Because breathing is automatic, we don't always notice HOW we breathe.  Becoming a better breather is key to oxygen delivery, nervous system regulation, core movement and stability.  If the diaphragm is not moving well neither is the ribcage or the core canister.  You have got to move it to use it!​

• Core Breathing
• Oxygen Advantage
• Buteyko Breathing

Our posture is created by our emotional states and how we move and present ourselves in the world.  Become more aware of unnecessary tensions that are affecting our postural state.

• ​Feldenkrais Lessons: Posture for Life
• Alexander Technique: 5 tips for standing posture
• Katy Bowman of Nutritious Movement: Lower your risk of injury with proper alignment

I am sharing a home program circuit of some of my favorite moves to decrease tension in the back.  The emphasis here is to release the back extensors through breath, positioning and recriprocal inhibition (contracting  the abdominal flexors to relax the back extensors).

We live our lives in automatic.  How can we bring more presence to our lives in order to optimize nervous system signaling and therefore appropriate cues for the health of each system of the body.  

• Understand and tend to the nervous system: Predictive Processing -Why expectation matters for movement and pain, Befriending your nervous system (50% off right now!),  Learn to repair your nervous system.
• Mindfulness and Stress Reduction: Online programs with Tara Brach, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction
• Lifestyle Habits: Be True- Discover your core values and live your life on purpose (if you go to SoulSalt's IG page you can find the Black Friday/Cyber Monday code for 50% off),  Hire a Wellness Coach

There are 2 words that I use in almost every session with a client: fascia and flow.  We want our fascial system to be fluid: mobile, hydrated, elastic, adaptable.  Beyond its most common function of providing our body's structural support, new research has shown the many roles of fascia:

• supports our sensory nerves and proprioception
• assists our body in metabolic functions
• defends our body against bacteria and other organisms
• helps cells transport nutrients to other cells
• houses cells that assist in tissue repair

There are different categories of fascia that I will not dive into, but you can read more about them in this blog about Understanding Fascia.  Holding patterns and tensions in the fascial system can be a major contributor to pain and health.

I have been reading the book, My Grandmother's Hands by Resmaa Menakem.  This book "is a call to action for Americans to recognize that racism is not only about the head, but also about the body.  Menakem introduces an alternative view of what we can do to grow beyond our entrenched racialized divide and takes readers through a step-by-step healing process based on the latest neuroscience and somatic healing methods." Quote from the back cover of the book.

​I have been taking time with the second part of Menakem's book, which is titled "Remembering Ourselves".  He says, "The place to begin the all-important healing of trauma is with the body.  Your body.  Each of our bodies."  He provides body and breathing practices to get to know, experience and understand the body.  I have been enjoying these practices and have incorporated some of the ways to settle into a movement practice.  The movement sequences shared below bring in novel ways to move the spinal chain and mobilize the joints.  "Sometimes trauma energy can get stuck in the joints," Manakem states.  The momentum and rotations can help to release the energy and reduce the tension along the kinetic chain. 

We take breathing for granted: I am alive, therefore I am breathing well.  Unfortunately, this is just not true.  Almost everyone could benefit from breathing better.  When it comes to getting out of pain, or healing the core from abdominal wall separation to leaking urine, the first step to improved function is to learn how to breathe better.  Breathing better doesn't mean taking big breaths, in fact, breathing better means breathing slow, low & less.  If you want to dive into the depths of why its important to breathe slow and less check out these books:

• Oxygen Advantage
• Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art

In my practice, I like to work with the body wholistically.  From this wholistic lens, how we move and use our body in the day to day affects the health of our tissues and systems. Habits that are repeated day in and day out can become a "tax" on the tissues and systems.  A VERY common habit that I see in our bodies is breath holding.  Chronic breath holding increases internal pressure and stresses the nervous, hormonal and immune systems.  Over time, this can impair physical and psychological (our brains consume 20 % of the body's oxygen supply) function.  

Observe yourself over the next few days to notice if you breath hold.  If you do, when does it happen?  Typically people breath hold with transitions such as getting out of bed/chair, bending, lifting & reaching.  People also tend to hold with multi-tasking such as cooking, gardening, house cleaning.  Breath holds happen when thinking, or concentrating such as writing a letter, putting on make up, or learning a new skill.  We want to be able to experience every moment of our daily life with our breath steady and paced to meet the task at hand.  Breath holding is a sign of stress and living life on automatic!
Being in the present moment is the way out of breath holding!

• You can't talk and hold your breath at the same time (really, you can't) so sing or hum while cooking dinner or cleaning, etc.
•  To prevent the tendency to breath hold with transitions such as getting out of bed/chair, bending, lifting & reaching: count out loud to 10 throughout the task, or you could just exhale on the effort phase of the movement.
• Pair a task that you do often throughout the day with breathing "low, slow and less": while you wash your hands, paused at a stop light, picking up the kids toys from the floor, etc.
• Simply just notice.  When you are  _______  can you find your breath and let that be your anchor to whatever you are doing.

Below I share 2 drills to connect you to your core.  The silent breathing is great to find the slow, low and less.  The Exhalation drill is a great way to bring in the expansion and contraction of your abdomino-thoracic cylinder!

​Susan McLaughlin is a physical therapist who specializes in the management of pelvic floor and orthopedic dysfunctions. She is the owner of ALIGN integration|movement in Salt Lake City, UT.  Helpful tips and other self care strategies can be found at www.alignforhealth.com.

Link to Anatomy in Motion's, Wake your body up!

