Traveling can cause some aches and pains in the body just from the way we sit and the lack of movement. We want to make sure we are protecting our neck and low back and taking care of our bodies overall.
Tip #1: Lumbar support
Tip #2: Neck pillows
Tip #3: Spread the weight of the luggage between your hands
Tip #4: Drink water and eat healthy foods
Tip #5: Perform chin retractions, breuger’s exercise, hip stretches.
Road Trip Posture Advice
When it comes to road trips and time to travel, we need to make sure we are focusing on our posture in order to give our bodies the best opportunity to feel good.
Make sure you are fully in the seat. Meaning you are all the way pushed back into the seat and utilizing lumbar support of either a rolled-up towel or a McKenzie roll.
Make sure your shoulder blades touch the seat and you use the headrest. This helps to keep your spine in a neutral line
Use armrests if you have them. If you are driving, make sure the steering wheel is in a comfortable position so that your shoulders are not elevated and are relaxed.
Incorporate movement. If you are able to stop every couple hours and stretch, that will help keep the body from stiffening up and getting aches and pains.
Typically when on road trips, there is a lot of stiffness and tightness created in the body. If we can position our seats properly and incorporate movement every couple hours, we can decrease the chances of those common aches and pains and stiffness that we get after being in the car for hours.
Do This: Travel Break Exercise!
Traveling can be hard on your body and can create those annoying aches and pains. To avoid this, we like to provide 5-6 exercises to help decrease the chances of those traveling aches and pains.
Exercises:
CARs for the neck
CARs for the shoulders
CARs for the hips
Chin retractions
Standing extensions
Alternating lunges
Tips for Managing a Stressful Family!
For the last video of the month, we are going to discuss managing stress around family members. This was a fun one for us to bring up because a lot of times when we do travel, we do feel stress, and on top of that stress from the travel, we also see a little bit of stress sometimes from family members.
With that being said, we wanted to give you tips and tricks about how to manage your stress during the holiday season.
Tip #1: Diaphragmatic Breathing
All you have to do for this is put your hands on your hips and take deep breaths in through the nose and fill up the belly with air. The key here is making the belly expand outward with each breath and making sure the chest doesn’t do all the movement.
Not only is this a proper breathing pattern but it also helps to reduce the heart rate and a little bit of stress levels.
Tip #2: Posture Check
We want to make sure that our shoulders are not up by our ears. This helps to relax our upper traps which tend to carry a lot of tension.
We also want to make sure we are not clenching our jaw. The rest position of the jaw is mouth closed, teeth slightly apart, and the tip of the tongue on the roof of the mouth.
We also have some acupuncture points that we want to try to stimulate. There is one right between the web of the thumb and the pointer finger that we can squeeze to stimulate which helps release some tension in the body.
Another point is right between the eyes, called the third eye. You can rub it gently for 10-15 seconds to help relieve some tension in the body.
Tip #3: Physical Activity
Make sure that you are still getting your body moving and staying physically active. Go for a run, go lift at the gym, run around with the kids, whatever you need to do to stay active to help reduce stress levels in the body.