and ribcage donât get to move through their full range of motion. Now you are working towards rigidity in a pattern of half full lungs, and you are reducing the amount of flow in your body.
The less your ribs move, the less your diaphragm moves, the less massaged your gut organs get by the movement of your diaphragm, and you become more rigid in your digestion.
The less air you get out, the more your body shifts into a state of fear and tension.
Think of your lungs as a balloon. If you never exhale completely, that balloon keeps getting more and more filled with air, and you feel like youâre floating away from the ground. We need a sense of the ground to feel stable, supported, and, well, grounded!
One way to start creating more flow and learning to let go is by letting air out.
Notice that I didnât say FORCING air out (which is what most of us tend to do). Itâs about allowing the lower front ribs to soften down instead of cramming them down.
Here is a short video on how to find an exhale breath that will get your ribs and lungs moving again.
Think of this breath as a sigh. Like youâre getting into a hot bath, or arriving home after a long day and sinking into a nice soft couch. “ahhhhhhh.” After that first delicious sip of an ice cold drink on a hot summer day, âahhhhhh.â
If you like, take note of how you feel before and after doing this breath for about 5 rounds of 5 breaths. Has the quality of your breath changed? How about the quality of your mind? Your mood? You may be surprised by the results.
To take this a step further and work on sensing your body in addition to sensing your breath, practice also feeling the places where your body touches the chair, and/or where your feet touch the floor. Notice if you’re tensing your shoulders or your face, and see if you can soften there.
More and more throughout your day, be aware of what’s happening in your breath and your body.
Just noticing your breath, and not even trying to change it at all, is an incredibly powerful technique. You can watch your body find it’s rhythm again.
*Again, If doing this makes you feel anxious or uncomfortable, consult with a provider who can help you work through the process of getting back in touch with your body.
So if you’re like me, and you’ve been trying really hard to get better but things still don’t feel right, breathing and sensing might be the missing link.
Don’t underestimate the power of finding the flow in your lungs, your mind, your spirit. Trust me, Iâve been there, and I’ve made it to the other side. And I know that if I can do it, so can you!
If you want to work with me on this or just have questions on next steps, feel free to send me an email or leave a comment below. Derya@MyEssentalPT.com.
You know that feeling you get when a moment is so perfect you just want to capture it forever? And then there’s that sadness when you realize that the reason the moment is so perfect is because of its impermanence, and ironically any attempts to capture it would suck out all the specialness of the situation.
This is the inherent, beautiful sadnessassociated with the understanding of impermanence.
I had this feeling earlier today, just now actually, driving home from work. It was a warm, hazy afternoon and everyone on the road had their windows rolled down including me. As I came upon a view of the mountains, the perfect moody, twangy, blues-ey cowboy song came on the radio and I so badly wanted to capture that moment. My inclination was to pull over and look up the song so that I could add it to a playlist and listen to this song and have this feeling over and over…
But that’s not how it works. So, instead of wasting this perfect moment searching on my phone, I turned up the volume and cruised.
I feel this same kind of sadness when I’m walking my dog, Hazel, and see hundreds of flowers popping up in unexpected places. Initially, this makes me so happy, and then I feel sad because they’re all going to go away as the seasons change, and part of me wants them to just stay. But I also know that if they were around forever, they wouldn’t be nearly as delightful.
It’s at these moments that I recall the core teaching of the buddha: everything is impermanent, and constantly changing.
By understanding impermanence, I can let go of wanting things to stay a certain way, because I know that it’s not the true nature of things. And by embracing change, we can smile when the flowers come, and also smile knowing that they will go. Because red and golden fall leaves and later pristine white blankets of snow will take their place. Instead of fretting about missing a moment, I can simply enjoy it.
Embracing change is not something that comes instinctively to us, and something we have to work on.
That’s because change means uncertainty, and uncertainty is scary. But, when you really think about it, nothing is certain. And pretending that we can be certain only breeds attachment and fear.
How Fear of Change Manifests in the Body
Our bodies were designed to oscillate and reciprocate, they were meant to shift from right to left and left to right, from front to back and top to bottom, and twist and turn in all different directions.
