Practice: Seated Posture Refresher

Jenna Zaffino [00:00:05]: 

Hi, everyone. I'm Jenna. In this video, we're going to explore how our posture can help support our ability to breathe well throughout the day. Unlike what you may have learned in school, posture is not static and still and militant with our chest out, our shoulders down, and our chin up. Instead, we wanna think about it as almost a movement journey that happens throughout our entire day. We're going to be doing various forms of movement throughout our lives, and it's nice to have a home base to come back to to remind us that space is possible, balance between the two sides of our body is possible, and most importantly ease is possible. So our objective for our posture is to find a space that feels good, spacious, and holds the possibility for either sitting for a period of time or getting up and moving from the place where we're sitting. So let's begin seated. 

I'll invite you to take your seat with me and then if your ankles are crossed like mine go ahead and uncross them so we can place equal weight on the bottoms of our feet. We want to feel as balanced as possible knowing that perfection isn't the goal. Just feeling a sense that we can feel both feet on the ground, feel both hips taking weight, and then just feel a sense of length through the rest of our spine. Let's start with our hands on our knees and we're just gonna rock gently backward off of your sitzs bones to make a round shape with your back. You can take your focus down, just feel your lower back opening up and feel the back of your rib cage widening as well. And then from here, think of pressing your knees into your hands rolling back onto the center of your sits bones and then we're going to continue rolling forward so the crease at our hip flexors deepens, tightens almost, and our chest lifts up to the ceiling. Now feel that space and stretch on the front of your body, maybe around your chest, your abdomen. And then let's go back again. 

So we're rounding backwards, feeling the back of the ribs open, maybe a little more compression in the front of the body, and rolling forward, feeling the front of the chest open, the front of the abdomen open, maybe a little more space here. Let's do that one time, rocking backwards. And just rocking and rolling your hips and spine is a really great way to kind of break any static or compressed position that you may have been resting in throughout your day. Next, let's take our hands on our chest. So we're in an upright position as best we can. We're just gonna take a little rotation turning over the right side, looking over your right shoulder, and then coming back to center. If this is not helpful for your shoulders, you can always take your hands on your hips or choose a position that works better for you. If you're a plant lover like me, rotating is a nice way to just kinda check out any new leaves that are coming up using your eyes to focus on things that are interesting in your space. 

Good. And then come all the way back to center. Now let's let our arms rest down by the side. We're gonna move our spine in a side bend. So reaching down with your right hand, feel that the right side of your body gets a little shorter and the left side of your body opens up. There's more space between your ribs and your hips. And then simply reach down with your left arm to come back to center and reestablish that center position, and then we'll go to the other side, reaching down with your left arm, opening up on the right side of the body and coming back to center. Let's take it over to the right again. 

Let's turn check-in with your feet and your hips. Are you still balanced on both sides of your body? Taking a hand to your chair, you can reach the left arm up and over if that's comfortable for you to increase the stretch. It could be a hand behind the head as well. Whatever feels like it's encouraging some good nourishing stretching, it shouldn't feel like punishment. Then we'll bring the elbow down, come back to center. Our chests are still wide and let's go to the other side reaching over. Find your side bend, hold on to your chair. Feel the balance in your right and left sides, legs, hips, feet. 

Find your stretch and then come all the way back to center. Good. From here, we're going to reach forward and take the back of your wrists and bring them as close together as you possibly can. And then reach a little farther forward rounding your body as you stretch those fingertips towards me maybe. From here, let's bend your elbows, open your chest, pull your shoulders back, and feel your chest open as your back gets really active, elbows reaching behind you. Let's take that a couple more times, reaching forward and pulling back. Now you'll notice that we haven't mentioned any positions that you're supposed to be in just yet, and that's because my goal for you is to help you find the best posture for you. So oftentimes when we start doing a little movement, we can kind of shake out some of the kinks, feel where there's a little more space needed. 

Let's do one more of these. And then make a choice that's really optimized for our own body and mind. Good. Coming back to center. Now let's add a little head and neck motion. So take your 2 fingers and place it on your chin. This one's called peck peck peckin'. It's like a little chicken. 

