Mind Your Backs The new normal

[Music]

last year

in 2020 the way that we live our lives

was completely turned

upside down we were told that we’re not

allowed to go out

go to the gym and for many of us even go

to work

what this has resulted in is most of us

moving our bodies way less than what

we’re used to

and many of us have noticed new aches

and pains

and other problems with our bodies so

what can we do about it

well one option is to sit back

and wait for things to go back to the

way they were before

i don’t really like this option because

history has taught us that

time has a tendency to continue moving

forwards

and not go backwards of course unless

your name is benjamin button

so i think the best option is to

change what we’re doing to suit what’s

going on right now

and put us in the best position going

forward into the future

that’s why i’m here i want to show you

a few tweaks that you can make

to the way that you’re sitting and the

way that you’re sleeping

it’s very simple but it’s highly

effective and to understand

why it’s so effective and why it’s so

important we need to understand a few

key points

so the first concept we have to get our

heads around is

the fact that everything in the body is

connected

from head to toe from top to bottom

inside and out

now i know there’s a lot of you thinking

well duh that’s obvious you only have

one body

but honestly you’d be surprised what i

get to hear every single day

in my chiropractic clinic one of the

first things i need to do to figure out

what’s going wrong with somebody

is i want to know a little bit more

about their history so i’m asking them

questions about old accidents and old

injuries

i basically want to know what their

body’s been through to figure out

what’s going wrong and why their problem

just won’t go away by itself

so typically i see lots of people coming

in with

lower back pain neck pain or something

similar

and i’ll ask them these questions and

one of the

main answers i’ll get is something like

well you know what

i did actually injure my knee it was

quite bad actually

but that was so many years ago i don’t

really think that one’s relevant anymore

or they’ll say something like you know

what actually yeah i do remember i had a

car accident it was really bad actually

but i didn’t have any injuries or pain

afterwards so i think i’m okay

i don’t think that one’s related and

they don’t even realize that they’ve

just given me the opportunity to use my

favorite phrase again

everything is connected let’s say

you were to injure your knee and for

three to six weeks

after that injury you’re unable to put

weight on that knee

fully that’s going to be three to six

weeks

of you twisting your body to try and

take pressure off of that knee

that’s certainly going to have an impact

on other parts of your body

like the ankle the hip your lower back

or somewhere else

in 2019 in the nba playoff finals

klay thompson one of the greatest

shooters of all time

a member of the golden state warriors

had a

season-ending injury when he tore his

right acl

now it’s a horrible thing incredible

amounts of pain

he spent the next year and a half or so

going through surgery rehabilitation

and basically trying to build his body

back up to the point where he could play

again

and he got there only just before the

start of the season

guess what happened he tore

his achilles on the opposite leg

now is this a coincidence or

is it that his body was compensating all

that time

and eventually reached its breaking

point the threshold where it couldn’t

take anymore

i know what i’m thinking everything is

connected that’s three times for you the

human body

physically and the mind and the emotions

are also

very intimately connected

i remember when i was growing up i used

to do track and field

at a pretty decent level there were

times when i would find myself in the

top 10 in the uk

okay for my age group

and i was a long jumper so as i’m sure

you can imagine the training involves a

lot of running at high speeds

and a lot of jumping both of which are

very difficult to do

when you have a lower back pain so i was

about 14 15

going into my gcse years and i’ve got

this annoying

lower back pain that won’t go away the

reason why it was so annoying

is because it wouldn’t affect me in

trying to speed up

it was actually when i was trying to

slow down and put the brakes on

that this thing would hurt and it was

annoying so

at the start of the session i was

absolutely fine but as the session went

on and i was doing more and more reps

the pain would start to build and feel

worse and worse

so i was going into school every single

day

pissed off at the entire world and it

was affecting my relationships with my

teachers

my fellow students and even my family at

times i have to admit

and my grades at the time were actually

reflecting the way that my body was

feeling

luckily i found a chiropractor who

actually helped me with the pain and

once the pain was gone everything went

back to normal but i know that i’m not

the only one who has felt like this

even to this day when i have pain

i become a horrible person and

my better half tanya she’ll be able to

confirm this to be true

that i have no patience i have less

motivation to get up in the morning

and my energy just feels low in general

i know i’m not the only one who feels

like this we all do

and it’s absolutely natural the reason

being that your physical body

is intimately connected with your

emotions and how your mind works

like i said everything is connected even

inside

out the second point that i’m going to

argue

is that the spine is the most important

part of your body

i know i’m a chiropractor so i may be a

little bit biased

but just hear me out for a second on

this one okay so

around 4 to 12 million years ago

humans started to evolve to be able to

walk on two legs

and the difference between us and the

other primates

is that we can do all of our movements

on two legs whether we’re walking or

running

you’ll notice that other animals now

like monkeys

they will actually use their arms to be

able to move more quickly when they’re

running for example

so they’ll do some movements on two legs

but they’ll actually use all four limbs

to be able to do

a lot of their movements too in more

recent history

all of us started off as two

individual cells which found each other

lovingly inside the womb

now those cells started to divide and

multiply

over and over again and eventually after

about nine months

they formed this fantastically complex

and very unique combination of around 37

trillion cells which is what makes you

you

