Many a Satori yogi say that their weekly yoga class is the only chance they get to slow down and relax. , is that true for you, too?

This is why this week I wanted to address stress, and how it changes our movement strategies. But before we delve into all of that good stuff, let's take a look at our seating habits - after all, this is exactly how we started the class!

Freeze!

Don't move a muscle!

More than likely, you're sitting in a position that is usual for you. So, let's take this moment a mindful moment, and take a look at the structural design of the way you sit.

Start by noticing the orientation of your pelvis (this is where we started in class as well!):

~ Are you sitting more onto one buttock than the other?

~ Does one hip feel more compressed by the weight of your torso?

~ Are you sitting forward on your thighs or back on your tailbone?

~ Is one leg crossed over the other? Which way?

Now notice the orientation of your rib cage in relation to your pelvis:

~ Is your rib cage closer to your pelvis in front or in the back, on the right or the left side?

~ Where are the tips of your shoulders in relationship to your chest?

~ Is one shoulder higher than the other? more forward than the other?

~ And your head: is one ear higher than the other? more forward?

Now reverse your sitting pattern:

cross the other leg over, shift your weight onto the other buttock, curve your spine in the other direction, raise your other shoulder, and adjust the tilt of your head. Make as exact a reverse replica of yourself as you can.

How does this feel?

If this reverse sitting feels anywhere between terrible and very strange, you are among the majority of people.

The first sitting pattern, the comfortable one, is your body's preferred way of organizing itself. Your connective tissue (fascia) has accommodated to this pattern of compression and rotation in your body, so your slightly off-kilter sitting position feels secure, normal, and maybe even balanced to you.

Your habitual fascial patterns dictate more than just sitting: they are present in each and every move you make.

Unless you've built the awareness of how you use and move your body, you'll tend to work your way along the patterns of imbalance already embedded in your connective tissues:

~ in stretching, you are likely to overstretch the side that moves easily, thus catering to your restriction.

~ in strengthening, you'll tend to push yourself to the limit of your already stronger  side.

This kind of imbalanced body usage can, and often does lead to injury.

This is why the most important thing you can do right now is develop awareness of how you move - especially through the hip girdle - and also how you breathe. Everything else is build on that foundation.

• how you sit down / get up
  
• how you sit when you tired
• how you sit when you are tired but trying to sit correctly
• how you walk up / down the stairs
• how you sit in your vehicle
• how you walk - what moves, what doesn’t
• how you are breathing when you are eating? working? driving?
• where do you breathe predominantly - chest? ribs? belly?
• are there any conditioned habits as to how you are suppose to stand, walk, sit, breathe?
  

Fascia, our connective tissue, adapts to the way it is used, thickening and toughening along the tension lines of most usage. Here is how stress contributes to dysfunctional recruitment patterns and muscle tension.

Stress And Muscle Recruitment:

Whenever there's stress (and, of course, fight or flight response), brain "primes" certain muscles to help you escape.

This is great in the short term - you get ready to run away or fight by "priming" big long muscles such as hamstrings or trapezius. These big muscles are best suited to do this job because they can produce a great deal of torque, partly because they cross more than one joint and partly because they can shorten a great deal.

In the long term, continued over activation of big long muscles – whether it is in the back, or anywhere else in the body – is not smart.

As a general rule, when big long muscles (think big muscles along the spine, around the shoulder or the hip – such as trapezius, hamstrings, gluts or IT band) stay active for a long time they tend to contract, there’s a build up of acid, and they start to feel stiff.

Our body is quite economical in the way it works.

If the big long muscles are consistently turned on, the shorter muscles – like the little ones that stabilize the vertebrae or the pelvis, for example – go to sleep, because there’s no need for them to work.

These changes prime you for developing compensation patterns.

In the long run, these erroneous changes can make you move differently, hold yourself differently, and even behave and talk differently – all of which have long-term consequences on both physical and mental state. This is why old injuries are more likely to revisit and also are easier to identify at times of stress.

Stretching feels awesome!

It is a great idea to stretch the tight muscles and strengthen the weaker ones ( like we have been doing for the last two weeks).


More importantly, though, is to identify + upgrade your stress management strategies so that you can down regulate your nervous system efficiently and help those big long {and very tired} muscles to find ease and peace.