You're going to push your chin all the way out into your 2 fingers to almost move your head in front of your neck and then you're gonna pull your chin back. Give a little push with your 2 fingers to pull your face back in towards your face so your neck gets a little tighter. Maybe there's a little double chin action there. Not to worry about that too much. We're gonna reach the chin forward and pull the chin back. If your chin was resting on a shelf, it would just be reaching across the shelf and then pulling back to the back of the shelf. And let's do one more. And good.

And then just relax your head, neck, and shoulders and see where your head lands. And we'll take your right ear to your right shoulder noticing the opening on the left side of the neck between your ear and your shoulder. And come back to center. Take your left ear to your left shoulder. Notice that connection. Come back to center. Turn just your head. Look over your right shoulder. 

Come back to center and then look over your left shoulder. Come back to center. Good. Now as we rest for a moment in this seated position, bring your awareness to your sits bones, the bones you're sitting on top of of your Wellness. And then start to imagine that you could grow a little length through your waist between your hip bones and your rib bones reaching all the way up to the top. Good. From here, we'll think about a wide collarbone. Opening up your collarbones from side to side creating width from one end of the shoulder girdle to the next. 

And then again let's grow from the ears to the shoulders who are nice and tall. And finally, just place a hand on top of your head. Imagine it was a weight, maybe a book or a dumbbell even. You can push the top of your head up into your hand feeling that reach of energy all the way up to the top and then lower your arm all the way down. Let's stay here for just a moment. Take a couple breaths. Nice and easy. As you're breathing, notice where the air is naturally traveling to and notice maybe some of the areas of the body that need a little bit more space.

Let's take our hands back to your knees. We're going to round the spine just like we did at the beginning and then arch the spine rocking forward on your Wellness, lifting your chest. And then come back to center and see if you can find that nice long wide open posture. Good. From here, taking your hands on your shoulders, spine to the right. Maybe you can go a little farther here. Rotate your spine to the left. Come back to center. 

Lower your arms and find that nice open posture. Reach down to the right side, finding center. Reach down to the left side, coming back up, and find that nice open posture. Let's bring your chin to your throat looking down. Reach your chin to the sky looking up. Come back to center. Reach your chin forward. Pull your chin backward and then release and find that nice centered posture. 

Good. From here imagine that there was just a little puff of air under each arm. As we take a few breaths as deep or as shallow as you need right now, just imagine that you're breathing to puff up that little space between your body and your arm. And as you exhale, you're emptying the air out. As you breathe in, open. And you breathe out, release, almost pressing that air out from your lungs and your arms. Let's do 2 more. Breath in and breathe out. 

Last and. If your timing is different than mine, that's just fine. Excellent work. Alright. How did those breaths feel? How does it feel to create space across your chest and length on the sides and width through your breath? Breath. If you like the way that felt, then I'm gonna encourage you to practice some of these movements rounding, arching, rotating, side to side, side bending, and just moving your head and neck down and up, forward and back, side to side, and tilting. All of these little micro movements, these little range of motion can remind us that there's a different position that's possible. I hope that you feel that there's a little bit more ease in your body. 

And for one last quick fix, if you ever feel like you're kind of feeling like you're rounding forward and the world is waiting down over your shoulders. There's a quick and easy way that we can kind of remember how to be a little more upright. We'll take our hands on our shoulders and then find a backbend. So you're sitting evenly on your pelvis, on your hips, and then just look up with your chest. Look up with your eyes any amount. And then from here, just ease out of that about 15, 30%. It doesn't have to be exact. So if your back bend is a 100% of what you have today, you just ease out just a little bit and chances are you'll be a little more lifted than you were before. 

So to integrate these simple practices into your week ahead, I want to encourage you to give yourself a little mobility break. Whether that is doing some spinal actions while seated or getting up and doing them while standing, it's a good idea to just remind yourself every 20 minutes or so to move for at least 20 and. 5 minutes is even better. And just open your muscles, remind them that there's more to be done than just to hold still and find that ease in your posture. So you can keep going whether you're resting or working or just making it through the day. Anything we can do to bring more space and ease to our breathing is going to be positive overall. So thank you for being with me today and I'll look forward to doing some more postural work in another video to come. Remember, you are strong and resilient and the small moments matter. 

I'll see you next time.