Posture Reset Practice To Ease Anxiety

In this short practice, I guide you through a postural exercise aimed at creating flexibility and awareness in your body. We explore how chronic stress can affect our posture, leading to either a closed-off or hypervigilant stance. I encourage you to assess your current posture against a wall or while seated, and then we’ll engage in movements to help reset and open up the spine. After these practices, I invite you to notice any changes in your posture and how much effort it takes to sit up straight. Take a moment to reflect on these shifts and how they might impact your daily life.

Transcript

Hi there. In this nervous system reset practice, We're going to be doing a postural practice. We're going to be working on opening up and creating a really flexible posture for our body. Ideally, Our spine has a lot of free movement forward, Back, Side to side, But when we get stuck in patterns of chronic stress, Tension, Hypervigilance, We can have either a really closed in, Tense, Kind of fearful, Protective response, Reflexive response in our posture, Or we can be too open in our posture, Like we're always kind of scanning for danger. We can also have these sort of side-to-side guarded postures where almost as if somebody was going to come in and kind of tickle you, Want to like tuck in on the side and protect, Right? And so these are actually reflexive responses. They're automatic nervous system reflexes that we have that are very hard, If not impossible, For us to avoid if our nervous system actually feels danger. If we were to imagine Like I said, Somebody coming in for your side, If you're ticklish, And they were coming in to tickle you, Even though you're not afraid maybe of being tickled, It's not a pleasant experience for a lot of people. And so that reflex would be to tuck in, Kind of a flinching if you were to sense that a ball was coming at your face or something like that. It would be very hard to override that instinct to just protect ourselves. Likewise, That really open posture that indicates a lot of hypervigilance, That might be something that, Always kind of watching your back or if you feel very fearful in your environment or you're kind of assuming everyone's out to get you. It's those kinds of nervous system responses that would keep us hypervigilant and on high alert. Imagine walking to your car alone in the dark and a protective response of being really closed in and timid may not be what our nervous system wants us to project. Instead, We might walk really tall and look around and be, Again, Very vigilant in our space because we're not feeling particularly safe. Always very vigilant, Then we get a lot of tightness in the back of the body and kind of lack of flexibility through the front and the back of the body. If we're always kind of closed in, Feeling shy and lack of confidence and people pleasing and getting small and those sorts of nervous system responses, Then we tend to have a really closed in posture. And again, There's side to side postures being protecting us to the side. We may notice it in one shoulder being higher or lower than the other. That's one that I've been working to correct for a while. And so it may show up looking like that, That kind of imbalance, But what it really is is this reflexive contraction in the side body. So the practices that we're going to do today are going to kind of reset that to neutral. And so if you have a wall that you can stand up against, I would love for you to stand up against the wall because that's going to give us a baseline for what our posture is. If you don't have a wall that you can use right now, Then just sit up nice and tall. So I'll kind of go through both of those little pre-assessments to see what it would look like. So if you have a wall, I'm going to go over to my door here. If you have a wall that you could stand against, Bring your feet, Your heels, Right against the baseboard, Feet about hips width apart, And without trying to touch the wall behind you, Without leaning back or leaning forward, Just kind of shake your body out a little bit, Put your feet flat on the floor, And notice how much of your body is touching the wall. Maybe the glutes are touching a little bit, Maybe the shoulder blades are, Maybe everything feels really far away. Also notice the bottoms of your feet, Notice how you're standing. Myself is that a lot of my weight is forward and I'm nowhere near that wall. My glutes are barely brushing against it. My shoulder blades are nowhere near it. And if I were to take my hand and kind of measure, How far away my head is when my neck is neutral. It's more than four fingers width away from the wall. So that's my baseline. And that's my baseline pretty much every time I do this. Sometimes it's better, But it will get better after these practices and we'll see that. So just kind of get an idea for yourself. You can also press yourself all the way intentionally against the wall and just notice how much effort that takes, Where your weight is in your feet, How much work it takes to keep your body pressed against the wall. And just, Again, Creating a baseline of information. If you don't have a wall you can get to, Then just sit upright in your chair. So imagine you were just kind of sitting normally and somebody came over and said, Sit up straight. And you sat up really straight, Shoulders back, Lifting tall through the crown of the head, Spine nice and long, Hands in your lap. And again, Notice how much effort that takes. It may not feel particularly natural for you. And so just notice how much effort that takes for you. And then pretend that person left and you got to sit back how you wanted to. And so just sort of let your body. Naturally slouch into whatever your normal sitting position is if you're not trying to sit up straight. So what I noticed for me is a lot of collapse in my belly, My shoulders roll forward, And I feel