FIVE TIPS FOR BETTER POSTURE AND LESS BACK PAIN Try these exercises while you’re working at your desk, sitting at the dinner table or walking around, Esther Gokhale recommends. June/July 2016 53 came to the United States to attend Harvard University and then Princeton as chemistry major. Inspired by her insightful and compassionate mother, Gokhale’s career objective was to perform research in alternative medicine. She met her husband-to-be playing ping-pong at Princeton. They later moved to California for his professorship at Stanford University (he’s now chairman of the university’s math department). While living on the Stanford campus and working as an acupuncturist, Gokhale had no back issues until her ninth month of pregnancy with her first child during the late 1980s. She began experiencing severe sciatic pain. “I was miserable,” she recalls. “I had a badly herniated disc, and I tried a lot of alternative and conventional things. They didn’t work, so I had surgery when my daughter was a year old. “Then I was relatively pain free, although I could not lift or carry my daughter and was advised to have no more children,” Gokhale explains. “Within 12 months of my surgery, the pain returned, and my doctors recommended further surgery. Instead, I decided to find my own path out of misery and begin my own deeper research into the causes and treatments of back pain. I studied everything I could,” she recalls. This included movement-related programs like Feldenkrais, Alexander and the well-regarded Aplomb approach developed in France. “I have lots of sympathy for people who suffer because I’ve been there.” Gokhale—a significant surname in Western India—grew up in Bombay, where she watched her nursing-trained mother explore alternative-medicine approaches while caring for abandoned, often deformed kids as adoptees. Gokhale’s mother was acutely aware that while many in the lower classes had physically difficult jobs like spending hours stooped over sweeping floors, they usually seemed healthy and unimpaired. It’s not surprising, given that exposure, that Gokhale’s techniques are inspired by people in indigenous cultures. She developed them further as she traveled off the tourist track to many primitive villages around the world observing, filming, photographing and interviewing people who had no back pain while utilizing her language skills—she speaks seven languages—and her natural warmth and charisma. It was clear to her that she was onto something. She saw older women in western Africa who had spent years bending at a 30-degree angle for nine hours a day gathering water chestnuts pain free. She photographed primitive workers who were able to bow over and mold clay bricks by hand for their whole lives and had no negative physical impact. At the heart of Gokhale’s many repeated “aha! moments” during her travels was her observation of the natural posture of these villagers, in contrast the “normal” spine position in the West. “Growing up in a village, you observe people who bend a certain way, and you mimic them. We’ve lost that baseline, but what’s worse is that our fashions point us the wrong way—toward an S-shaped spine. Ergonomic chairs and car seats create curve in the back rather than lengthening it. Also, we’re not that physical anymore.” As more prosperous countries lost their village-influenced traditions, the tucked pelvis and resulting slump portrayed in thenmodern fashions “did a bad number on people about a century ago,” Gokhale opines. As this S-shaped spinal posture made its way into society, parents thought it was proper “to exhort their kids to sit up straight and stand up straight,” she notes. “There’s a sway that develops. Then people tuck their pelvis to get rid of the sway. You want to tuck the ribcage, not the pelvis.” (See sidebar for her tips to a healthier spine.) 1 Do a shoulder roll: Americans tend to scrunch their shoulders forward, so our arms are in front of our bodies. That’s not how people in indigenous cultures carry their arms, Gokhale says. To fix that, gently roll your shoulders a little forward, a little up, a lot back and then down. Now your arms should dangle by your side, with your thumbs pointing out. “This is the way all your ancestors parked their shoulders,” she says. “This is the natural architecture for our species.” 2 Lengthen your spine: Adding extra length to your spine is easy, Gokhale says. Being careful not to arch your back, take a deep breath in and grow tall. Then maintain that height as you exhale. Repeat: Breathe in, grow even taller and maintain that new height as you exhale. “It takes some effort, but it really strengthens your abdominal muscles,” Gokhale says. 3 Squeeze, squeeze your gluten muscles when you walk: In many indigenous cultures, people squeeze their gluteus medius muscles every time they take a step. That’s one reason they have such shapely buttocks muscles that support their lower backs. Gokhale says you can start developing the same type of derrière by tightening the buttocks muscles when you take each step. “The gluteus medius is the one you’re after here. It’s the one high up on your bum,” Gokhale says. “It’s the muscle that keeps you perky, at any age.” 4 Don’t put your chin up: Instead, add length to your neck by taking a lightweight object, like a bean bag or folded washcloth, and balance it on the top of your crown. Try to push your head against the object. “This will lengthen the back of your neck and allow your chin to angle down—not in an exaggerated way, but in a relaxed manner,” Gokhale says. 5 Don’t sit up straight! “That’s just arching your back and getting you into all sorts of trouble,” Gokhale says. Instead, do a shoulder roll to open up the chest and take a deep breath to stretch and lengthen the spine.
South Bay Accent - Jun/Jul 2016
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