Stand Up Right

Overcoming back pain. Regaining mobility. Learning to stand up right.

Yoga for Posture – 42 – Is it Self Massage, or Electro-Shock Therapy?

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Some time ago I recommended self-massage to help you with your posture. Tight, knotted up, unhappy muscles are uncomfortable, or even painful, muscles, which cannot do their jobs. A little work with a foam roller, tennis ball or thera cane can do wonders to loosen them up, make them happy, relieve their pain and give them their jobs back.

Well, a couple of years ago, after a particularly vigorous (for decrepit old farts) game of shinny, we were sitting around the breakfast table comparing aches and pains. One of my buddies told us that he had bought his wife Dr. Ho’s pain relief machine, and that she absolutely loves it.

What is Dr. Ho’s Pain Therapy System? A dummied down version of electro-stimulation acupuncture. You apply the stimulation pads to the bit you want to treat, and fire up the current. The electric pulses cause muscle contraction, loosening them up, and increasing blood flow.

I’ve wanted something like this for years, ever since the late 90s, when I went through three months of actual electro-stimulation acupuncture to begin the repair process on my mangled back. Over the subsequent years I had acupuncture treatments for a number of conditions, including my migraines.

Last week Costco had a special on these things. I remembered Paul telling me how much his wife liked it and that, in conjunction with the 5 days of pain I went through after emptying out the cottage made the decision for me. I bought one.

Now, by the time I bought it, I had naturally recovered from the aches of the move, so I haven’t test driven it yet. I did, however, watch the instructional videos, and there were recommendations that looked an awful lot like some of the acupuncture treatments I took.

So, while I haven’t tried it yet, the day will come that I have to test it out.

When I do, you’ll be the first to hear about it.

When A Chapter Ends, Another Begins

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Last week I wrote about the closure of a chapter of my life; Mom and Dad sold their cottage and I spent a final week there with my family. Yesterday I moved the last of our family’s antiques from there to here, had my last swim off the dock, took my last pictures, and left. For good.

I ended by noting that the end of one chapter means the beginning of another, and then on Thursday, I got to reflecting on the changes around these parts; where I came from, where I’ve gotten to, and the development along the way.

Short version, my writing:

  • Began with posture, which naturally led to
  • Back pain, which organically moved into
  • Healthy movement, which required writing about
  • Exercise and lifestyle, which led to
  • Stress relief, and the COVID crisis hit, forcing me to set up a home office, leading to
  • Ergonomics, and
  • Success

I’ve been groping, for years, for a handle on how I can (1) provide a service to people who need it and (2) create a business doing so. Purely by accident, I have landed on teaching people how to work remotely from the office.

Does this mean that the posture and pain, movement and exercise, stress relief and nutrition chapters of StandUpRight.ca are closed?

Oh, Hell no. All those things are building blocks of the work from home experience.

A Chapter Ends, a New One Begins

So it would seem that the closure of the “vacationing at the family cottage” chapter of my life occurs right at the opening of the “teaching how to work from home” chapter.

Hope you come along for the ride.

Well, Today Was Almost A Day of Shear Agony

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Yesterday for Ergonomics Wednesday, I got to bitching about gardening tools and the way their designs are an ergonomic horror show. Well, today is wellness Thursday, a day on which I usually wax rhapsodic about something that has improved my general health and wellbeing.

Today Imma do a little mix and match.

You see, Dad and I were continuing to work on cleaning up the bush around the cottage. Part of this job included clearing out the dead trees in the back lot. I won’t bore you with the details, mostly because I don’t really want to relive them as I type them out.

What I will say is this, when you’re clearing out the underbrush and dead trees, there is a whole lot of bending, twisting, stooping, tugging, yanking and dragging involved. After which, a lot of 6 inch (diameter) trees have to have their branches cut off.

The connection to poor ergonomics in gardening tools would be the arms and grips of the large shears you use to trim these branches off. Cleaning off those trunks left my poor carpal tunnels screaming.

And the process itself, along with actually getting the scrub out of the woods, involves a whole lot of less than ideal spinal movements.

Lemme say this, all those years of working on my posture and spine paid off in spades today. A day of work that 7 years ago would have meant three painful recovery days hardly phased me. In fact, the only ill effect I felt from the whole day was a headache from the pop up rainstorm this afternoon.