However, most of us get stuck in patterns that come from the way we always do things, and (maybe more so) the way we always think things. We assume what the next day will be like based on the days before, and if there has been the same thoughts, movements and emotions in the previous days, the brain and body will expect more of the same. And if something is different, we become fearful, worried, frustrated or angry.
Take for example your commute to work. Everyday you drive to work, and you expect your car to run the way it did the day before. But if for some reason your car breaks down or doesn’t start, this is extremely upsetting! It ruins your day, because it’s not what you had planned, what you predicted, what your brain and body is comfortable with.
Think about all the things you do in your day the same way. Always crossing one leg over the other. Always crossing one arm over the other. Mousing with the same hand at the computer. Driving the same route to work everyday. Feeling stressed about the same things at work. Getting in the same arguments with your significant other.
All of these actions pattern us physically, mentally, emotionally.
The more patterned we become, the more resistant we are to change. The more resistant we are to change, the more we suffer when something unexpected happens. And the more our bodies become hardened into certain patterns that don’t allow us to alternate and reciprocate, the more we get stuck. Stuckness creates imbalance, disease, and pain.
So How do I Get “Unstuck?”
Well, that’s “easy.” Easy because the changes aren’t that hard to do physically, but the quotes are there because change is hard! Everything about the way your brain and body are wired is designed to resist change. Your brain wants to keep you “safe,” and patterns feel nice and secure.
To get yourself unstuck, try doing things you usually wouldn’t do! Sleep on the other side of the bed. Cross the opposite arm in front. Take a different route to work. Cook something different for dinner. Stay up later. Wake up earlier. Put your watch on the other wrist. Get creative and find ways to mix it up.
The main source of where we get stuck is through our ribcage and lung field. By shifting the way we stand and move, we shift the way we breathe, so doing any of the above helps with that. You can also help create more mobility, shifting, and alternating in your life by doing specific exercises for your lungs.
That said, don’t disregard the power of inviting more change into your life. It is a simple way to create new patterns and break up old ones. You learn to be more comfortable with change, and maybe even enjoy and invite it into your life. It’s pretty amazing how when you let go of how you expect things to be, you see all the ways that things can be.
Noticing Change Through the Body
The body is the gateway to observing the changing nature of our existence. Your breath is always in flux, inhale to exhale. The heart is always beating, sensations are always changing (even though it seems that a sensation stays the same, when you pay close attention you will notice that it is indeed changing in subtle ways). When we can observe change in our body carefully and thoroughly, we start to understand impermanence on a visceral level, which is where the real change takes place. Just understanding impermanence on a cognitive, theoretical level is helpful, but it is not enough to shift your body into a new state of freedom and flow. To incite real and lasting change, we must experience at the physical level, at the level of the body.
This 5 minute guided meditation will help you notice change in your body by practicing interoception.
So next time you find yourself feeling frustrated that something didn’t go the way you wanted, or sad that something won’t stay the way it is or was, remember that this moment can change you from the inside out if you let it. And to ease the pain of those moments, start making changes now! Try to switching up your routine whenever you can. Try something new and mix it up.
We all have them, the big broad bones that fold onto the back of your ribcage like wings. But what do we really know about them?
To understand the function of the shoulderblade, or âscapula,â we must first understand their form.
1. The only bone to bone attachment of the scapula to your trunk is a tiny joint where your collarbone meets the top tip of the scapula.
This joint, called the acromioclavicular joint, or AC joint, is about as secure as if you put the tips of your two index fingers together head on, i.e. itâs pretty flimsy.
The joint between your shoulderblade and the rest of your body is about as secure as the joining of two fingertips.
The crazy thing is that the arm bone attaches to the scapula bone via a shallow concavity, and the scapula is attached to the rest of your body via the above mentioned AC joint. Literally the only bony attachment of your arm to your torso is via a tiny, flimsy joint.
The acromio-clavicular joint, or AC joint, is the only connection between the scapula and the rest of your torso.
So, youâre probably wondering at this point, âhow is my arm not falling off?â It is pretty amazing that our arms not only stay attached, but that we are able to climb, crawl, draw, reach, swim, etc with such precision and stability.
2. It is mostly muscle that holds our arm onto the rest of our body.
This is an amazing design because it allows for a huge degree of mobility in the shoulder, which is necessary to do all the precise tasks and vast ranges of motion required of our arms.
