Elongate your posture: simple connective tissue exercises to support your body

Breathing and posture exercises; the wonder of connective Tissue.

Elongate your posture: simple connective tissue exercises to support your body

Gentle Breathing Exercises

Sit in a supportive chair without armrests; have your arms resting on your thighs with your shoulders relaxed. Breathe normally in and out of your nose; see if you can feel your lower ribs at your waist level move gently in and out with the rhythm of your breath. Initially your thoughts will crowd your head, so try not to follow them by just feeling your rib movement. You only need to do this for a few minutes a few times a day and as your mind gets less busy then you can focus on the tip of your nose and feel the air come in and out of the nose at the tip – this will deepen your gentle breath and you may feel calmer in your body as this happens.

As your breath is more gentle your nervous system is calmer and that allows you to move more gently too.

Elongated Posture Exercises

One of the most important ways to free yourself from that sunken, stiff, devitalized body is by reconnecting to your elongated posture.

This posture is when you are long in your spine, your head is balanced over the line of your shoulders and your shoulders are balanced over the line of your hips (in sitting or standing).

Your chest is open with your shoulders naturally sitting back and your chin sits easily under your nose so you can see ahead (that stops the goose neck look with the chin sticking out).

No matter how hard you have been in your body, your body knows how to sit or stand in this elongated posture if you are connected to it and allow it to happen.

It may take a few months of regularly returning to this posture throughout your day so that your fascia/ connective tissue and body remoulds itself back to this posture. It only takes a couple of minutes every hour or so for your body to remember and start changing back to this way. It makes a huge difference to your focus and energy levels as you are taking the strain and hardness away from your body.

Simple Posture Realignment: Try this in sitting first

Sit in a chair that supports your back – preferably with no arms.

Have your knees hip distance apart with your feet on the floor, initially breathe gently as above so you get to feel your body again and not be caught up in busy thoughts.

  • Initially imagine a string that runs through the centre of your spine and out the top of your head
  • Your close friend comes along and gently pulls this string, asking you to be a little taller
  • As you lengthen, open from the centre of your chest This is a small gentle movement of lifting forward and up – almost from the inside of your chest bone
  • As you lift from your chest bone (don’t tighten too much between your shoulder blades) you automatically lengthen your spine too
  • This takes the pressure of all the small joints in your neck and spine. You literally traction your own spine
  • Keep breathing gently and hold this position for a few seconds and then relax back to your normal posture
  • Do this posture exercise a few times whether you are sitting or standing – 4 or 5 times a day
  • Your posture will gradually remould itself so that you feel it’s easier to sit and stand like that rather than the way you did before.

So come back to this posture exercise now before you walk, do your gym routine or your body weights – this supports your body to move/exercise in a healing way, not a harming way.

Moving Gently

Moving gently is moving in a quality that feels smooth and flowing, with purpose but without tension to get somewhere. It can be fairly fast-paced but not with drive and hardness. For example, when you walk gently there is a rhythm to your walk that allows the body to stay open at the chest, long in your spine and with a gentle sway of your hips. It feels easy and smooth; when you walk this way you are nourishing your connective tissue and giving all your body a gentle massage from inside out.

Your body knows how to move gently if you allow it, we don’t have to learn it – it is a natural quality deep inside us – we just need to reconnect to it. You can even be gentle with your workout in the gym by not overstraining your body so you have to breathe in a gasping way from your mouth – this creates hardness in your fascia / connective tissue.

If you do bicep curls, try doing them one arm at a time breathing through your nose, feeling the fluid smooth movement of your arms with your elongated posture, keeping your chest open and your shoulders slightly back – not tensing between your shoulder blades.

By focussing on your quality of movement you are connecting with and listening to your body – it knows how many repetitions to do – when it feels a bit tired, that is the cue to stop and do a different exercise and come back to more repetitions later.

Open up to trusting that your body knows how to move and breathe gently. Your connective tissue has done it since you were born – it’s only our busy driven thoughts and moving in that driven way that as we get older makes us forget how to move and breath gently. Be curious and open to learning from your body, give gentleness a go – you have nothing to lose and a whole lot to gain.

Kate Greenaway’s work and studies are inspired by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.


DISCLAIMER

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Connective tissueWell-beingBody awarenessConnectionStretching

  • By Kate Greenaway, BAppSc (Physiotherapy), Post.Grad.Dip.Occ.H (Physiotherapy)

    I am a 53 year old woman passionate about supporting people to understand the natural intelligence and healing abilities of the body and how they can support this, return to natural vitality and well-being and enjoy their body again.

  • Photography: Clayton Lloyd