New information about health and fitness that's as old as the hills!
Like our vertebrate cousins, humans come into the world with our own unique design. Babies and toddlers discover, all on their own, how to inhabit their bodies in ways that move with ease, are remarkably strong, and easily flexible. Those of us who never lose this innate design—or are lucky enough to re-learn it—often enjoy lives that are pain-free.
Structural collapse has become a serious and widespread problem in our society, causing a long list of problems.
Modern day adaptations to sitting at desks, in cars, in front of TV’s and computers, have caused many people to sit on a backward tilted, posterior pelvis. This disrupts the angle of the sacral platform, robbing the spine of it’s ability to support itself in an upright position. This has led to an epidemic of spinal collapse and chronic pain.
It is the natural design of our species that provides for all healthy humans to be naturally pain-free, easily flexible, authentically strong, and to enjoy enduring vitality for a lifetime. This alignment is the reason it is possible for small woman in many places in the world to carry heavy loads on their heads with great ease.
There are many reasons why so many of us in the modern, industrialized world lose this alignment at an early age, but overall health often improves when someone learns how to re-inhabit the body the way they once did as a toddler. Back and joint pain is relieved. Many injuries are healed. Easy flexibility, authentic strength, and enduring vitality are restored, and old age is experienced with greater ease.
Students in classrooms become more calm, more focused and more attentive when they know how to sit up straight, not through effort and struggle, but with the support of an aligned pelvis that serves as the foundation for a supple, elongated spine that rests above it.
Humans, like every other species, have a particular mechanical design that is the same for all healthy humans. This design is governed by the same laws of nature that apply to physics, engineering and architecture. Very young children, when learning how to sit and stand upright, discover the vertical axis of gravity within themselves, without actually knowing, of course, that this is what they are doing! Once they figure out how to align their bones along this axis, they are able to balance a bowling ball-like head on top of the spine, an accomplishment that is not unlike learning to ride a bicycle or balance a broomstick on the tip of one’s finger. Aligned bones can be compared to the wall studs of a house that provide an underlying framework of structural support. Muscles that attach to aligned bones are elastic and free of unnecessary tension; they are thus able to perform their primary function, which is to move the bones, not “hold” the body up or keep it together. When bones are not aligned, muscles have to compensate and “pick up the slack”, working overtime and becoming storehouses of tension. Muscles that are attached to aligned bones are elastic and free of tension, not tight and overdeveloped. Toddlers, it turns out, are the gurus for how to live in natural, relaxed and comfortable bodies that have flexible joints, elongated spines and are free from stored-up tension and pain.
Adults who maintain this natural alignment throughout their lives continue to enjoy these same benefits and are far less likely to injure themselves in the course of daily activities. Such people tend to enjoy better overall health and to age with greater ease. Those people in the world who inhabit their bodies in a naturally-aligned way are not only able to be pain-free, they are able to function at a high level of physical activity throughout an entire lifetime.
The current epidemic of pain—back pain, neck pain, shoulder pain, hip pain, knee pain—is not the natural condition of a healthy human. The billions of dollars paid to doctors, insurance and pharmaceutical companies for surgeries and pain medication would be saved if the medical profession and our society as a whole had a clear picture of what a naturally-healthy human actually is. For this to happen, we must begin to look to the toddlers of the world, as well as those people who are able to carry heavy loads on their heads with ease and who age into their 70s, 80s and beyond with flexible joints, elongated spines and enduring vitality. Medical research MUST turn its focus from studying the dis-order or the dis-ease to using the baseline of good health, for herein lies the secret to how to live pain-free and enjoy greatly improved health.
“As a family physician treating my share of patients with back pain, neck pain, osteoporosis, and dysfunctional labor, I find this book instructive. Kathleen Porter’s observation of peoples around the world who retain their natural alignment, movement, and relaxation is a clear window into the healing of the chronic pain syndromes of our culture. More than that, her work has been personally transformative.”
Leah Morton, M.D., family practitioner
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" . . . a must read for everyone who cares about children. This book is an eye-opening godsend."
Christiane Northrup, M.D.
"This book is a treasure—beautiful, practical, and inspiring." Sonia Story, Founder of Move, Play, Thrive
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