 I'm Christine Linders. This is my fourth episode of Movement Matters. I'm happy to be hosting it from Darianne Connecticut. I came back to visit my family and today we're going to be talking about how to retire without pain and prepare your body. Today I'm delighted to have a very special guest today, Beverly Bonfoy, who just retired her birthday, September 14. We're going to be discussing how you can learn to correct your postural habits and your reflux to improve your balance and enjoy your retirement without pain. We're also going to teach you a few very simple exercises so that you can activate certain muscles to walk better, enjoy improved balance, and enjoy an active retirement. So welcome, Beau. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much for coming on Think Tech Hawaii. Thank you. Thank you. So now I want to ask you, I understand you just retired and you're going to be moving and I know this because Bev and I have known each other for several years now because we met with her as a patient of mine and we've been talking about this retirement for several years. Several years and every time I ask her I think she's going to South Carolina to retire because in her email she signs it as something like, in my mind, I'm already at the beach. So what is it like? Congratulations. You're retired. Yeah, I am. Actually, I'm retired but I'm still working on a special project for my employer. So I'm almost retired. You're almost retired. And where are we now? Where are we hosting Movement Matters? This is at my childhood home that my parents bought in 1950. And although after college I didn't live here, I came back here in probably, oh, probably seven years ago. So I lived with my mom for the last four years of her life. But my parents own this house since 1950. So there's a lot of stuff here. Yes. And that brings to the question that I asked when I didn't let you answer until we got on air today. How did you, because I come in here now, how did you pack up, pare down all the things that you had from your life, amendments from your parents? How did you do that? And you're packing it up. I think I see it outside. There's a pod in your driveway. You're leaving in two weeks for North Carolina, mind you. Not South Carolina. How did you do that? And how did you not hurt your back or anything? Judy, not please tell us. Well, first of all, I'm moving into 484 square feet. I know. What is this place? Probably it's over a thousand. It's not that big. Wow. It looks big. It looks big, you know. And, you know, my parents bought this in the era where you had one bathroom, three kids, two parents and one bathroom. Me too. But there was a lot of places to store things. So my mindset is do I want to find a place to store it? And if I don't, it's not going with me. Wow. And so I have a brother who lives in North Carolina, a sister who lives about 15 minutes away. And so I'm taking pictures of things and texting them and saying, do you want it? And if the answer is no, then we're donating it. That's great. So there's a lot of that going on. That's great. I'm impressed. I'm inspired. I, you know, I've lived in California. I have a storage unit there. And I moved to Connecticut. And so now I'm living in Hawaii out of a, I always say out of a suitcase because when you move to Hawaii, it's so expensive to go. And so I would love to ship a pod out. I keep thinking, when am I going to do that now? But I'm so impressed because of the hard work and time that it took to move things and get things going so you can enjoy your retirement. And I already know that pre-retirement, you started warming up to get involved in things that you were going to enjoy. And I know some of them, but tell me, what are the things that you are going to enjoy most about your retirement? Well, the first thing that I've kind of scoped out in the Greensboro area is pickleball. Yeah. You know, I do. I found a place to play pickleball three days a week. Oh, good. Yeah. So I'm looking forward to that. And you have, I understand, already begun to play this sport. Yes. Okay. And what have you noticed any trouble with anything in playing this sport? Yeah. I've had some back pain. I've had some back pain that is limited in my playing time. And so I've worked on that. And then, of course, there's the falling off the wall. That has nothing to do with pickleball. Well, wait, what's this falling off the wall thing? Is this before or after you retire, mind you? I think it was right after. I don't remember. There was a shortcut from the parking lot to the pickleball court. Okay. And so I approached this stone wall. And there's a cinder block. You step on the cinder block, then you step on the stone wall, then you step on over onto another cinder block. Oh my gosh. And then you're over. But on the way over, I thought, my legs are a little too short for this. But going back over, I had forgotten, you know, that the step was that high. And you're tired and you had fun and you're ready to move on. Yeah. So going back over, I got on top of the stone wall. And I'd forgotten that the step down was too high for my short legs. And I put one leg over