In today’s instant world, the key word is speed. Driving speed, task completion speed and there are even speed dates where you have a couple of minutes to impress the possible love of your life. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing bad in doing things quickly, but when fast life and multitasking becomes your way of life, then it is time to step on a break.
Where does the movement come in this speed life puzzle? How to change your habits and build a meaningful and healthy life by moving? These are some question we will try to explain in the text below.
Building bad postural patterns
For a long time, you have been unaware of your life. You were doing things generically and in a minimum time frame, if it is possible. Your days started early in crazy traffic and your neuroticism curve has been starting to pop up easily. You were doing your daily tasks, probably while you were in a sitting pose, and once you have finished it, other obligations were behind the corner.
Sitting, Rush, Multitasking, Sitting, Rush, Multitasking…. that is the loop that moves your life. By doing things on a generic level without even thinking of why you are doing it, you are heading to the goals, like if it was a horse race, instead of enjoying the journey. Meanwhile, your body is suffering too.
Too much sitting, prolonged stress states, which reflect not just on your mental condition, but also on your physical condition. Think about how you feel when you are sad, you are in a crumpled pose. And how about your anger states? Your face is probably red, and your back muscles are tight, you are swinging with your arms while you straighten up to show yourself. Those are the natural responses of our body to different inputs from the outside.
When you are crumpled, you are in a defensive pose and flexion muscles are engaged. When the fight starts, you are activating your extensor muscles in a ‘fight or flight’ way. By prolonged actions of defense or attack muscles, our muscles memorize our activation. With that input, they create our posture, in the majority of the cases with some wicked patterns. They do that because we give them the input that this kind of muscle length and muscle activation is what we need.
Harmony
When it comes to changing bad posture, the key thing is optimization. In this optimization process, you wish to find yourself in the middle of the continuum. The optimal posture is not completely defensive or completely attacking. The flexor and extensor muscles are in harmony. If they are not harmonized, turned on and turned off in the right way, you will develop some kind of a postural problem which, in the end, will result with pain.
What you need to do is a change of the input you are giving to your muscles. Let’s take a sitting as an example. Prolonged sitting sessions make your hip flexors muscles tight. When they are tight, they are rotating your pelvis in excessive lumbar lordosis. Your back muscles are too activated, while your abdomen group of muscles is almost completely unengaged.
Add some kind of an argument while you are working, and fight inputs to that. Your back extensor muscles are too activated, and in prolonged states like this, you will develop a lower back pain syndrome. You end up with pain killers. Even though you are not thrilled with it, you have to take them. You can’t move as you could once and will the lack of movement, you are losing your freedom.
Movement is freedom, freedom is life
We will try to start this chapter from the end. You are not taking pain killers. You are not in prolonged stress states because you deal with the things in the right way. You do not deal with the things that cannot influence you and they do not bother you. By doing that, you don’t have wrong emotional input to your nervous system which affects your muscles. You are not in a prolonged defensive or attacking pose, so your flexion or extension muscles are not under additional demands.
You are sitting while you are working but you are thinking of your forward head position and your back position. When you feel your posture is bad, you correct yourself. Also, every 45 minutes you stand up to walk a little bit and stretch your muscles. Before you came to work, you were doing some kind of workout (we suggest movement training) and you were moving. You were moving freely, without any pain. With your freedom, you are living a happy and fulfilled life.
Move
In the end, we have only one suggestion. Start moving. The story above is an example of how moving can help you live a happier life. Your mental and physical condition will take great benefits from it. Take mobility classes, pilates, dance… Anything is a good starting point if it is done properly. Later you will filter the thing you are most interested in. It is important to start. Every change starts with the first step. Make that step by starting to move and you will be surprised with the positive outcome