like my chin juts out a little bit to kind of. . . Stay straight. So those are the things that I noticed for me. See what you notice for you. And then we're going to do these practices and we'll check those two things at the end and we'll see if there's been some shift and change. What's really great with these somatic practices and how they are teaching our nervous system new patterns is that we just looked at what our current pattern is in our posture. We looked at where our body tends to go if we don't try to do something different with it, If we're not using effort. So what it naturally kind of goes into the pattern that it's developed. You And we may have noticed some of those reflexive responses side to side, Front to back, Right? And so now we're going to see if we can introduce some new sensory experiences into our body, Teaching our brain that new things are possible. And then we're going to see if we get a different outcome at the end. So this is the way we teach our brain that change is possible. We also start to build those new neural pathways. And that's how we do create lasting change because the brain is always learning, Always growing, Always changing for the better or for the worse, Right? And so if we can continue teaching it, New things aren't scary, New things aren't dangerous, Change is possible, Then the brain starts to be more and more open to possibility and that's where we can make significant changes. And our life would not stick with the old patterns that may not be serving us anymore. So let's get right into it. So we're gonna move our spine all the different ways it's designed to go. So forward and back, Rounding and flexing, And we're gonna go side to side. And we're also going to rotate. Okay. So the spine, The backbone begins with the crown of the head, Goes all the way down to the tail. And we're going to try to move through the full range of motion that all of those joints have. So let's go ahead and take our, We're going to start with forward flexion and extension. So take the hands behind the head, Make this like a little basket for your head here. Now being really careful that the neck gets to stay really relaxed. So it's going to be supported in the hands. The head's going to be supported in the hands. So go ahead and start just by pressing the elbows back and doing a big stretch, A little bit, Not really leaning back in the chair necessarily, But feeling an arc in the spine. And this should feel good. So nothing here that feels like too much, Just kind of like if you were like sitting at your desk and kind of stiff and decided to just go, Ah, Big stretch here should feel really nice. Good. Come back to the center. Now we're going to reverse that. We're going to tuck the chin to the chest. We're not pulling the head here. We're just guiding it down. Think about letting your nose reach your belly button. That's the angle. So we're not doing a forward fold here, We're just curling the spine in. And kind of notice how far you can go. Let your body stop. When gravity lets it stop, Don't decide how far it can go. Let your body decide. Good. We'll come up to the center. And we can let those arms rest down. We're going to pause between each of these movements. That's when our brain gets to process this new experience that it just had. All right, Same thing again, Hands behind the head. We're gonna come into that big back bend again, And notice if maybe you have a little more space available here. Once you're there, Just a slight little angle to the side. Nothing crazy. While you're here, Notice what you feel different than when you were in the center. Let your brain connect to all of those places where there's some sensation now. Maybe it feels like a stretch. Maybe there's a loosening. Maybe there's an opening. Let the head relax in the hands, Come back to the center. And. Relax those arms down. We'll go forward now. Supporting the head as we tuck the chin to the chest, Curling the nose in towards the belly button. Once the body gets as far down as it's going to go, Turn the head just slightly like you're trying to reach your elbow towards your opposite knee. And notice what you feel here. Maybe all the way down through the side, Maybe through the shoulders, Maybe there's a little bit through the neck. Nothing forced, Just noticing what's there. Back to the center. And we'll come back to neutral, Shake everything out. Last one on this side here, This movement here. We'll bring the head all the way back again into that back bend, Big morning stretch, Really draw those shoulder blades together. Opening up through the chest, Slightly angling now the opposite direction from before. Let the head relax in the hands. Ease to the center. Come back to neutral. One more time, Tucking in. And angling slightly elbow towards the knee. Notice what you feel here. We don't have to define what we feel or label it good or bad, Just kind of noticing, Oh, That sensation is there. Well, That's there. There's something. Come back to the center. And slowly come on up. Perfect. All right, Just kind of move around a little bit, Notice how you feel. And let the brain sort of soak up all that new information, That new sensory awareness that it now has through the sides of the body. All right, We're gonna come into the side bend now. So let's take the ear to the shoulder. Same thing, Hands behind the head and just bring the elbow down just like kind of like I'm a little teapot action here. So just a little bit of a side bend here. Breathing into that side body, Try to keep that elbow, That top elbow up towards the sky, Noticing what's there. And easing back to the center. Good, We'll go the other way. Just a side bend, Sink steady in your seat. Elbow up towards the sky as much as possible, Opening space through the side body. Easing back to the center. Again, Back to that first side. Same side bend, Elbow up to start, And then point that elbow forward and