Boo! It’s that time of year, and “boo” can mean a scare, or “boo” can be a response to something unpleasant – like the Icky Scoliosis Sisters. Booooo! On the one hand, some icky things go hand-in-hand with scoliosis, but on the other, when we know about them, we can do something about them. Cast a spell, so to speak, to see them magicked away to the corners of the earth, or at least to the other side of the couch where they can sit and watch tv by themselves.
Scoliosis and her one especially icky sister.
We see recurrent issues in our scoliosis clients. Issues that shouldn’t have anything to do with scoliosis, but we see them so often that we think that, well, maybe, they have a lot to do with scoliosis. If you were coming to see us privately, we have a lengthy questionnaire and many of those questions surrounding digestion. Like these:
Do you experience?
- Digestive issues like acid reflux,
- Irritable bowel syndrome,
- Feeling full easily, or
- Frequent diarrhea or constipation?
Digestive problems and scoliosis.
Think about the shape of a scoliosis spine. Now imagine you are tired, it’s been a long day, and you are resting in your curve –your most relaxed posture. Now, imagine the digestive tract’s 30 feet (9 meters) of tube-like structure trying to find an easy route through the twists and turns, squishes and smashes as food makes its way from start to finish. Can you feel your digestion getting pinched? Can you feel how the digestive system may not have room to breathe and move? The digestive system is meant to flow – if we pinch it, it will complain. See the bullet points above, “Do you experience?”
Our best alignment will keep our digestive system in its most content state. However, no one can hold their corrections all day, every day – that would be quite the magic trick. So, how do we keep the digestive system from becoming an icky scoliosis sister? I have a trick for you.
The Trick.
For your first trick, it’s the knowledge that a better alignment isn’t just for our spines – it’s about our organs, too. When our organs can function easily, we can eat comfortably and digest more easily. The second trick is to create your best-elongated alignment multiple times each day. And by multiple, we mean 20-30 times daily for 20 seconds to 2 minutes each time. Each time you visit your improved alignment, you open up the tissues of the spine, but, very importantly, you also open the pathway of the digestive system. Food can move, enzymes can be added from the pancreas and gall bladder, blood can flow, and abdominal pain can diminish.
An extra treat for your trick.
The tricks above have lasting power. That 20-second to 2-minute effort that you do 20-30 times a day lasts much longer than the effort you put into it. The Scolio-Pilates elongation effort wakes up the small stabilizers of your spine—tissues rich in proprioceptive muscle spindles. When these stabilizers are awakened, they stay awake for 20-30 minutes. That’s good news. That’s a huge return on exercise/elongation investment!
But there’s more good news. You can assist the elongation-alignment effort by making some small changes to how you sit in a chair, on the couch, or stand waiting in line. Here are some tips that you can use:
- Sitting in a chair.
- Turn the back of the chair to the side of your thoracic concavity. Place your arm on the back of the chair and reach your concavity towards the back of the chair and up. Be sure to keep both hips on the chair – the opposite one will try to lift off—especially if your lumbar curve is primary.
- Sitting on a couch.
- The same principles apply as above. Sit in the corner of the couch that is on the side of your primary concavity – lumbar or thoracic. Give a little lean into the arm of the couch while keeping the opposite hip down.
- Standing around.
- Got a wall? You can place an arm on the wall. This time, it will be the arm on the side of the thoracic convexity. Keep the hand, or elbow, on the wall and glide your ribs away from the wall and slightly up. Be sure to keep the hip down on the side of the thoracic convexity. This hip will definitely hike up if your curve is primary in the lumbar. Did I already say that above? It’s ok, it bears repeating. 🙂
Remember, these tricks are a way to keep the spine happy and the digestive system working between your exercises. Don’t overdo it. If your alignment/elongation exercises require 80-100% effort, then we are talking now about a 20-30% effort. You want to keep the pathways open. Imagine our relaxed alignment as putting a kink in the digestive system’s hose. You simply want to keep that unkinked.
And just like that, Bibbity-Bobbity-Boo, this Icky Scoliosis Tummy Sister, is banished. If she returns, you know what to do. Get your magic wand and create your alignment/elongation corrections. (And it’s October, so yes, the magic wand is absolutely necessary.)
No more Boo! Just a trick and treat for you. 😊
AlNouri M, Wada K, Kumagai G, Asari T, Nitobe Y, Morishima T, Uesato R, Aoki M, Ishibashi Y. Diseases and comorbidities associated with early-onset scoliosis: a retrospective multicenter analysis. Spine Deform. 2023 Mar;11(2):481-486. doi: 10.1007/s43390-022-00613-6. Epub 2022 Nov 16. PMID: 36380109.
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