Why My Back Always Hurts
Who Hasn’t Found Themselves in a Whacked Out Position Like This? You may not even notice how you are sitting. You are lost in conversation, focused on work, watching a movie, or just plain spaced out. Then you notice your neck is killing you or your back is stiff, or you ache everywhere. The problem […]
Save Your Organs
Save Your Organs If you’re like me, the photo above makes you wince because you know exactly how sore her neck, back and shoulders are going to be. Who hasn’t found themselves collapsed over some electronic device, or while working on an art project, or watching TV, and then felt the effects? Take a second […]
Being a Poser Doesn’t Work
Posers. Personally, when I was in junior high and high school, I was continually changing my idea of how I should look and what poses and postures I should display. I wanted to be appealing and be liked but how to achieve that popularity was a moving target. In those days, I truly thought I […]
Avoid Falling At All Costs
Just looking at this image terrifies me. I have fallen and it did not have a happy ending. Mike and I were in Paris in the late fall (that word!) of 2018. We arrived mid-day and to enjoy the beauties of Paris we took a walk through the Luxembourg Gardens. At dusk, we walked toward […]
Oh No — More Awareness
In my last blog, (link ) I described how I became aware of a new discomfort in my inner left thigh while getting into my car, and how that discomfort motivated me to wake up and pay attention. I can report that paying attention worked. First, I decided to slow down in general, so I wasn’t […]
My Trip to Being Aware
In the last two months, I spent a lot of time in San Francisco, repeatedly parking on a street that looks something like this: I began to notice that when I got in the car I felt an irritation on the inside of my left leg close to my pelvis. But I had other, more […]
The Secret About Sciatica
The Mayo Clinic Health Letter (Vol 40 No 11), November 2022, concludes that the cause of sciatica is too much sitting: “Our spines weren’t designed for us to be sitting for hours at a time.” (It’s a paid subscription so I can’t provide a link.) Upon reading this I hear myself shout, “It’s not sitting, […]
Bring Walking Awareness to Vacuuming
A friend from long ago, Dr.David Shlim, wrote a memoir about his remarkable life. It’s titled A Gentle Rain of Compassion. For 16 years he served as the Medical Director for a Travel Medical Center in Kathmandu, Nepal. He has had so many other accomplishments and adventures you might want to read the book yourself. […]
Learn to See and Imitate Safe Bending
Here are two men doing similar tasks while power cleaning an artificial pond. They both bend forward to work. But that’s where the similarity ends. One of these men is practicing safe bending, and the other isn’t. One of them will tire sooner than the other, and he’s much more likely to feel back […]
Gravity Is the Healer
This photo, from the March 2022 Rotary magazine, tells the story of Balance*. Two men carry similar loads of hand sanitizers in Bangladesh. One man looks burdened, and the other looks carefree. The man in the foreground is out of Balance. He curves forward. His load pushes him downward. Pressure from his misaligned spine and […]