Help convince me re: sitting and posture

Golly, sometimes it's still shocking to find out others have had / are having extraordinarily similar experiences. What you described is so like my day to day at the coffee shop. Your post brought me a lot of comfort tonight, and is going right at the top of my daily reminder compilation... even above the one you posted earlier today!

Thank you,
E

 

Ines,

I went to the library and got the book you recommended. Will start enacting some of its protocol. I have to be careful to not get too wrapped up in 'perfect' cures and regimens, as is my modus operandi, but I think there are some healthy, sensible recommendations in there that will be simple enough to incorporate.

'Eskimo' is awfully misleading, considering I live in one of the sunniest parts of the country. LA area. Even still, I've managed to hide away so much that I haven't gotten enough sun consistently. Will work on that. The sun's so scorching this week, a minute or two oughta burn the fog right out of me.

Self esteem is a major factor. Mine's always been low, and as with most things depression has taken what was low and sunk it lower, lower. Now there's a lot of chicken-or-egg'ness going on. Which is producing which, hard to say.

Thank you for your support and guidance. I'm happy to hear you were helped, and I take your counsel to heart.

E

 

Hi Eskimo,

I didn't realize you weren't taking an antidepressant. I'm glad to hear that you are now taking one. I think this will be a very important turning point for you. I've suffered from depression since about 12 years old, and it can become very serious if I don't take medication. When depressed, I can't imagine anything being helpful and I lose all hope that things will ever change. After discovering TMS and having success at recovery from pain symptoms, I thought I could get by without an antidepressant too, and lowered my dose gradually over a few months. I never even got to zero before I realized that I was not doing well at all and stopped doing the things I needed to do to keep the pain at bay. Soon my pain symptoms came back. I also had a huge increase in anxiety. So I went back on my full dose and have been doing pretty well and back to pain free. So I came to the realization that for me right now, I just have to take an antidepressant if I'm to have any quality of life.

Give it some time to work and realize that sometimes it can take awhile to find the best one for you. I hope you are working with a doctor that you like and trust, as that can make a big difference. Since you also have a great deal of anxiety, hopefully you are taking one that also helps with that symptom. Some are better at that than others.

I believe you've done all the essential TMS strategies. I think once your antidepressant is working, you will start to have success with the TMS. The world will be a brighter and more hopeful, joyful place. Things will begin to fall into place.

Keep us posted on how you're doing. Once your mood is improved, we can look again at fine tuning your TMS strategies, but I have a feeling it won't be needed. You just need to be in the right frame of mind for the techniques to be beneficial.

I look forward to hearing of your progress. I know I feel hopeful, and feel that soon you will too.

Take care,
Ellen

 

I only just saw this post, and can definitely relate. My TMS was most active when I was sitting for long periods, and when I was lying down (asleep usually) on 'the wrong surface' (he says in quotes, because I now realise that's utter bollocks). I too was taught that sitting is evil; the human body wasn't designed to sit for so long; sitting ruins your posture; poor posture is the cause of your back pain; do flexibility exercises to improve the posture; do self-massage on the trigger points to ease the pain, and whatever you do, don't sit for too long. I changed my work desk to a standing desk, and I made a point to go to the gym at lunch times so I could do flexibility exercises.

It makes no difference. Once I learned about TMS, I made a deliberate point of sitting at my standing desk for as long as I could tolerate. Over time, these periods became longer and longer. Today I'm at the stage where I'm almost embarrassed I made my work supply me with a standing desk, because I spend all my day sitting at it comfortably.

What have I changed physically? Nothing. I've just made mental changes. And yet something that once drove me to take painkillers is now almost completely gone. I hope this experience helps you reinforce in your head that sitting is not causing your pain.

 

So great!

 

Thank you so much Ellen.

 

If anybody has any excerpts, articles, or quotes regarding the harmlessness of sitting, please post. The SteveO excerpt on sitting is excellent; any additional reinforcement would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

http://www.bettermovement.org/blog/2014/does-bad-posture-cause-back-pain (Does Bad Posture Cause Back Pain?)

and

http://www.bettermovement.org/blog/2010/five-misconceptions-about-posture (Five Misconceptions About Posture)

and

http://www.greglehman.ca/blog/2014/11/22/text-neck-is-bad-science-and-fear-mongering (Text-Neck is bad science and fear mongering)

Hope these help. I struggle with the same worry/nocebo.

 

those 3 articles are great pspa, thanks for sharing