Prevent Back Pain While Driving

When you suffer from back pain, sitting in a car for hours can make it much worse. Even people who don’t normally endure lower back discomfort, can begin to experience it on a long car trip. However, by planning ahead and taking a few precautions, much of this back pain can be reduced or sometimes even prevented. Here are a few tips and ideas to help prevent back pain while driving or riding in a car.

Get Comfortable Immediately. When you first get into your car, make sure that you are sitting comfortably. Especially if you already have some back discomfort, sitting in an uncomfortable position will worsen the feeling.

Change Your Seat Position. Most of today’s cars have seats that place the driver’s pelvis lower than the driver’s knees. For most people, this makes a more comfortable chair. However, sitting in this position adds extra pressure on the tailbone. This pressure can be relieved by raising your seat so that your pelvis is parallel to your knees, or even slightly higher. If your seat is unable to move this way, you a wedge shaped cushion can help provide the same lower back pain relief.

Lumbar Support. If you have a long drive or lower back discomfort, you can take a small towel, roll it up and use it as a lumbar support. This can help relieve some pressure during a long trip.

Take Frequent Breaks and Stretch. You can go from rest stop to rest stop if you need to. At each stop, get out and stretch or exercise a bit. Walking helps to get your blood flowing again and will also help keep you awake. It is also very important to stretch your hamstrings. While sitting for extended periods of time, your hamstrings get shortened and tighter. Stretch them gently to relieve some tightness and help your lower back.

Trade off Driving When Possible. If you are driving with a partner, you can trade off driving so the other can relax and stretch. If you need to, go into the back seat and either lie down to rest, or you can stretch your legs out.

The most important thing to keep in mind, is to be aware that you have an issue and think through some things before you leave on a longer trip. It mostly comes down to common sense, but try to pack whatever back support items you may need and leave extra time so you can get out and walk around or stretch if needed.

Find another great resource for ways to prevent and relieve back pain while driving here.

This article originally appeared on relaxobak.com

Alignment is More than Just Good Posture

Remember when you were growing up and your mom (or your annoying aunt) would always correct you about your posture? “Stand up straight.” “Don’t slouch.” “Shoulders back.” Well, it was right… sort of. Body alignment is important. It affects many aspects of your health. But proper body alignment is more than just good posture.

Proper body alignment can help with body mechanics. That means it helps your body moves in a way that’s smart, efficient and with less risk of injury. In other words, body alignment will keep your body moving, sitting, standing, working, exercising, and being active for a long time. Proper alignment is very important, not only for your back, but for your overall health as well.

Proper body alignment helps the major systems in your body work better: digestive system, respiratory system, nervous system, immune system and more. In other words, everything runs better when the body is aligned.

Body alignment is important when exercising. Body alignment prevents injuries and balances how your muscle groups work. Also, when you are in alignment, you use less energy for any movement and put less stress on the joints. When movements are done from poor alignment position, there is greater wear and tear on joints and  greater is the risk of injury.

How to help body alignment.

Work on posture. Train yourself to recognize Neutral Spine Position—it’s when the pelvis, rib cage and skull are aligned on top of each other.  Instead of thinking of “standing up straight with your shoulders back” imagine being suspended from a string from the top of your head and all the other parts of the spine are suspended from the same string. When in neutral spine position, all 3 curves of the spine (cervical, thoracic and lumbar) are aligned and in natural balance. When you’re in this position, every movement activates from the core muscles.

You can find neutral spine position by practicing a basic relaxation exercise from the floor. You will eventually be able to recognize it while standing, sitting, reclining or moving.

Maintain a healthy weight. Excess weight puts additional stress on the joints and muscles.

Avoid certain body positions and movements. Having a slumped forward head posture, twisting from the spine to a point of strain, reaching for anything too far out from the body, bending from the waist to lift things or reach for things.

Exercise regularly with a program that promotes and builds core stabilization.