However, this can also create a lot of problems. Muscles change their function based on their position, and repetitive, habitual movement patterns can place muscles in suboptimal positions. If we always sit at the same desk, with our phone on the same side, or we always sit the same way in the car, or always throw a ball with one hand, we are slowly but surely ingraining one-sided patterns into our bodies.
When this occurs in the shoulder and shoulderblade regions it is especially impactful due to the heavy reliance of the shoulder on muscles for stability. This is why shoulder injuries often have little to do with the shoulder, unless it was due to a direct trauma. Usually it is a muscle imbalance or aberrant positioning around the scapula that is the issue, even if the pain is felt in the shoulder.
3. Our shoulderblades are concave in shape
Even though at first glance it seems that are shoulderblades are flat, they actually have a concave shape. This allows for the shoulderblade to sit on the ribcage, which is egg-shaped.
Side view of a shoulderblade showing the concave surface that touches the ribcage.
However, many of us tend to change the shape of our ribcage by changing the way we breathe. For example, a common pathological breathing pattern is pushing the front lower ribs up in order to get air in without completely exhaling. This is a common breathing pattern when we are stressed- it is a shallow, more rapid breath. If we are a little stressed most of the time, our breathing will reflect that, and over time the shape of our ribcage will reflect that as well.
What this “stress breathing” pattern does is create a flattened ribcage in the back, so now we have a concave shoulderblade trying to sit on a flat surface. At this point the muscle activity cannot be restored because it is the structure underneath that is the issue, and must be corrected before the shoulder can start to move better and feel better.
The shoulderblade is often overlooked when we think about how we move our bodies, but its position and function is vital to our arms being able to move well and without pain. Keeping the muscles around your shoulderblade strong and in an optimal position, as well as keeping your ribcage well positioned with proper breathing, will preserve the life of your shoulders and make for a much happier and painfree shoulder complex.
With the exponential growth of yoga in the last few years, class sizes are getting bigger, and the content more imaginative. It is wonderful that more people are exposed to yoga. As a physical therapist, what concerns me is the lack of emphasis on internal stabilization. This stability comes from deep muscle activation, in sanskrit called bandha, which translates to âLock.â
In our fast-paced lifestyle, we are often tempted to put ourselves in a position of compromise to “just get things done.” We skip the part where we find our sense of center, and we forget to return to it repeatedly. This is what the practice of bandha teaches us. Developing the bandhas takes effort to build strength, vigilance to maintain, and patience to master. However, once the bandhas are in place, all the other aspects of yoga practice become more accessible, fluid, and enjoyable.
Bandhas stabilize the body during dynamic movement. Some yoga postures can even be damaging if done repeatedly without this awareness. Sure, a teacher might now and then mention a bandha, or advise students to âengage the pelvic floor.â . The problem is that many people have never been taught how to access the bandhas in the first place.
Yoga and the bandhas can apply to every day life.
What are bandhas, and how do we access them?
In yoga there are essentially three bandhas in the body. The
main two we will discuss today are âmula bandhaâ and âuddhiyana bandha,â which
represent the pelvic floor muscles and the transversus abdominus muscle, respectively.
These are the deep stabilizers of the trunk and pelvis. The third bandha is
âjhalandara bandha,â which involves the core muscles of the neck and head known
as the deep neck flexors (longus colli and longus capitus muscles).
Mula Bandha (Pelvic Lock)
Letâs start with mula bandha, the root lock, or the pelvic floor. In physical therapy practice we often teach patients to engage their pelvic floor if they have hip, back, and leg pain. I even now teach pelvic floor exercises to help patients who have neck pain, because the pelvic floor is the “foundation of the house.” If the head and neck are the roof of the house, you can imagine how a poor foundation would result in an unstable roof.
In my experience working with patients, these muscles are inherently difficult to engage for several reasons. The first is that they are âpostural muscles.â Unlike big mover muscles, like the thigh muscles that bend the knee, the postural muscles are under subconscious control. This makes it difficult to fire them at will, and they are harder to feel. The thing that makes pelvic floor muscles really hard to access is the fact that we canât see them, and many people have never even heard of them.
How to access Mula bandha
As mentioned
above the pelvic floor is hard to access, but visualization can be helpful.
Sit on a firm chair with knees and hips at 90 degrees and feet flat on the floor.