within the first 20 days after

fertilization so after these two cells

have met each other in the womb your

spine your brain and your nervous system

are pretty much fully formed a few days

later is when the heart is actually

going to start beating and working

so yes i would argue that the spinal

column

is actually more important for the human

body than the heart itself

otherwise why would it be there first

back pain

is extremely common even more so in the

last year

in my experience but the numbers don’t

lie

so let me throw some at you now and of

course

different people will experience

different levels of severity of pain

but back pain is the number one leading

cause of disability in the uk

with lower back pain in particular

accounting for around

11 percent of the total disability

population

that costs the economy around 500

million pounds every single year which

yes is your taxpayer money

and one in five people will have to go

and see their doctor every single year

because of some kind of musculoskeletal

problem that number is actually

even higher in the adult working

population

so what this tells me is that it’s

something likely

all of us will have to deal with at some

point so wouldn’t it be much better if

we knew why it was happening so we could

know what to do about it

of course it would so let’s keep this

super simple

i just want you to remember these three

things

number one when it comes to the human

body the structure

is going to determine the function

that’s going to be

from a macro all the way down to a micro

level yes even the

chemistry in your body is going to be

determined by

the mechanics of individual molecules

and atoms fitting together

to create an effect number two

the body is self-healing and

self-correcting

to an extent the other body is

intelligent so it can fix a lot of

things for itself

but there’s also some things which it

can’t fix for itself

and as long as your body is alive it

will try

everything that it can to be able to

better itself

point number three is probably the most

important one so you might actually want

to get out your pen and paper and write

this one down

when it comes to the bone structure of

the body the thing

that you can’t fix for yourself is when

a bone

goes out of place in a direction

that there’s no muscles or combinational

muscles

that can pull that bone to replace it

back

into its optimal position it just makes

logical sense right

there’s two things that we all do every

single day and night

which can potentially put your body in a

bad position

i’m talking about the way that we’re

sitting and the way that we’re sleeping

we do both of these things for about six

to eight hours

every single day so together that makes

up

about two-thirds of your 24-hour day so

it’s very important to be doing these

two things really well

everybody remembers the story of

goldilocks and the three bears right

well

just for a moment i want us to all

forget about

the fact that this young lady was

committing multiple crimes

when she broke into the bears family

home

ate their food used their stuff before

escaping out the window

and fleeing the police resisting arrest

this is how i remember the story she sat

in the first chair which was too hard it

was uncomfortable

and she felt like she had to wiggle

around to get comfy she couldn’t sit

there for long periods of time

she then sat in the second chair which

was too soft and this was uncomfortable

but in a completely different way

she felt like she was slumping she then

sat in the third chair

and it felt just right now

we do actually have a sweet spot when it

comes to sitting

which is going to keep your spine in its

most optimal conditions

maintaining those curves that we talked

about earlier on

and it looks a little bit like this

you’ll notice how

the top of the knee is slightly lower

than

the hip you’ll notice that the pelvis

as a whole is got a slightly forward

tilt to its position that’s what allows

you to maintain the curve in your lower

back

and you’ll also notice that the screen

the top of the screen

is at or slightly above your eye level

sitting like this is going to allow your

body like i said to maintain its natural

curves

so it will stay upright without you

having to try

or put in any effort whatsoever so you

can sit for long periods of time

without having that nagging achy feeling

where it feels like you have to

roll your shoulders like this or try and

stretch out your neck like this

if you’re sitting in a seat which is too

soft the opposite is going to happen

your pelvis is going to tilt backwards

and it’s going to reduce that curve in

your lower back

forcing you into a slump position and

this is ultimately why sitting on your

sofa or sitting on your bed for long

periods of time

is usually going to have you feeling

different and new

aches and stiffness when you stand up so

then goldilocks went to go upstairs to

lie down in bed

i’m assuming that she was tired from all

the trespassing that she was doing i’m

not sure

she slept in the first bed the pillow

was too high

it was uncomfortable for her she

couldn’t get to sleep

she slept in the second bed the pillar

was too low again it was uncomfortable

but in a completely different way

couldn’t get to sleep again then she

went to sleep in the third bed and the

pillow was just the right height

she fell asleep so fast and so deeply

that she was there when the bears got

home

and that’s how they caught her

red-handed before she escaped out the

window

again when it comes to sleeping you’re

looking for that sweet spot

the height of the pillow is going to be

the thing

which allows your spine especially your

neck

to stay in a neutral position now when

your spine is in a neutral position

your nervous system and your brain are

able to relax and

unwind and that’s how you get your nice

deep sleep

if your pillow is too low for you you’ll

notice that your body during the night

will want to roll forwards and it might

stay there for a while

before rolling onto the opposite side

and it might toss and turn throughout

the night throughout those three

different positions if the pillow is too

high

then your body is gonna roll backwards

and yes your body is literally that

intelligent

that is gonna try and fix itself even

when you’re asleep completely

subconsciously to summarize

the most important things is finding the

sweet spot

when you’re sitting and when you’re

sleeping just like goldilocks did

now i know there’s some of you out there

thinking there was a third thing that

goldilocks did

when she ate the porridge of the bears

and maybe we’ll talk about nutrition

next time

thank you