• Squats, planks, push-ups, lunges can help strengthen your core. These should be done slowly and with attention to proper alignment. You may want to work with an exercise coach if you are not familiar with proper alignment and are new to an exercise program. Be sure to get approval from your doctor before starting any new exercise or stretching program.
• Practice yoga which helps stretch the muscles, but also strengthens the core (and all major muscle groups). Most yoga classes are available for a wide range of fitness levels. Choose one that is appropriate for you.
• Consider taking up Tai Chi, which emphasizes breathing and slow, balanced movements.
• Try a class in Pilates, which also helps with body alignment and core strengthening. It was developed by Joseph Pilates, who overcame a sickly childhood and later did physical training with WWI soldiers who were recovering from injury.

Remember, all of these exercises can help with body alignment and strengthening your core. But not all exercises are good for everyone. People who have had spinal fusion or a slipped disk should be especially careful with any exercises and confer with their doctor.

This article originally appeared on relaxobak.com

Mapping Emotions in the Body Yields Consistent Global Results

Emotions manifest themselves as sensations in the body. While anxiety is often accompanied by a tight feeling in the chest, love may elicit a warm feeling throughout the body. But now, a new study from researchers in Finland reveals that perceptions of these sensations are consistently similar around the world, suggesting an underlying biological basis.

The researchers, from Aalto University, published the results of their study in the journal Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences.

They note that emotions adjust not only our mental state, but also our bodily sensations.

In five experiments conducted online, the researchers showed over 700 participants - who were from Finland, Sweden and Taiwan - two silhouettes of bodies next to words, stories, movies or facial expressions that evoked emotions.

The participants were asked to color regions of the body where they felt activity was increasing or decreasing as they viewed each stimulus.

Results show that the most common emotions - including anger, fear, disgust, happiness, sadness, anxiety and love - produce strong sensations in the body, but the location for these sensations varies for different emotions.

For example, happiness triggered warm sensations throughout the whole body, whereas pride only activated the upper body, including the head and chest.

Interestingly, these sensations were consistently similar across the different cultures - West European and East Asian - which the researchers say suggests there is a biological basis for emotions and their corresponding sensations in the body.

Study participants consistently shaded the same body areas to indicate activation linked to certain emotions. Here, hot colors represent activated regions, whereas cool colors represent deactivated ones.
Image credit: Lauri Nummenmaa, Enrico Glerean, Riitta Hari and Jari Hietanen.

'Potential biomarker for emotional disorders'

Assistant Prof. Lauri Nummenmaa, from Aalto University, says that awareness of these corresponding changes in the body could bring about conscious emotional sensations, such as feeling happy.

In their conclusions, the researchers write:

"Monitoring the topography of emotion-triggered bodily sensations brings forth a unique tool for emotion research and could even provide a biomarker for emotional disorders."

They add that their findings have major implications for understanding the function of emotions in the body:

"We propose that emotions are represented in the somatosensory system as culturally universal categorical somatotopic maps. Perception of these emotion-triggered bodily changes may play a key role in generating consciously felt emotions."

Research for the study was funded by the European Research Council (ERC), the Academy of Finland and Aalto University.

Medical News Today recently reported on a study that suggested performance anxiety is better helped by telling yourself, "I'm excited," rather than "I am calm."

The researchers suggested this technique works because anxiety and excitement are emotional states that are both characterized by high arousal, and they are therefore more closely related.

This article originally appeared on medicalnewstoday.com and is written by Marie Ellis.

What Your Body Tells You About Your Emotional (Mental) State

Bruce Lipton, a leading development biologist who believes that genes and DNA can be manipulated by our beliefs is not the only brilliant mind to propose such a mind-bending idea. In fact, he says that our DNA and cells do not control our health, our emotions do. Yogis have known for centuries that what we think and feel affects the physical body. It is one of the foundational components of almost any yogic path. Utilizing the teachings of our farthest reaching wisdom traditions and the newest biological advances, we can learn how to look at the body for signs of its deepest, darkest challenges.