Sitting up straight, hinge forward and back from the pelvis until to feel ventered on your sit bones (the boney protrusions at the base of the pelvis).
From here, draw the sit bones closer together, without tightening your gluteal muscles.
Keep this as you visualize the sit bones pressing down into the chair, as the space between them moves up (this is the doming up/activation of the pelvic floor muscles that make mula banda).
If you can achieve this lifting sensation, you can try maintaining that while visualizing your coccyx (the tailbone) and the pubic symphysis (the very front of your pelvis) also moving towards each other.
These four points (the sits bones, coccyx, and pubic symphysis) all are moving towards a central point.
Even if you feel nothing initially, with continued visualization you will begin to feel something. It is a process.
Uddhiyana Bandha (Navel Lock)
Also known as âflying upâ bandha, this is the place between your navel and your pubic bone that wraps around your waist. It creates lightness and lift, and stabilizes the trunk and pelvis during movement and during static standing and sitting. A long, flat sheath of muscle, this bandha is made up primarily by the transversus abdominus and the internal oblique muscles.
The transversus abdominus muscles that make up uddhiyana bhanda.
How to access Uddhiyana Bandha
One accessible way to feel uddhiyana bandha is by activating the leg muscles strongly.
Stand with your feet hip width apart, feet parallel.
Draw up through the inner arches of the feet, while rooting the base of the big toe, base of the pinky toe, and straight down through the heel. You may feel something light up in your core with just this! If not, no worries, keep going.
Imagine you are drawing all the musculature of your legs up towards your pelvis.
Maintain that as you tighten the front and back of the thighs simultaneously.
At this point you should feel the area below your navel turning on. That is uddhiyana bandha.
Now see if you can relax your legs somewhat while keeping the activation in your abdomen.
Jalandhara bandha (Throat Lock)
While the full expression of Jalandhara Bandha is more
applicable during breathwork, a sense of this lock can help with asana practice
as well.
Due to our lifestyle that now frequently involves sitting,
the head tends to come forward with the chin protruding. Then, when it comes
time to practice yoga on the mat, we carry this poor posture with us.
Jalandhara bhanda can mitigate this effect by teaching us to draw the head back over our spine. In the full expression of the bhanda, the chin is nestled in the nook of the breast bone between the collar bones, called the sternal notch. This can be a good release of the fascia along the back of the neck, but is impractical for asana practice and may cause strain for some individuals.
A lighter version of Jalandhara bhanda can help us find a neutral and stable position of the head and neck by recruiting the muscles that make the âcore of the throat.â These deep muscles return the head to a neutral position.
How to access Jalandhara bandha (throat lock)
Sit in a firm chair, feeling your sit bones.
Exhale completely through your mouth as you let your neck and shoulders relax and your front lower ribs move down and in (for more info about the importance of the ribs here, see my other post âthe posture mythâ)
Now, draw your head straight back so that it sits atop the rest of your spine.
Maintain a relaxed posture of your neck and shoulders as you draw slightly nod your head down as if you are holding a small orange between your chin and the space between your collarbones.
Imagine the base of your skull floating up as your chin drops slightly, lengthening the back of your neck.
Check to see that your shoulders are still relaxed. If not, take another exhale and let them drop.
Stay here a few breaths, inhaling to lengthen through the back of the neck, exhaling to settle the shoulders and the front lower ribs.
Yoga and Injury
As a physical therapist, the most common yoga injuries I see are in people who are naturally flexible (usually young to middle-aged women, which happens to be the largest demographic of yoga practitioners). These individuals can put themselves in many challenging postures but lack the deep stabilization of the bandhas. I also see stronger men and women who are able to muscle through arm balances but end up with neck and shoulder pain because really it is the deep connections of the bandhas that create a sense of levity in arm balances, not the arms. Practicing poses with correct activation of the deep stabilizing muscles may mean that you have to approach the pose in a new way, and you may not be able to make the pose look as good initially. This is where the yoga really happens- when we shift our focus from what the pose looks like to what it feels like, when we move from place of integrity and patience.
It can take time to develop a keen awareness of the bandhas and to incorporate them into practice. However, by learning to engage the bandhas, yoga injuries can be prevented and healed by practicing with increased awareness, intention, and patience.
