Problems with posture
Are you happy with your posture? When you catch a glimpse of yourself in a shop window or mirror are you happy with the way you are standing? You might be a bit slumped or maybe your shoulders are looking rounded. Maybe you attempt to fix it by trying to stand up straight, lift your chest or hold your head up. Now it looks better but you can’t hold this posture all day and your old posture returns.
How about sitting at a desk? This is a challenge as it’s very easy to slump and collapse. Maybe you cross your legs and get yourself into a stable position but you know you’re tightening your whole body to sit like this. It’s probably causing you discomfort and pain too.
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Chronic lower back pain is frustrating. You’re not always sure why you get it or what makes it worse but it keeps returning.
Your doctor has sent you for numerous tests and scans and there’s nothing obviously wrong with your back — but it still hurts!
You might have tried physiotherapy but the exercises are painful and difficult to maintain. You feel you can’t keep taking pain killers. You might try a chiropractor or an osteopath who offer back pain relief but the back pain returns eventually.
Why is this? Could it be that there’s something you are doing that is causing the backache?
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Alexander had many famous students in his day, including the writers George Bernard Shaw and Aldous Huxley and academics such as educationalist John Dewey. From the medical world there was the Nobel Prize winner Professor Nikolaas Tinbergen and neurophysiologist Sir Charles Sherrington. All of them expressed their enthusiasm for the Alexander Technique.
Alexander was an actor himself and formulated his Technique by solving his persistent voice problem. The Alexander Technique has continued to be very popular with actors, musicians, singers, dancers and athletes, as you can see from this list of celebrity Alexander Technique students:
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An Alexander Technique teacher’s response.
Following the article in The Evening Standard from the point of view of a chiropractor, ”Do we all have computer neck?“
I thought I would write about this from an Alexander Technique point of view.
So it seems more of us are getting “computer neck”, or in other words tight, painful necks that lead to tight shoulders and chronic back pain.
We are spending more time looking at computer screens, iPads, laptops and mobile phones and focussing too much on what we are looking at and forgetting what we are doing to ourselves.
Not moving for long periods creates tension and stiffness in the body. We often don’t notice it until we stop, get up and feel how rigid we have become. What can we do about it?
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