Weekly Cup of Joe - Episode #8 - ''BACK'' to School: Posture Emergency!!
Read the transcript for this video:
Good morning and happy Wednesday! And welcome to another episode of your Weekly Cup of Joe. My name is Joe King. I'm the owner of Physical Therapy Advantage in North Aurora, and thanks for joining us this morning. I can't believe it's already the end of July and this episode it's where you're looking at it, it kind of goes towards the time of year that it is, and we hope that everything goes okay. But it's back to school time, we're, open and praying that we can get our kids back to school in a safe manner. But that being said, one of the biggest issues that we have to do; is we're talking with our kids, it is posture. So we're going to review some of the stuff from our episode three, but how it relates to our kiddos and from elementary all the way to college.
So, we always hate what our kids look like studying and stuff like that, but that lovely posture of being slobs forward like that, or even more so if it's down like that, or even if it's here, definitely not what we're looking for. Or if they're on their phone and got their head way forward, bend forward like that, or whatever may be, being in that slouched-hunched forward position, head coming forward, shoulders coming forward. Everything's out in front of us. We're leaning down, we're slouching down. Over the long run and if in that position way too long, not going to be good for everything. The front gets tight, everything in the back gets stretched out, stretched out and it will feel tight as well. And these strains will happen somewhere in the neck, the shoulders, the low back, wherever it may be, mid-back even.
So have to take care of that. We basically have to try to help them get through that as much as we possibly can. So if we can give them queuing, you can have them watch videos, have them watch this video. You just need to think about being in a more upright position. So show you here trying to line up your holes with mid of the shoulder, middle of the trunk and our hips, so we're up in a good position. And this kind of position a little bit more frequently throughout the day. So whether we're texting and we have the phone up in this position, it's a little more high level instead of down here. And we're working on the computers in this position, may even need to prop that up just a little bit, may set the computer up a little bit so it's a little higher, but you can adjust the screen. So you can visualize, but you want to be in a little bit more upright position.
One of the big things you can do is you can set alarms. Set alarm on their cell phone to go off every 20 or 30 minutes. You can set alarm on your computer to go off every 20 or 30 minutes, so as they're going and going when the alarm goes off, oh, reminds them to sit up and reset their posture. You can put sticky notes on their computers, and you can put sticky notes in their room, wherever it may be to help remind them. It's not the best, kids don't like to listen to parents, but it can definitely help. The big thing you want to think about is that eight minutes of slouching is not going to hurt you. So eight minutes, relaxing, slouching being in that position isn’t going to be so bad. Eight hours of slouching would be not so good. So as you reset yourself, you want to start to think about maybe pulling my collar bones up. So you're lifting those collar bones up. Looks like you're setting up and down here, which you are, but you're pulling yourself up with your collar bone. However, some people like to think about it, I think it's doing the hair like they're a puppet and they're getting pulled up to the ceiling this way and elongating you that way.
So whatever works, whatever mechanism, whatever mnemonic, whatever idea resonates with you, helps you get yourself in an upright position. That's what you want to do all.
One of the last things we're going to do here is, so some kids like to work on the floor or they like to in their beds. So if they'd like to work on their stomachs on their bed or the floors is, to have put a pillow underneath their hips and their waist so it gives their back a little support, at least to have something there and then they can work in this position, all help keep the spine a little bit more neutral position so they can be here. Or the same positions that kids like to work in is; of course, they like to be here, whether they're on their bed or on the floor, or sometimes they'll get a cross-legged position. And they're like, woo, well, that's not good either. So, you want to really try to get that computer up if you can. Or sometimes it'll be in positions in their bed, or like reading back, being supported by pillows and stuff like that, and it's on their lap here. So using a laptop tray, there's lots of Mount there now. So computer laptop trays, you can Google, there'll be a link just to Amazon. There are tons of mounts below; I put a link down below, so you can see.
They're relatively inexpensive anywhere from $25, maybe up to $40-$45, but they really can be beneficial to various types that can bring that computer up, and then they can set up a little more and they can support themselves a little better, whether it be sitting here on the floor at their laptop tray So they can little more here versus here, lying down. So, just some things to think about. This is going to be the first, episode of four, all dealing with back-to-school posture and kids and everything like that. So we're going to have to go through strengthening exercises, stretching exercises, some other supports and braces that you can use, and even one will be on backpack fitting.
So over the next few weeks, you're going to get a whole bunch of different episodes here on that. We are going to have a workshop at the end of the month of the last week of August, relating to back posture, backpack, and the whole nine yards. Not sure exactly what day it's going to be, but it'll be during that last week of August. So keep your eyes and ears open to that and keep a look out for it. So thank you once again, and keep sending in your questions of health, wellness, and PT-related questions that we can keep answering. But we're going to focus on our kids this week or this month; back to school and getting 'them back safely and hopefully very healthy wise as they're doing a lot of work even more so sometimes from home if they're doing a hybrid versus being school, we'll talk about all the aspects of it. So thank you once again for watching and we'll see you next week for your Weekly Cup of Joe.