How to Counteract Sitting and Increase Your Mental Focus

It is no mystery to yogins that sitting all day in front of a computer is pretty much the antithesis of yoga.

It is miserable for the lower back, shoulders, neck, and wrists, not to mention being on the internet itself for prolonged periods is toxic to the spirit.

If you’re alive in today’s world, avoiding your desk and computer all together is likely not an option.

But what if you could be more efficient and productive at your desk (so you could be done with your computer sooner), while simultaneously keeping your body healthy?

I put together a list of productivity hacks and counteractive movement strategies I use to get me in and out of my office with more ease and focus:

Move while you are working!
There are a number of stretches you can do in your chair. Just make sure to maintain a good lumbar curve by anchoring your pubic bone toward your seat while doing them.

• Throughout the day, do a side crescent by reaching both arms over head, then grab the top of your left wrist and pull up on your arm as you sway to your right, getting a lateral stretch on your left. Repeat to the other side. 

• Do some tricep stretches by lifting your left arm overhead, bending at the elbow, and then with the right hand, grab the back of the elbow and pull backward to get the tricep. Repeat to the other side.

• Do a seated twist in your chair by placing your left hand on your knee and your right hand on the back of the seat of your chair, or the right arm rest. Keeping a good lumbar curve, pull yourself to the right and look over your shoulder. Repeat to the other side.

• When you have to use the bathroom, commit to doing a stretch on the way there, and a longer one on the way back. My favorite is a downward dog with hands on the wall or desk, pec stretches at the wall, and if you can get your foot up on a railing or piece of furniture (respectfully of course!), there’s nothing like a good hamstring stretch with your leg out to the side or in front of you.

• Instead of sitting the whole time, try standing when you’re talking on the phone. Or even better, set up your office or work station to include a stand-up desk (you can ask your employer if they’ll cover it for your well being). Alternate sitting, standing, stretches and strength work throughout the day.

Dial in your focus, attention, and efficiency!

I am a huge fan of the Pomodoro technique. It’s a time management method that has you alternate “pomodoros” or focused work sessions, with frequent short breaks to help you sustain concentration and prevent mental fatigue.

If you find that little distractions derail your workday, you’re overly optimistic about what you can get done in a day (Ack, this is so me…), or that you consistently work past the point of productivity, the Pomodoro method might really help! This is especially true if you have a lot of open-ended work that takes unlimited amounts of time, such as writing blogs, planning classes or content, studying for a test, etc. 

During the breaks, I get up and do push ups with my hands on the desk, squats, refill my water, take the dog out, do some movement in the sunshine, etc. I use the Pomodoro - Focus Timer App on my iphone, but there are desktop versions as well.

While you are Pomodoro’ing, enhance your focus and minimize distractions by turning off notifications and switching on Do Not Disturb mode on your computer. All it takes is one text message or email notifications to take you off course.

3. Don’t forget the importance of non-desk activities!

• Go for a walk. Get yourself outdoors for a brisk walk at least 3x a week. Fresh air, movement, and cardio can do wonders to counteract your time sitting at your computer.

• Use your feet to walk up stairs instead of an escalator or elevator. When you are out and about doing errands or walking to or from work, take the opportunity to work your heart and leg muscles on a flight of stairs.

• Park your car in the outskirts of the parking lot so you have to walk further to get to where you’re going. 

• Get social! Instead of sitting around your house watching TV, get out and join get-togethers, group tree plantings, beach clean ups, volunteer on a farm, or visit your local farmer’s market

• Get lots of sleep so you’re less lethargic and can focus better. Prioritize routines in the evening that help you wind down and get quality sleep. Go to bed earlier so you’re sure to get enough Z’s as well.

• Play with your pets and/or children. I’ll take being present for my loved ones who need my attention any day over a scroll on Instagram. Schedule in play time if you care for little ones - it will get you off your desk chair and the internet, and will be most appreciated!
  

What things do you do to stay focused and counteract sitting all day? Leave a comment and share!

