DW Dance

The ‘ahh’ sound raises the soft palate (the softer part of your upper mouth) and helps free the airways. This breathing practice is not something you do all the time but it helps retrain your body to breathe more fully and naturally, working against the ingrained habit of under-breathing. It stimulates your body to better everyday use.

REORGANISE YOUR LIFE
Smell your environment. Are you not breathing fully because you don’t want to? Bad air days need strategy; nice smells (oils, plants, flowers), ionisers, or reminders of better atmospheres (photographs of seaside or countryside).

If you do find that you are in a situation where your space is invaded (crushed on the tube or in a lift) and you feel deprived of oxygen, don’t hold your breath or take shallow breaths; focus on breathing more completely and make the best of every out breath to rid yourself of inhaled toxins and stale air.

Taken from : The Busy Body - Stress Free Posture

Imagine your in breath as having width, travelling easily through the breadth of your body. Out is long, in is wide. Let go on the out breath, clearing the lungs of old air, leaving room for reviving air on the in breath. Think of letting go of stressful, negative thoughts as you let the breath go out – let them float away on the whispered ‘ahh’.

THE PRINCIPLE
We under-breathe in times of stress and develop bad breathing habits. For example, when we concentrate we tend to hold our breath. We under-breathe when people invade our space. Paradoxically, smokers often under-breathe when not smoking because they have started to rely on the exhalation of cigarette smoke in order to fully exhale.

When smokers give up, they often find it hard to get back to natural  breathing. It is not useful to ‘take a deep breath’ – that just promotes more tension. ‘Chin up, chest out, take a deep breath’ is the very reverse of natural breathing.

Taken from : The Busy Body - Stress Free Posture

Start by thinking of widening and lengthening your body. Become aware of your breathing; don’t be judgemental about it, you’re observing, not getting
self-critical. Do not try to alter anything, although you may find your breathing changes for the better simply due to this self-monitoring. Focus more on the out than the in breath, as though exhaling is full of subtlety and interest. Notice how it varies from one breath to another – the length of each
one, for example. This may cause your breath to naturally slow down. Do not forget the pause at the end of each exhalation before letting the breath back in, to avoid hyperventilation.

After a few minutes of observation, begin enhancing the out breath by adding a whispered sound, the sound ‘ahh’. Let the sound escape through slightly parted lips, almost like a sigh – you are letting go of the breath, not forcing it out; think of the contrast between letting air out of a balloon and the effort of blowing it up.

Think of your out breath as having length; imagine your breath moving along the whole length of your spine.

After half a dozen whispered ‘ahh’ sounds, turn your attention to your in
breath. It will already be more natural and efficient as a result of your more complete out breath, but enhance it further by noticing your ribs (the complete span, including the ribs in your back and sides) moving out towards your elbows, like sails caught in the wind. Again, you are allowing this to happen and not forcing anything.

Taken from : The Busy Body - Stress Free Posture

Most of us have evolved complicated sets of habits around everyday activities. Bending and straightening actions are probably the most revealing of these habits. People do not use their knees enough! Keep this in mind when approaching even apparently innocuous activities such as writing a cheque at a supermarket checkout – how many of them have a writing
surface at a level which does not involve you having to lower your own height? It may seem strange at first but it is more natural and graceful to do a semi squat rather than a bend from the waist.

Every change of height is an opportunity to practise keeping yourself flexible.

CHAPTER 13. DON’T HOLD YOUR BREATH
THE PROBLEM
Breathlessness, fatigue, feeling of remoteness, light-headedness, poor circulation? These can all be caused by bad breathing habits. When we conduct workshops, the two ideas people most readily relate to are sitting badly and not breathing properly.

THE EXERCISE
You can work on this exercise either sitting or lying down. Lying in a semi-supine position (see Chapter 4) is ideal because your ribs are otentially
at their most relaxed in this position.

Taken from : The Busy Body - Stress Free Posture

Heels down, knees away from each other. If you have been following the chapters of this book in sequence, you will find these ideas familiar by now. When you are lifting anything, including your own body, your legs do the work. If you become unbalanced through your weight being too far forward onto your toes, your lower back is likely to go into spasm to protect itself as it is made to perform an action that is potentially damaging.

When standing up, tightening the lower back is such a compulsive habit that most of us are not even aware when we are doing it. Exercise 1 helps us to become aware of what we are doing to ourselves and to relearn an apparently simple action. We are also reminding ourselves that lifting does not just involve other objects – it also means ourselves. See Chapter 6 for more on this.

In Exercise 2, we find that if we are trying to lift ourselves through our toes, our legs are bound to tighten. The result is that our back will also be tense. There is no need for this – the action can be undertaken in a much less stressful and less energy-wasting fashion. The exercise also demonstrates that poised movements feel more secure. We could stop at any moment in this exercise without feeling off-balance.

Exercise 3 encourages you to use that funny pair of hinges halfway up your legs. Use those knees! It also highlights the danger that the nearer the object, the more likely you are to take potentially damaging short cuts. This applies to any activity which involves losing height. Squatting into such tasks is not only ergonomically appropriate, it also keeps your hips mobile. Many people become stiff in their hips partly because they keep their legs tense instead of using their knees when bending.

