Santa Cruz Chiropractor - Dr. Sylvia Skefich

As a continuation of last month’s article, here are some more tips on how to maintain your fullest abilities, flexibility and strength, even as you age.

Postural Exercises:

Many activities of life (computer workstations, desk work and labor) can be affecting your posture. Muscles, like braces on teeth, can move bones over time. If we inadvertently create a muscle balance that leads to bad alignment of the bones, problems can develop; Bad posture can lead to pressure on organs, and decreased circulation to the head and arms. Bad posture will overwork and bring pain to the muscles groups that try to keep things straight for us. (That pain between the shoulder blades? Usually due to a head-forward posture.). The cure?... activities that help strike a balance. Trying to sit up or stand straight just doesn’t work. Activities such as yoga, tai chi and chi gong, walking, and specific postural exercises especially, will actually tone the system of muscles that hold us up straight and will make positive changes to your skeletal alignment.

Meditation:

This one brings more space to your life thereby decreasing stress. Stress is known to lead to many physical ailments as well as chronic tension in the body. Stress affects your physical form (via the muscles pulling and moving your bones), and your chemical makeup which affects every tissue in your body. You may say you don’t have time to meditate. Here is a secret, known to those who do: A regular meditation practice creates space in your life. It is as though the practice adds spacer bars between each thought, and activity. You will feel that you have more time in each day, and that you can accomplish a lot more than if you did not meditate regularly. I have found that even 10 minutes (of actual meditation) makes a difference. Simply concentrate on your breath, and when you find yourself thinking (because you will think), just silently say “Thinking!” in a friendly way to yourself, and go back to your breath.

Breathing:

Many people do not have the capacity to fully expand their breath due to lack of practice. The trunk stiffens, and the ribs become fixed. Breath brings oxygen to the blood and also massages the organs. Increased circulation (blood, breath, lymph and spinal fluid) will always lead to increased vitality. Toxins can be lifted and removed and vital nutrients and elements can be circulated. Allow your breath to fully expand in the “down” direction (into the belly). Feel where there restrictions. Even an inability to sense what is going on is a sign of physical restriction. So concentrate on those spots that are hard to concentrate on. Then breath out to the sides, expanding to the right and left simultaneously. Do this down low (at liver level), up higher (at heart level) and up at the armpit level too. Then breath to the front and back simultaneously. Do so low, middle and high. Then do the three directions at once (down, to the sides and to the front and back). Do you feel more vigorous.

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