How does our lifestyle affect our mobility?

 

Our mobility, health, physical, mental and emotional well-being are affected by the way we live.

 

Lifestyle can be changed, and with understanding and patience it can evolve to support health of mind, body and spirit.

You may be pleased and surprised at the things you will be able to do with patience and practice. Being aware of daily activities and how to do them in such a way as to support health and well-being can make a huge difference.

 

These are several factors inhibiting mobility which I have seen effect myself and most people I know:

 

Outward focus – focus on the job(s) at hand rather than keeping focus on the body doing the job.  In physical education and sports the focus is on the ball, with the team, and the competition. When introspection and body awareness are valued, movement becomes more fluid, safer, and meditative, leading to more useful mobility and reduction of stress.

 

Chairs – Think about it - sitting in chairs uses a very limited range of motion in the hips compared with sitting on ground, squatting, or on low cushions several times a day. In olden times and currently in many places, particularly in rural areas, people daily sit or squat on the ground or floors throughout their lifetime, not only when they are young.

  

 

 

 

Cars – We walk far less than we did historically and compared to rural people. Walking is the most underrated exercise/ activity in modern culture. Many people don’t walk daily or for more than a few steps, many days of our lives, yet daily walking is great for our whole bodies including our posture.  In many large cities  like, New York, NY, people walk as their primary means of transportation. See my earlier post- Walking is the Most Underrated Exercise.

         

 

           

Seat-toilets –Squatting uses a great range of motion in the hips legs ankles and feet Also squatting is the best way for the body to completely eliminate waste. There have been numerous studies showing that the more open position of the colon when squatting leads to easier elimination and fewer problems associated with it.

 

Shallow breathing- Yes, most all of us tend to do this! Deep breathing is essential to mind/body connection, physical performance, and true relaxation. Deep breathing and breath control are essential to progress in any physical practice. When I instruct new students to breathe deeply, more often than not, they do a fast shallow breath and hold it then exhale fast as well. Deep controlled breathing takes much daily practice.

 

“Sit still” - many of us are conditioned from early on to not move. After kindergarten, children in school move-about very little for most of the 7 hour school day. e.g. no longer sitting on the floor, standing, stretching or free play.

To hold the body in one position, at computer, TV, phone, in a car, formed into a chair without some movement (especially of the spine) promotes poor posture and weaker core strength when it is done over days and weeks and years (7 hour school day, 8 hour work-week).

Even infants and toddlers in car-seats and strollers need to move frequently (15+ minutes at a time I believe is a long time to “sit still” unless resting or sleeping, and there should still be room to move as the child intuitively will do).

Those fidgeting children in school may have been doing (or trying to do) the right thing for their body!

Not resting  when we are tired.

                                                                I love this picture! Restorative yoga, farm style! So much of the time people drink coffee or tea to keep going, when really they need a rest. Quality rest is a benefit of an active lifestyle, remember how well you slept as a child after active playing all day?

 

We live in a culture of quick-fixes- We are way too easily discouraged.  We expect instant and fast results, and tend to become discouraged if we don’t do something well within the first few days or weeks. Yet we all know that people don't become masterful at anything without years of study and practice. 

Because of all these trends in modern life, many people experience stiffness (inhibited movement)*, discomfort, and often even pain in the tissues of the body. With this, there is also atrophy of the neural pathways; even your brain needs some re-training! *There are other factors also, such as age, injuries and illnesses that effect people’s mobility worldwide.

 

It is disheartening to realize we how much we may have “lost”.  

The good news is it can be gained back with patience and practice.

No wonder getting started is difficult! Do it anyway!!!  And accept yourself exactly where you are at and enjoy the journey! Find teachers who challenge you and genuinely care.  

All the best, Christina

 

If you stay mindful of some basic ideas it might be easier get started.  If you are interested in yoga, you may want to read this blog to know what you’re getting into What Yoga Is and Is Not.

 

“I’m not ready to do yoga”

 The biggest reason I hear from people for not doing yoga, dancing or anything physical is…“I’m NOT ready to do yoga” “I ’m not ready?
Really? Not ready? Why?
 "I'm too out of shape, I’m too fat, I’m not flexible” " I can't even touch my toes any more" 
Really? these are reasons to get moving, as soon and regularly as possible, rather than an excuse not to start. 
 Another thing I hear is that "You can't change the way the effects of the years (decades) of habits with your body".  
 I have made big changes and so have many other people, in spite of what popular thought, media and medicine may say.  Most of the best yoga teachers I know have had learn to heal themselves at some point and succeeded despite limiting diagnosis's from health professionals.  