Unfortunately, many of us don’t grow up in a nurturing environment.  But as Bruce Lipton says in his book,  “...when the environment was less than optimal, the cells faltered.  When I adjusted the environment, these ‘sick’ cells revitalized.”  As adults we can change the signals to optimize the environment for growth.  Environment and behavior CAN change your life!
When I began my healing journey years ago, I asked myself:  How can I create an environment to allow my cells to be vital and healthy?
In my own personal quest, I have directed my focus on creating an optimal environment for my wellbeing through wellness practices, alignment principles and healing my childhood wounds.  Consistent practice of relaxation techniques, postural alignment, and observation of my movement habits laid the foundation for me to be more efficient in the use of my body, and in that, I was able to come out of 10 years of chronic low back and sacroiliac pain.  Now that I have been out of pain, I continue to nurture my health and healing on a daily basis.
Here are some suggestions to optimize your environment for wellbeing:

• Stand more and sit less
• Get good sleep
• Hydrate/water: At least half of your body weight in ounces
• Notice your habits: change those that aren't serving you and continue the habits that enhance
• Hug/touch
• Limit alcohol, caffeine and processed foods
• Meditate
• Walk/Move/Exercise
• Laugh/sing
• Receive body work: massage, acupuncture, chiropractic, physical therapy 
• Engage in therapies: EMDR,  SE, RET, Feldenkrais

References: 
1. Lipton, B (2005). The Biology of Belief. Santa Rosa, CA: Elite Books.
2.  ​Powledge, T. (2011) Behavioral Epigenetics: How Nurture Shapes Nature BioScience 61: 588-592.

Healing the nervous system is a process.  We have many layers to support and unfold.  These five tools above can get you started.  I look forward to support you on your healing journey.

One of the first tools I go over with clients is to reeducate proper breathing mechanics.  Most of the clients that I work with have pain or are wanting assistance to heal from leaking urine, prolapse or abdominal wall separation.  Getting movement in the core system and regulating the nervous system are top priority for healing, therefore, breathing is the bridge between the range of motion of the core team AND the ANS.  For most of us, breathing is unconscious, and we have developed strategies to just get by, such as shallow breathing, open mouth breathing, shoulder and neck breathing, etc.  In order to heal, we need to get out of a habitual pattern, change the loads, get better oxygen and carbon dioxide balance in order for the blood to deliver the oxygen molecule to the tissues.

Polyvagal analogy of the traffic light:

• Green is the safety zone: our social engagement system.  our heart rate slows, digestion activates, facial muscles are responsive,  eyes are soft and able to make contact, hearing is turned on.
• Yellow is the danger zone:  our heart rate increases, pain increases, muscles are mobilized for movement, flat facial affect, the middle ear is turned off in order to hear lower threat tones.
• Red is the life threat zone: our system goes into freeze/immobilization.  This zone leads to metabolic shut down.

A healthy autonomic nervous system is fluid, bouncing between the green and yellow zone.  

As humans we are wired to connect.  We need to have connection and safety to build a healthy nervous system. If you watched Seth's video above, you now have a deeper understanding of this.  Because the nervous system is so subtle, and because many of us have had "bad stuff/trauma" happen to us, (we can be stuck in a freeze state or amped up into hyperarousal, or stuck in both states) we don't always "get" this understanding of how important it is to heal at a nervous system level.  The still face experiment exemplifies what happens to the nervous system and subsequent behavior when connection and safety is withheld.  

The above video can be hard to watch.  In just 3 minutes of non responsiveness from the mother, the child turns her head and body away; she withdraws with a hopeless expression on her face.  To use the traffic light example, in the beginning we see activation of the green light, then mom becomes non responsive, the child escalates to the yellow light and when mom continues not to respond, the child collapses into the red light.  Fortunately, this was an experiment, and mom comes back to engage and repair to green light.

Our nervous system impacts our entire well being: emotionally, relationally, mentally and physically.  Common signs of dysregulation: depression, anxiety, numbed out, brain fog/can't concentrate, procrastination/resistance, chronic pain, gut issues, headaches, severe PMS, autoimmune disorders, hormone issues, pain, etc.  You may also find yourself continually getting injured or wanting to take your exercise to the next level and you end up hurting your back (knee, shoulder, foot, etc), or you keep going to the chiropractor and they tell you that you aren't holding your adjustments or you look in the mirror and notice that your body rests in rotation (one shoulder is higher or your head slightly tilts, etc).   We all have layers and layers of "stuff" that has happened to us over the years, some more than others.  By acknowledging that this "stuff" is held in our nervous system (and thus, our organs and connective tissues) we can start to become more vital by reconnecting & regulating our nervous system.  As Seth mentions in the video above, breath is key to mediating the autonomic nervous system.  In my next blog I will explore some breathing options to facilitate a relaxation response. 
If you are interested in learning how to be more ALIVE in your body, there are some great books and online programs available to get started:

• Somatopia: this program is super affordable. It is a good place to start if you are completely new to the mind- body connection.  It goes over some of the foundational concepts and beginning techniques.
• 21 Day Nervous System Tune Up: this is a more thorough self study program that offers a great Facebook support group.  It has explanations of the neuroscience and plenty of neurosensory exercises to keep you busy.
• Crappy Childhood Fairy: to be honest, I haven't taken this course, but I am impressed by what I see on her videos.  She is not a therapist, or a health care provider, she is someone who had a "crappy childhood" and spent years in therapy.  It wasn't until she started working with the nervous system dysregulation that she started to heal.  Her program is based on the tools that she used to heal.
• "The Body Keeps the Score", Bessel Van Der Kolk
• "Healing Trauma: A Pioneering Program for Restoring the Wisdom in Your Body", Peter Levine