What has buying a lovely new handbag got to do with breathing and digestion?

Someone buys a lovely handbag, and starts using it daily. It is capacious, and the person puts in it their water bottle and lunchbox (both stainless steel because they’re avoiding endocrine disruptors), a book to read on the way to work, their office shoes etc…and before you know it, the lovely bag weighs a ton.

The problem is, that the bag’s owner has developed a habit of only being able to carry their lovely handbag over their left shoulder. It feels wrong on the right shoulder. Before you know it, and in a way that the bag owner is not aware of, they are lifting the left shoulder up and forward, and tightening the muscles in the neck, in the top of the chest, and holding on much more in their right lower back and glute (bum muscle). They start to ache a bit in their left shoulder / neck and this is exacerbated by sitting at a screen all day at work.

The problem is, this shortening and tightening of the left hand side due to the lovely bag

might not just be muscular. By doing this every day, the muscles, as well as the connective tissue (which includes tendons, ligaments and fascia) may all start to shorten and become tight / “set” as well. This can have knock-on effects on our insides – the bag owner might be shortening and tightening the cavity in the upper left of the torso, in which sits the stomach, the pancreas and the spleen, and part of the left lobe of the liver (the liver is BIG). They might find that their digestion is compromised because the stomach is squashed, but before that they are very likely to find that their breathing is compromised because there is not enough room for the lungs to expand properly.

…and all this because of the lovely big new handbag!

This is the sort of scenario that sends people looking for Alexander Technique lessons (teaching the AT is my other “Job”, but it has huge crossovers with nutritional therapy and wellbeing in general).

Many people think the Alexander Technique is about posture, and in a roundabout way, it sort of is. The Alexander Technique is, in a nutshell, a way to recognise and then prevent unnecessary tension in all activities of life. Most people are unaware of habits they have developed in the way they use their minds and bodies - however we do notice the effects of these habits: shortness of breath, tight shoulders, painful lower back, permanent tiredness...

It is possible to use the whole musculo-skeletal system in a balanced and integrated way, putting no excessive strain on any one bit. However, the stuff of modern life – chairs, sofas, desks, computers, phone (oh phones!! Have you heard of text neck?) means that many people develop bad habits. But habits can also come from other sources – what happens to the muscles across the top of your chest when you constantly feel attacked by your boss? What happens to the muscles of your legs when you don’t feel grounded?

My point is, we may notice the consequences of bad habits (in AT jargon we call this “bad use of the self”) – the shortness of breath, the aching neck, the pain in the right glute, the tiredness because we’re not getting enough oxygen or we are compromising our digestion…) but we very often don’t notice the underlying habit – the habits become part of us, and invisible to us.

We can all learn to undo these habits using the Alexander Technique. Most people taking lessons report greater freedom of movement, ease and balance in everyday activities, and a general sense of vitality and wellbeing. It’s not just posture!

Anyways, if you have a lot to carry around, get a rucksack that you can wear over both shoulders – and actually use both shoulder straps!

If you are at all interested in this, then visit my sister website about my Alexander Technique practice at www.poiseforlife.com