Taken from : The Busy Body - Stress Free Posture

As you descend, your body pivots slightly at the hips to allow you to reach forwards between your knees and pick up the book. Your weight always remains principally down through your heels and the weight of your back falls behind the line of your hips.

Pick up the book and reverse the action to stand up: think of the string on the crown of your head taking you up, and your weight moving down through your heels and not forward onto your toes. As you straighten your legs, think of your tailbone dropping, as you practised in Exercise 1. Your head, neck and back stay relaxed and lengthening throughout.

Now for the second book. In many ways this is trickier because of our preconceptions; it requires you to make a revised visual judgement as to how you perform the action.

Once you have gauged that the book is out of reach – however marginally – perform a minisquat to lower your body and enable yourself to pick up the book. This way, you are using your legs to do the work and keeping your  spine free from unnecessary tension. It avoids the maladroit regime of a jutting-out chin, bending from the waist and legs held stiffly to keep you balanced, which is potentially damaging and looks ungainly.

Taken from : The Busy Body - Stress Free Posture

Take two books and place one of them on the floor. Place the other on the seat of a chair so that it is just below your reach. Approach the book on the floor and stand as close as possible – we usually stand too far away from the object we are going to pick up.

Place your feet farther apart - you will almost certainly have instinctively stood with your feet too close together. You don’t have to square up to the book, the most important factor is the distance between your heels.

Think of the imaginary string from the crown of your head keeping your head balanced and neck long, then begin to go into a squat. Make sure that you keep your feet fully in contact with the floor, the weight of your body dropping down through your heels and not transferring too much onto your toes. If, as you squat, your heels come off the ground, your feet are probably too close together. Move them farther apart and start again. If you are wearing shoes with pronounced heels, take them off.

Taken from : The Busy Body - Stress Free Posture

This is the critical point – the start of the action. If your right knee pulls inwards as you bring your foot up, this is an indication of unnecessary tension and effort. In which case, repeat the action, thinking of releasing the tension in your upper leg as you lift your foot.

(Practising this action until you can lift your foot without tensing your knee inwards is beneficial in itself. It is a habitbreaker.)

Place your foot – the whole length of your foot, not just the ball of your foot – onto the stair. Take a step upwards with the weight of your body going down principally through your right heel. (If the tread of the stairway is too narrow to allow this, find another staircase.)

Continue up the staircase being conscious of:
– the imaginary string taking you upwards from the crown of your head
– weight going down through your heels
– your knees drifting outwards from the centre line of your body.

Coming down again:
Avoid the mistake of thrusting your head and neck forwards in order to look at the stairs. Instead, hinge forwards slightly from the hips.

Toes and then heel contact each step as you lower yourself downstairs. Keep in mind that your weight goes mainly down through your heels and keep thinking up (remember the imaginary string on the crown of your head). Don’t forget those knees drifting away from each other.

Progress seems slow at first but your posture is very secure and you will be doing far less work as a result.

Taken from : The Busy Body - Stress Free Posture

Come to a halt and, as slowly as possible, reverse the move. The weight of your body should again be in your heels. Be aware of your contact with
the wall. You are using the wall as a reference point to check if your lower back is tensing as you bring yourself back into a fully standing position.

Especially at the last moment – as you are about to stand fully – use the wall to help you resist the temptation to tighten and arch away from the wall.
Keep your back in contact with the wall. This may cause your legs to tremble slightly but as you get used to standing without tensing, the trembling will cease.

Exercise 2:
Find a flight of stairs where you can work on this exercise undisturbed. Stand at the foot of the stairs. Think of a string taking the crown of your
head upwards.

Feel the weight of your body principally through your heels. Shift your weight slightly to transfer it onto your left leg. Keeping your head balanced,
neck and back aligned, and without any forward lurch of your spine, bring your right foot up and place it on the first step.

Taken from : The Busy Body - Stress Free Posture

THE PROBLEM
Lifting anything – whether heavy or not – is a health and safety issue. You may already have suffered the consequences of lifting inappropriately;
backache, muscle spasms, a slipped disc. In this chapter we will look at lifting objects, including the way that you do so when the only object you
have to lift is yourself.

THE EXERCISES
Exercise 1:
This exercise will help you learn to bend and straighten without tightening your lower back. Find a clear wall and stand with your feet 5 to 8 cm from it. Lean back so that the wall supports you. Your feet should be hip-width apart, hands dropping by your sides, head balanced and neck lengthening (but both head and neck clear of the wall).

Lower yourself down the wall into a shallow squat – you will not be descending very far, perhaps 10 cm at most. Think of your knees gently
buckling to allow you to slide down the wall. Do not force anything. The
weight of your body should be mainly down through your heels. If you find your back is losing contact with the wall, it is because you are tensing your lower back and arching your spine. If this happens, halt your descent, release the tension and lean back into the wall before continuing.

Taken from : The Busy Body - Stress Free Posture