Hi. The next part of this module is entitled, Postural Strain. Another question for you. Now, we always thought that we only have five senses. You know, you have hearing, sight, smelling, taste, and touch. But isn't there another sense that we're missing? What about the whole idea of proprioceptive sense, and the associated pain with it? Is this the sixth sense that we really have? It is a sensory phenomena. It's designed to help us protect us from repetitive strain. And so, now we're going to talk a little bit about this postural strain that we can have and how it does protect us, this sixth sense. So, really, what is good posture? Well, posture is defined as a body position that balances the musculoskeletal system against gravity. To reduce sustained muscle tension and strain, just like repetitive strain, which is an action. This is really we're trying to protect us from the forces of gravity. Now, good posture is efficient. It really lets you rest pain free in a position with a minimum amount of muscle strain and energy expenditure. It's also quite effective. It facilitates you going, with ongoing activity such as sitting, standing, walking, running and others. And it should be effortless. So, it should allow you to have a quick and easy transition into the next relevant movement. For instance, from sitting to standing. But it's also a number of other things, posture really does make one attractive if you have good posture. And it makes people think you're attentive, you're listening to them, your head's up, you have good eye contact. And it should feel very natural and relaxed. People are, like people with good posture because they do appear relaxed. And then it's not about holding the body still and tense, it's really about balance and relaxation. And it doesn't really require any extra effort or constant attention. It's just something that you should learn to develop in a natural way. When you sit down, you put yourself into a balanced, relaxed posture immediately. So, you're not focused, necessarily, on the task at hand, but how do you sit right when you get up and stand. How do you move into that, that position that is most comfortable, balanced and relaxed? But, it's not really how you look. Really, it's what you feel. So, when you sit down or you lie down or you stand up. It should feel relaxed and comfortable without strain, without pain, so you need to pay attention to your body when you're in different positions. And we know that, from a variety of research studies that good sitting body mechanics can prevent many different pains including back, pelvic pain, knee pain, arm pain, headaches, and hand pain as you can see in this cartoon. And so, sitting posture is very important because we spend so much of our time sitting. What are the characteristics of good posture? Well, first of all you need to make sure that when you sit down that your bottom is all the way to the back of the chair. Usually there is a backrest. And that rest should be at a certain position that allows you to support your mid back. And the reason it supports your mid back against the chair, and I'm going to sit up here, is so you can lean back and your shoulders can then fall back in a natural position. So, your head is up and back. Your shoulders are back and down. And then, of course, your legs should be parallel to the ground, and your chair should not be so high that there's a lot of compression on the, on, on the bottom of the leg. And so, you adjust your chair up and down to allow your legs to be parallel and your knees and feet to be flat on the floor. And your knees should be in line with your hips. And there should be ample leg room beneath the table so that you can move your feet out and in, in order to have a balanced, relaxed posture, and move your legs as you need to. If you continue to sit on your legs and your bottom like this, in one static position, you'll have a decrease in blood flow. And you'll strain the muscles, and that will translate all the way up to your back. So, these are the characteristics of a good sitting posture. Now, what about jaw posture? Well, jaw posture is critical to prevent temple headaches, tension type headaches, which is the most common cause of headache. As well as jaw pain and jaw joint pain, and it does translate into the neck, both the anterior and the posterior of your neck. Now, the four characteristics you need to do is keep the tongue up on against the upper teeth gently resting on the palate and the teeth. The teeth should always be apart. They should not be together right here. In fact, you should never have your teeth together, and even when you're chewing and they only lightly touch, so teeth should always be apart. And then your jaw should be just relaxed, and you can kind of feel it by just putting your hands down, and we'll go through some postural relaxation, relaxation exercises later on. And then your lips can be either closed or opened depending on what you do. But when your tongue is up then you're going to breath through your nasal cavity. And you're going to open up your whole face and you're going to have a better breathing pattern also. So, tongue up, teeth apart, jaw relaxed, lips open or closed. Now, what about the head and neck posture? It's important to realize the head is quite heavy, when it's balanced, right above the spine, it's about 12 pounds. But when you start moving your head forward, it gets a little bit heavier. And then, when you're even further forward, it's even heavier. Now, what has to hold the head up? Well, it's the neck and shoulder muscles. So, what you need to do is make sure that you have a balanced head and neck and shoulder, that where the chin is in, the neck and the chin is in, the shoulders fall back, and the chest is up. So instead of like this, you sit up and your shoulders are back and your head then is naturally positioned over the spine so that it's only 12 pounds. Now, let's also talk about walking posture. Walking is also very important or standing posture. So, here is a before position. You could see the head is forward, the shoulders are bent. The back is bent. And so, you're straining the, the back of the neck, the lower back, you know? As well as the head and neck muscles. And here is the after position. So what you want to do when you're walking is hold your head high. Minimizes strain to the neck and shoulders. Move your shoulders back and forth naturally. Swing your arms. Keep your back straight, not arched forward or backwards, and swing your arms freely with a slight bend in your elbows. You should be looking forward and not right at the ground unless, or course, there's something threatening there. Keep your chin parallel to the ground and gently tighten your stomach muscles. And then walk smoothly, rolling your foot from heel to toe. Now, everybody has their own variation of how to walk, but in general it needs to be an upright posture, swinging your arms and a free-flowing relaxed movements. There's also sleeping posture that's really critical, you spend a good six, eight, nine hours sleeping and if you are sleeping in a static posture that puts strain on any part, particular musculoskeletal area, you will develop pain or tightness when you wake up in the morning. So, sleeping posture is best either on the the back as is shown here or on the side. If it's on your back you want a very small pillow so it doesn't push your head too far up, but it just supports the back of your head and your neck, so that it is at a parallel position to the bed. And then it's also good to use a pillow under your knees so that you can bend your hips slightly, and bend your knees slightly. Now, and if you're sleeping on your side, then it's also good to have a pillow that's slightly thicker so it supports your back of your head right here, and doesn't push your jaw to one side. In addition, it's important for the back to have your hips bent slightly. And your legs to be together. And to avoid having pressure on your knees, it's good to have a little pillow, small pillow, in between your knees when you sleep on the side. So, you're kind of curled up, and your arm can be free here or here, and can move in different positions. It's important not to sleep on your stomach because then you twist your neck, you twist your jaw and you press on, put a significant amount of strain on those areas and your back is also strained in that position too. So, it will add increasing strain to the muscles. So, posture is important. And this is a funny cartoon. I liked it. I thought I'd bring it to, just to show you evolution over time is somewhere, something went terribly wrong as we became upright, then we start going down, more and more equipment, heavier equipment, and finally, we're at this position. So, posture is very important with regard to preventing chronic pain. Thank you. [SOUND] [BLANK_AUDIO]
