Some of us may be finding we are more exhausted at the end of the day than usual. When your body gets used to being hunched over for hours, it can be easy for your fascia and musculature to continue that same posture, even when you’re not in front of a screen. Slouching and other types of poor posture can cause learned muscle tension, as well as back pain, joint pain, and reduced circulation. Our body thinks we need that position to survive, so our fascia gives us what we are asking for - a remodelling of our posture to support what we are spending most of our day doing. Poor posture can even lead to breathing issues and fatigue. This is the main reason we find video time so draining. However, there are many reasons:
🛑 Odds are we are sitting too much
🛑 We have to focus on one spot more intently to take in information - We can’t use our usual in person peripheral-vision social cheats.
🛑 Concentrating hard to hear through our computer speakers causes us to hold our breath
🛑 We are forward bending toward the computer, causing neck kyphosis and rounded shoulders, messing up just about everything in our system
🛑 We don’t receive the same transfer and sharing of communal energy through computers as we do live
Sooooooo... What can we do? 🤷🏻♂️🤷🏽♀️
The first step is to become aware of your posture. We are often so caught up in what we are doing that we forget to notice our postural habits.
So create another habit - check in on your posture many times during your day. Notice how you are sitting, standing, walking. Make corrections whenever you find yourself slouching or hunching your back or shoulders, or pushing your head or neck forward to look at a screen, is a start, but it will not fix the problem. You cannot cause a problem for eight hours a day, and attempt to fix it for 10 times six seconds and day, and expect success. That is not how the brain, muscular, or fascial system works.
The following strategies and exercises, if practiced consistently and correctly, will help.
✅ Lots of backbends, then a few full-body forward bends
✅ Exhale way more – pretend you are blowing out birthday candles once an hour
✅ Groin, hip flexor and glutes stretches
✅ Go for a run – exhale more than usual
✅ Drink more water than usual
✅ Shake your whole body for one minute, three times a day
✅ Standing Bounce from your knees for one minute, three times a day - let your shoulders and jaw move
✅ Reduce non-work (unnecessary) screen time (sorry, Netflix)
✅ Hum on every exhale for 20 minutes a day
✅ Build in more breaks than you usually would – 3 minutes every 20, for instance
✅ Walk outside, tilt your head back and look up – focus on objects far away
✅ Practice eye exercises, try pinhole glasses for 5 minutes, twice a day
✅ Voicecall friends instead – walk around as you are talking to them
✅ If you are able, do some inversions a few times a day
✅ Vigorous exercise - short bursts are just fine
✅ Find ways to laugh - that’s exhaling too!
✅ Sing and Dance like nobody is watching
Remember, this is about replaced and old, unwanted habit with a new, wanted habit. Therefore ten times a day for two minutes is much better than once a day for twenty minutes. We have to constantly remind our body-mind connection what we want. Consistency is the key.
Happy Health!