The Human Genome Project Was a Failure

Scientists were hoping to map out more than 100,000 genes when studying the human genome, in order to find disease markers, and therefore prevent them, but only 25,000 genes were discovered, and ‘junk’ DNA is still a totally mystery to most scientists. Even more interesting is the fact that you can entirely remove the nucleus of a cell and its DNA and it will still function. Contrary to what was once believed, the cell’s nucleus is not its brain. If, however, you destroy the cell membrane, then the cell dies because it can no longer interact with other cells. Are our cells telling us something about how we interact with the world as a whole?

Through his passionate research, Bruce Lipton discovered that, “The cell membrane is a liquid crystal semi conductor with gates and channels.” He also said in Biology of Belief that, ‘our cells are like programmable personal computers.” That means consciousness, namely our emotional state, can lead to some pretty profound changes in the body.

“The major crisis of the human race is not of raising our IQs, it is one of elevating our WILL quotients. We must will ourselves to happiness, and thereby experience true health.”

Our Physical Bodies Alert Us to Emotional States

Maybe it seems strange that we should look at our bodies for evidence of an emotion, after all, don’t we just feel something like anger, pain, frustration, fear, guilt, etc. when it happens? We don’t need to look at the body to understand an emotion, or do we? It’s not always that simple. Our emotions are intertwined with how we get our needs met from a very young age, so, if you weren’t ever allowed to be ‘angry’ even in situations where this would be a natural emotion, then instead of that anger being felt and expressed, and properly released, it becomes waylaid by the conscious mind. Instead, it is seen as ‘wrong’ and then pushed down into the subconscious mind so that you can ‘deal with it later.’

We can do this temporarily quite well, such as when we learn to hold our tongue when having a disagreement, and due to respect or love, or societal pressures, we choose to communicate our feelings at a later time, when they feel less charged. The problem is that when we push emotions down too long, the subconscious mind will start saying ‘hey, you’ve got some stuff to deal with down here.’

Neuropeptides Lead the Game

Every time you think a thought there is probably emotion attached to it. Perhaps it is positive, perhaps negative, but rarely, is it neutral. With every charged thought you think, miniscule neuropeptides, or chemical proteins trigger a specific physiological response to try to keep your overall system in homeostatis. Examples of neuropeptides are endorphins like the ones released when you have sex or go for a jog, and other hormones, like oxytocin, the natural ‘love’ drug, adrenaline, the natural drug of excitement and fear, cortisol, the hormone of stress, and so on. There are dozens of these neuropeptides being released at any given moment.

Whatever your most consistent emotional state is, then, that is also what chemical cocktail being released into your body, and thereby shapes your physical features. The more prolonged the emotional state is experienced, the more profound the changes can be visually

“Never get angry for anger poisons your system.” – Paramahansa Yogananda

Anger Causes High Cholesterol and Happiness Helps You Live Longer

Scientists have now been able to measure emotions, including their physiological response on the body. For example, anger causes higher cholesterol levels and a faster resting heart rate. Prolonged sadness can cause depression, which leads to a depleted immune system. But how do we ‘wear’ these emotions on the physical body?

Emotions, like any other thought, have a vibrational frequency. Emotions of peace, love, excitement, serenity, joy and thankfulness are of a higher vibration and emotions of anger, fear, and sadness hold lower vibrations. Lipton’s work talks in depth about how emotions can even affect DNA.

Part of the reason that emotions affect us so significantly is because the heart emits a stronger electro-magnetic force than the brain, so even if you are intellectually editing yourself, your true emotions are still being broadcast throughout the body, and arguably, beyond it. The brain entrains with the heart, and not vice versa. The brain becomes coherent with the vibration of the heart. It may sound shocking but recent studies show that depression causes more heart disease than smoking! Depressed people even have stickier blood platelets, so they are more likely to ‘die of a broken heart.’