The Real Truth About Saddle Bags

Have you ever caught a glimpse of your backside in the mirror and cursed the dreaded “saddle bags” hanging just below and to the side of your buttocks and subsequently been plagued with negative self-talk?

Did you suddenly feel totally out of shape, fat, and flabby?

First of all, let’s get one thing straight. Saddle bags or not, you are beautiful. And your yoga practice is here to support you in a world of body positivity.

That said, I am not writing this to address body image, but rather the physiological and therapeutic aspects of the saddle bag phenomenon.

Here’s the thing: Your saddle bags may may not actually be a sign of fat or excess weight!

For the last century, there’s been a big trend toward flattening the lumbar spine to help engage the core, create length, and prevent “sway back”.

This action had consequences. In the 1930’s they invented suspenders. Why? Because from tucking under so much, no one had butts anymore to hold their pants up.

The epidemic lasted long into the 70’s and 80’s. Especially in the height of the Jane Fonda Workout era. Can you just see it and hear it? You on your back with your tush in the air squeezing your glutes rhythmically up to the sky in a bridge pose with the Jackson 5 crooning, “Can you feel it?”

But you were born with a natural lumbar curve! All that flattening is not only causing chronic and acute lower back problems all over the world, but….wait for it….it may be the cause of saddle bags!

When you go through life with your butt tucked under, your glutes and buttocks literally begin to atrophy and that atrophied flesh has nowhere to go but down and out. Saddle bags are not caused by fat (though they may contain adipose tissue, of course). Saddle bags are a sign of atrophied buttocks settling on your outer thighs!

Sure, a higher percentage of body fat is going to create larger saddle bags, but before you start unnecessarily worrying about your weight, realize that gravity and atrophy are at play here and it may take some time to regain strength in the glutes and lower back so this flesh can rearrange itself more optimally.

In other words, we can stop obsessing about how we look and start focusing on getting your lumbar curve back so that your lower back will be healthy, and your glutes will be strong, long into your older years!

This isn’t a question of body fat, it’s a question of optimal health!

So what can you do specifically to get your lumbar curve back, regain the muscle tone of your glutes, and lose the saddle bags? Practice yoga with good alignment!

Follow these steps in every yoga pose:

1. Get Grounded
   Stand in tadasana (mountain pose) with your feet parallel. Settle the four corners of your feet into the ground beneath you and feel your connection to the earth.
   

2. Be Strong
   Tone your legs from feet to hips and squeeze your thighs toward one another.
   

3. Move your Thighs Back
   Keeping the legs toned, pick your right foot, turn your whole leg in and place the foot back down on the ground parallel - do the same for your left. Then move your thighs into the back plane of your body and your chest slightly forward to counter balance. Feel your natural lumbar curve deepen and your sit bones widen. In addition, feel the tone in your glutes and lower back muscles.

5. Draw Your Tailbone Down
   So that you don’t look like a duck, keep your thighs in the back plane, but draw your buttock flesh downward, lifting your pubic bone up toward your navel to lengthen your natural lumbar curve subtly, but not overly flatten it.
   

6. Extend out
   From your hips, extend down through the bones of your legs like you’re getting taller and expand up through your spine, crown and arms energetically, creating space in all the joints.

Give it a try and tell me what you think in the comments below!

What Your Inner Child Can Teach You About Back Fat

Ever catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror or in a photo and you see “it”? Back fat.

And then you start battling those years of subliminal messaging and airbrushed magazine photos in your head.

Upon seeing the rolls, you may have worked yourself into a frenzy of limiting, non-supportive thoughts, as we are taught to do in our culture.

You are gorgeous. I want you to know that, and I hope that your yoga practice will always support you in creating your world of body positivity.

However, my focus in writing this isn’t really about addressing body image, but rather the physiological and therapeutic aspects of the “back fat” phenomenon.

So here’s my take: your back fat may actually not be back fat.

As we age our rib cage sinks with gravity, nearing closer to the hip bones. And as a result, we lose a lot of length in our lateral or side bodies, creating the appearance of fat when in actuality, it’s folds of skin that don't know where to go anymore.