Actually, that wasn’t the only ill effect of the day. As a treat for the boys, we had fish and chips for dinner. I ate a little too much fried food tonight, and my poor tummy let me know I overindulged a little.

As for the rest, I feel just fine.

Vacations, Sleep, Stress and Heart Health

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My normal Monday post is “Posture Monday,” in which I lay out an exercise to help you correct your posture. Last week I had no Posture Monday post because I have been sleep deprived, stressed and depressed.

Yesterday, instead of a yoga posture, the exercise I gave you was to walk your ass into the nearest mattress store and get yourself the best mattress you can afford. Obviously, in the context of Posture Monday, that was because a good mattress is good for your back and posture.

Well, in the context of Stress Relief Tuesday, the same advice would be in the context of getting a good night’s sleep, to help you control your stress.

Sleep away the stress

How good is a proper night’s sleep for fixing your stress? Well, I’m on vacation, which means I’m running myself ragged, particularly on this vacation, because it’s the last one I’ll ever have at the family cottage.

It being our last hoorah at this joint, I’m burning the candle at both ends, and in a couple spots in the middle, to ensure the best possible weekend for my boys, and for me. I want our last memories here to be happy ones.

Vacationing and having fun is one thing. Vacationing and ensuring that the last go around is one of joy, and happy memories, is exhausting, and stressful. And, in case I haven’t mentioned it more than, oh, a hundred times, the beds up here suck. No good, stress, relieving nights of sleep for ol’ Andrew.

Or are there?

Actually, yes, there are. The bed isn’t the most comfortable, and my back is aching, but I’m still getting good enough sleep that my stress is, for all intents and purposes, gone.

How gone?

The last couple of nights, after I banged out a little something for you to read, I pulled up season 7 of Last Man Standing. I saw Tim Allen on the comedy circuit way back when, and thought him mildly amusing. I watched a few episodes of Home Improvement, but never really took to it.

Last Man Standing, however, generally hits me dead centre on my funny bone, and sitting in this uncomfortable wicker chair, binging season 7, trying not to laugh out loud and wake the whole joint, I find myself checking my heartrate.

My stress is so low right now that my spot heartrate is lower than my daily average heartrate. That normally happens only when you’re asleep. I’ve gotten so relaxed these last few days that my damned heartrate dropped 4 beats per minute in two days.

So, yes indeed, get yourself a first rate mattress. It will help your back and posture, it will help you get better sleep, and that better sleep will help you everywhere else. You’ll be more patient, you’ll keep better perspective, and you’ll be able to enjoy time with your loved ones all the more.

But for short periods of time, a less comfortable mattress will do. As long as you can get decent sleep, as long as the bed isn’t contributing to your stress, you’ll be able to cope.

At least I’ve been able to.

It’s Late August, and The Clock is Ticking Down on Summer

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It’s August 22, and the clock is ticking down on summer. All is well; the lawn is mowed, I’ve made a dent in the weeds, and we’re preparing for the boys’ return to school.

Part of those preparations is to get kid one a decent bike, in good repair so that he and his best bud can ride to and fro. Leastwise on days when the weather permits.

In an effort to do this, I’ve kludged together a couple of bikes, picked up from here and there, along with a couple of new parts, into said decent bike, in good repair. The next step? Have him map out and do a few practice runs on the route to school.

To do this, I had a choice, get my bike into working order, or roller blade with him. I didn’t feel like blading, so fix my bike it was, and I did. Or so I thought, right up until I finished inflating the tires on his bike.

As luck had it, I filled my tires first. By the time I had his filled, and he took a couple of quick turns to make sure everything was in working order, my front tire was already going flat.

Sigh.

Time for a new inner tube, but first, I don’t want to go back to the bike shop again, and second, time was winding down. So I took another kludge of a bike, checked its tires, raised the seat, and off we went.

The ride was a blast. Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but I have great kids. Number 1 and I had a lovely ride to his school, testing out the route and his new bike.

On the return we got a little more experimental with his gearing, which led to a race between kid 1 and ol’ daddy. He had the better bike, but I’ve got experience and a foot of height on him. Plus I wasn’t gonna let a 12 y/o beat me in a bike race.

Last week I asked you to think about what you have to be grateful for.

As for me, among those things I’m grateful for is pretty much everything that happened today. It was, simply, a wonderful, magical, late summer day.

Be well.

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