just kind of feel that through the back of the body a little bit better. Differently than before. We're looking for new sensation every time. Bring that elbow back up. Body back to center. Other side. Side bend. Let the body settle in as far as it wants to go. It may start to go a little farther. Elbow up to start and then just angle without moving the rest of the body. Angle that elbow forward. Maybe opening up through the side body under the arm or on the shoulder blade. Breathing in. And breathing out. Open it back up and come to neutral. Perfect. Shake it out. One more time on this side. So the reason we're changing our angle each time is to get a new experience. That's the whole purpose, Whole point of this. Let's come to this side again. Is for our brain to make new sensory connections in our body. Maybe, When was the last time? Elbow up first and then try to reach it back. It may not go very far. Mine never does. That you're going that direction and noticing the shoulders pulling in, Different sensation here than before. So we're giving the brain new sensation, New experiences, New things to feel. We get stuck in patterns, And then we only feel what we feel in those patterns, Come back to center. So we just wanna awaken these areas, Let the brain be like, Oh yeah, I totally forgot about that shoulder blade, Elbow back. And then when it goes to stand up, It has so much more space because it remembers all of those different areas that had been kind of dormant because we haven't been using them. Excellent. Back to the center. Shake it out. Okay, Perfect. Already probably feeling looser through the posture, Maybe a little bit taller. All right, Last one here. We're going to come into a rotation. So twisting the spine really gently here. We're not pulling, We're not tugging, We're not making our spine twist in any way. Let's sit up nice and tall and we're going to rotate only as far as your torso goes. So knees stay forward, Staying rooted in our seat. Arms can just come down just to kind of support us. Maybe they're on one knee or the other. Maybe they're kind of holding onto our chair. And look all the way over that back shoulder. Holding right here, Kind of notice what you can see. What's in your field of vision? How far back can you look behind you? And just notice, That's where your rotation is right now. Now, Without moving the body at all, Let the eyes look forward. Towards your knees. A little eye release practice here. This I release. Instantly activates our relaxation response, Our parasympathetic nervous system, Relaxing muscles, Telling our mind and our body, Telling your nervous system that we're safe and everything's okay. When we feel safe, Our body's not afraid to stretch a little bit more. So we may even feel our twist getting a little bit deeper. If it is, Go ahead and twist into that, But nothing's forced. Now, Relaxing the eyes, Look back over that back shoulder and see if your field of vision has changed. A lot of times we can see farther behind us. Perfect. Back to center. One more time on the other side. Sitting tall, Coming into that rotation first. Nothing's forced here. It may feel really stiff compared to the other side. That's okay. We'll get there. Head looking over the back shoulder. Notice what's in your field of vision. Sitting tall and long through the spine. Let the eyes look forward. Towards the knees. The chin is over the back shoulder. The eyes are forward, Breathing in and breathing out. Letting the body sink into that twist if it wants to. Then relax the eyes, Look over that back shoulder and see if that field of vision has gotten better. A little bit different. Maybe we can twist just a little bit farther. Easing back to the center. Move around a little bit. And just take some deep breaths here. Notice what you're feeling in your body. Now, Let's finish off with our post-assessment of our posture. You're already seated, Sitting up nice and tall. You might've been doing that without even trying, But pretend somebody says, Sit up straight. And so you sit up as tall as you can. And then let your body kind of relax into your casual posture and see if it's less of a shift than that sitting upright. Mine definitely is. My shoulders stay more open. I feel like my crown of my head still stays lifted. There's a little bit of collapsing in the belly, But not as much as before. And then we can take it to the wall one more time just to check and see how that is. Again, It's usually a pretty significant difference for me. Heels here, Standing up tall. Definitely feel more of my weight even in my feet. My shoulders are closer to the wall. They're still not quite touching. When I measure the back of my head, Though, It's only about two or three fingers now instead of more than four. And if I were to press myself against the. . . Wall or the door. Much less effort and a lot more balance in the bottoms of my feet and the evenness in the soles of my feet. I don't feel like I'm in my toes anymore like I was. So just noticing a shift, There's nothing perfect that we're looking for here. It doesn't matter if you're still nowhere near the wall or the door. As long as you notice a change, Something different than before. Again, We're teaching our brain that change is possible, That new patterns aren't that hard to do, Right? We didn't force ourselves to have a better posture, But we may notice just sitting here, That it's not as much work to sit up straight as it was before. We've just reset our body, Reset our nervous system and everything. Our brain's going to work better when our posture is telling us that everything is okay. Hope you enjoyed that. I would love to hear in the comments if you had any great before and after surprises. I always love, I think these are like magic tricks. I love showing them off and teaching them. So I hope you had great responses. If you did, Please put it in the comments and I will see you next time. Bye bye.