In addition, the most mobile part of the spine is located between the bottom ribs and the hips. Because this part of the spine is not hindered by the pelvis or the rib cage it is easy to jam the front ribs forward, collapsing this part of the spine (a.k.a.,your mid section or waistline). This also contributes to the folds of skin on our backs.

So you think you have back fat? You may, and that in and of itself is no big thing. Instead, ask yourself, “How long is my side body? Is my rib cage sitting on my freaking pelvis? And what might that be doing to my posture, my organs, and my respiratory system?”

In other words, we can stop obsessing about how we look and start focusing on freeing up our side body in order to breathe easier and more efficiently, make more space for our organs, and improve our orthopedic longevity!

This isn’t a question of body fat, it’s a question of optimal health!

Sure, a higher percentage of body fat is going to create a larger fold, but before you start looking at your rolls and unnecessarily worrying about your weight, realize that gravity is at play here and that you can hold your ribs for optimal alignment, minimizing the appearance of that supposed "back fat".

Of course, one could reduce body fat percentage and that will help decrease the size of the folds. However, until you embrace these folds as a postural issue, they will stay around until you start doing one simple posture modification.

I call it: “Get bright like a toddler”.  And it means:

1. Stand up tall.
2. Lengthen your sides starting from the top of your hips up to your armpits until your collar bones are square with the base of your neck. Do this without shrugging your shoulders up toward your ears, just lift from within.
3. Inflate your mid-section and lift your back ribs up away from your hips.
4. Finally, pull your shoulders back (or in anatomical terms, pull the head of the humerus ie. the ball-like head of the arm bone that goes into the shoulder socket) back.

Most fitness experts try to target "back fat" by prescribing back extension exercises such as “superman” where you lay on your stomach on the floor or on a fit ball and lift everything off the floor or ball, thinking this will “tone” the back. Which it will, but this does not address sinking rib cage syndrome or posture problems.

If you look at the picture of the toddler below, you’ll see that her whole torso is bright with breath and energy, her armpits are elevated, and her shoulders are not pulled “down away from her ears”. If anything the head of her arm bones and collar bones are elevated.

And here is the rear view on another little tyke. Notice, no skin folds on his back. The head of his arm bones are square with the base of his neck and from hips to armpits, he has nice length in his side body. His midsection is also full and bright.

I figure if babies and toddlers hold themselves like this so recently out of the womb, they've got something to teach us! When I used to take my baby sister to the playground, I observed that the children 3 and under had this bright posture. It's universal. But by ages 4 and up, their posture started to look more like the grown ups. Hit the playground and see for yourself!

In contrast to the toddlers, the photo of myself below is what I call “dull-like-an-exhausted-adult”.  You can't see my face, but I'm hamming it up for the camera and exaggerating the undesirable posture in my body for you.

Notice the head of my arm bones and collar bones drop well below the base of my neck as indicated by the horizontal line and arrows.  My side body (distance between my hips and my armpits) is shortened, and energetically my torso is listing downward with little life or energy in it.

Even without this being a profile shot - you might be able to see that my mid section is collapsed. And not surprisingly, my back skin folds are visible.

It would take just those four little postural changes to even out the folds, open up the breath, protect my back, and make more space for my organs. In this photo you can see the transformation when I do that:

Here my side body is lengthened from hips to arm pits as indicated by the arrows, my collar bones are square across with the base of my neck (indicated by the horizontal line), the head of my arm bones are back, and my mid section is full, with front ribs down. Energetically the whole torso is lit up. Skin folds? They vanished.

Side benefit! Your rhomboids, the muscles between your shoulder blades and spine (that help hold your shoulder blades flat on your back), get very strong when you do this. They might be fatigued at first and you may feel a bit stiff, however as you hold your posture this way more and more, your rhomboids will get in shape and the road to permanently awesome posture begins.

Especially as we clock more years on this planet, the “dull-like-an-exhausted-adult” is an easy posture to find yourself in, but I submit, if you can find the inner toddler inside you, your (supposed) “back fat” will go buh-bye and your body systems will thank you!

Give it a try and tell me what you think in the comments below!