What is it YOU are going to DO to get ready? If the answer is nothing, Then I have to ask... 
How is the quality of the life in your body?
What is your aging going to look like if you can't do it now? 
Are you waiting to have the doctors fix it with surgery?

 I’ve been researching this and watching and experimenting with techniques on myself..  This is what I’ve found out, it has more to do with energy than anything else – the energy that these not-ready thoughts carry and the fact that most people in western culture don’t even breath, sit, stand, walk, reach, and lift and lay down in the correct ways! Poor alignment and tension causing blocks in the flow of energy.

WHAT???
Now you are saying “REALLY?”
 YES, REALLY. With learning  to have better posture and body mechanics for your day to day activities you can have more energy and be ready to do yoga classes sooner than you think!

This is why  I teach beginners Class and the I_AM workshops.
So the beginning yoga classes I teach now might not even look like a yoga class to yoga purists, but we do not live in India, people have not grown up using the range of motion required when sitting on the floor, squatting (especially to eliminate waste) Many westerners have grown up without having good models showing us how to lift, reach, bend carry loads and walk. These things are learned generationally and kinesthetically. 

In India and many other cultures, the daily use of a wider range of motion and good posture are a given. Yet, unfortunately, in the west, all of this this is rare.

So, how the heck are people who have lived this way for decades going to do yoga? This is my own burning question, for the last few years as I teach older students, people who have been sedentary, or have injuries.  The answer I have found  is re-education about how tI am using my the body the other hours of the day, in-between classes.  
I started to realize that western culture: the culture of sedentariness and rarely sitting on the ground, where slouching became the model for illustration and fashions beginning in the 1920’s….where even medical illustrations do not illustrate optimal posture any more,(they show typical western posture). Where back problems abound, and hip and knee replacements are ever more common amongst younger and younger people. 

 The biggest mistake people make in yoga or any “fitness” activity is to forget to tune-in and honor your own limits- where you are at, today. 

The second biggest mistake is to forget you are more than a mechanical body, that the mind, spirit and emotions all are involved. Yoga is more about training the mind than anything else. 

The physical moves or postures are just the tip of the iceberg, what is underneath is discipline, practice and process, change of attitudes, calming of the mind, focus and Breath.

So much of our day and live the focus of the mind is outside our bodies, when you quiet the mind, and breathe deeply you can understand your own body, and then it shows you how to heal.  The rhythms of the body return to harmony. The metabolic and systolic heart rhythms return to optimum harmony which is healing throughout our physical bodies. 

That is just the beginning. Sustaining the stillness of mind allows you to experience your essence which is joy, energy and beauty.  We remember our beautiful innocent selves, we remember being love and being one with all that is. 

 Again I will talk about eastern and third world countries because they do things that make perfect sense, they keep hip flexibility, back strength and good organ functioning because the sit on the floor or low to the floor on rugs, pillows or mats. They move in a much greater range of movement and strengthen all those muscles at least 5 times a day.  These are body-wise habits. If you look at all the most common physical problems in America it is knees, hips and back. These are not so common in cultures that sit on the floor. In these cultures activities like tai chi, yoga, dance and martial arts or done at all ages!!!  

We love our chairs, and couches but they are not serving our bodies well.  I have been seeing and experiencing the ill effects of the furniture habit, particularly in our elderly.  This is why I incorporate the training I’ve had in Alexander technique (Google it) and  from the work of Eric Franklin and Ester Gokhale. I began to realize how westerners don’t even walk correctly. Ester Gokhale’s keen observation of multiple cultures and diverse person’s posture and body mechanics transforms into effective non-surgical healing methods for back, hip and knee problems.

 I want to share my own experience, when recently I spent 21 days walking 45 minutes 2 times a day and consciously changed the way I walk, my alignment, posture and how I propelled myself forward.  It was profound; I began to have an incredible amount of ENERGY all day. Energy on all levels, mentally as well as physical endurance, I even had more energy for socializing as well! So I began sharing this with students. I see this as the key to really making a difference for my all my students/especially for the inactive or overweight or injured or older students.  Walking is a very therapeutic healthful exercise!!!

If people stand, sit, bend reach and lift with optimal alignment and minimal stress (strain), they are actually gaining strength and flexibility from their everyday activities.
This prepares them for yoga, and they don’t leave the beginning class saying “yoga is not for me” instead they learn about the body, and movement. They begin to understand how to gain energy, strength and flexibility throughout their day rather than wear themselves down.  

 If we believe only gravity-energy is affecting our body- that is all that affects our bodies! When we shift our thinking and began experiencing the energy-body profound changes are inevitable. The Awareness within the mind is so powerful, even our thoughts carry energy.