Observing the Body for Emotional Patterns

As a rule, the left side of the body reflects what has happened to you and how you respond emotionally to your past.  The right side of the body will often display what your emotions are about your future. The front side of the body is the emotional self you present to the world; obvious in your facial features, your posture, etc. Your back side will reflect emotions that you don’t want to deal with or expose to other people. Unexpressed or sublimated emotions will get ‘stuck’ in your back, shoulders, calves, etc. When too many negative emotions are stuffed away where you can’t see them, or feel them, they can cause the body to come out of balance.

Chinese medicine agrees that emotions can create stagnation in the energy of the body, leading to issues with the spleen, heart, kidneys, liver, bladder, gallbladder, etc. They usually categorize the emotions into seven distinct areas – grief, sorrow, worry, fear, joy, anger and fright.  Following are some more general rules about how emotions display in the physical body:

Your head hurts, or your brow is often furrowed: This means you need to stop ignoring your intuition and trust what your ‘higher self’ is trying to tell you about a situation or person. Basically, you need to pay attention to your gut. A pain in the back of the head, instead of the forehead means you haven’t forgiven yourself for perceived faults or past mistakes.

Nearsightedness or Farsightedness: This means you have trouble ‘seeing things clearly.’ Farsighted folks often pine away for the future and nearsighted folks can’t seeing anything but the nose on their own faces. Seeing the here and now accurately is difficult for either person with sight issues. Meditation is one way to offload emotions that cause you to feel uncomfortable in the here and now.

Hearing Problems are similar – it may mean you are tuning out.

Our mouths are associated with our expression of sensuality. If you have lost your taste, it can literally mean you have disconnected from reality because it ‘leaves a bad taste in your mouth.’ This part of the body is also connected with the second chakra, or Swadhistana, which governs all the sexual organs. If you can’t experience pleasure without guilt or over-indulge in sexual gratification, it will also lead to pursed lips or an unattractive mouth.

Your neck and shoulders support the head, but are also the gateway between the head and heart – or the Anahata Chakra (Heart Chakra) and Ajna Chakra (Pineal Gland Center). Issues with the throat, and neck, or tightness in the shoulders may mean you are having a hard time integrating mental acuity and tempering it with compassion. If you are overly intellectual, you may have shoulder and neck problems.  This is the most narrow part of the body between the torso and head, and therefore, a place that easily gets congested energetically. Yoga poses like Matsyasana (Fish Pose) and Halasana (Plow Pose) can help to release blockages here, and the emotions that are stored without conscious awareness.

The Arms and Hands are how you reach out to others. Any stagnation of positive emotion regarding extending yourself to others can manifest as physical symptoms here.

An enclosed and protected heart often means you hunch over and have a constricted chest and lungs. If you have a hard time expressing love or accepting love from others, you will possibly have blockages in your chest, lungs and heart.

There are all kinds of physical issues that can appear based on the health of your spine. Since the spine literally supports your body, ailments regarding the spinal column often reflect feelings of non-support or lack of love. Pain in the mid-back is associated to deficiency in the stomach liver, gallbladder, adrenals, and reproductive organs. Issues with the lower back are connected to the hips, large intestine, immune system, bladder, and kidneys. Childhood trauma that hasn’t been dealt with properly often manifests in lower back problems.

There are literally dozens of other ways that your emotions show on your body, and as recent, paradigm-shifting evidence is showing, feeling happy, calm, and free are the best ways to change not only your health, but your physical appearance. Happiness is better even than plastic surgery, and certainly better than chemotherapy or pharmaceuticals at keeping you profoundly alive and healthy.

While we can’t nor should stuff our emotions down, including negative ones, we can learn to control them and shift our attention to positive feelings as often as possible to dramatically change our bodies – right down to our DNA.

This article originally appeared on wakingtimes.com and is written by Christina Sarich.