onto the cinder block and my toe from my other leg caught. And there I went. Are you okay? Yeah, I was like, it was pretty funny to me. No banged up. No. It was, you know, was in the grass and the dirt and the mud. And so it was kind of amusing. So this is great. I'm very amusing. I don't know if I should even say this, but, but Bev took me kayaking when I was living here in Connecticut. And it was very funny. I'm not sure how it went down, but we took kayaks out and stand at paddleboards out. And I think, oh, we, we took the paddleboards out. We were coming back to getting the kayaks. And I turned around just before I was about to get in my kayak. And I see Bev about to get over. She went. And so I think what she mentioned when I asked her for being on the show is, what are we going to teach them today how not to fall out of a kayak? Is that what she said to me? Yeah. Yeah. So that was very fun. And I know that one of the things that I see even now being in Hawaii, I have a couple retirees who are now playing pick a ball in tennis three or four times a week. My one lady's playing at five days a week because she's got back pain and some hip pain. And one of the things that I wanted to talk about today was how do you set your body up so you don't have pain when you have the time to do all the things that you love, play pick a ball, play tennis, garden, cook for hours on end because you have the time, go shopping, sit at the beach all day long in low chairs. And one of the things that I wanted to talk about was posture. And some of the things that we don't realize when you're sitting at your desk all day or even me working on patients, I'm more forward. And so it's very important over the years to make sure that we mind our posture because posture, when it becomes more forward, not only leads us to having things like neck pain as we age, shoulder pain as we age and we're reaching into cabinets for things and back pain because it changes how we sit. It also leads us to be more prone to trips and falls because when your chest comes down a little bit because you're more rounded from a poor posture, it's actually harder to lift your feet higher and you start to shuffle your feet a little bit more. Another bonus is that reflux is becoming gastroesophageal reflux disorder, also known as GERD, is becoming another thing that I hear more and more with a lot of my patients in the 50s and on that's preventing them from being able to sleep flat at night because their stomach contacts are refluxing back up into their throat. And one of the causes that I learned from Mary Massery, who's a genius physical therapist, is the role of posture involved in increasing symptoms of reflux sometimes and also the even bigger role of our diaphragm which holds the lower esophageal sphincter that helps to prevent a secondary restraint to the food in our stomach from passing back up into our esophagus. So when we're slouched forward, your diaphragm doesn't have the full ability that it would have if you were sitting upright to work and clamp down around that sphincter and help us. So I wanted to talk about posture in retirement as injury prevention, fall prevention, and helping control symptoms of reflux. How do you feel about your posture? Can you know it can be improved. It can be improved. So, so Bev and I have always talked and nicely and maybe not so nicely over the years. Sit up straight. Squeeze your shoulder blades. Are you sitting up straight? When you bent over, did you squeeze your shoulder blades? So I would like to show slide one where I'm showing someone who's up in years. This is my Aunt Betsy. I love her. I went to see her yesterday and she doesn't have bad posture but just a little bit head forward of the shoulder joint axis. And so that helps you be a little bit more rounded, which we don't want. In slide number two, I show an easy correction for what to do if you are a little bit more forward because our posture controls our balance. So to do slide number two, you just put your elbows by your side and rotate your hands outward, squeezing your shoulder blades. It's a great way to activate your postural muscles. If you've been sitting for a long time, when you get up in the morning to walk, to get your balance reactions all ready and set to go, because when we get forward like this, it's harder to lift our legs. Those are the things that I like to talk about. And as we age, there's just normal degeneration that happens and collagen that doesn't replenish itself as it did when we were in our 20s and 30s. And so it's very important to mind your posture, which is also something that we don't think about as much when we get older because we just want to relax and enjoy life, right? So are you doing anything for your posture right now? I'm afraid to ask, but like, I remind myself to stand up straight. Okay, good. And, you know, I use the trick of standing against the corner of the wall. Oh, good. Did the one to stretch the front out? Yeah. Yeah, that's one. Oh, that's great. I should have put that slide in there. I didn't put that slide in there. But what I did put, if you go to slide number three, is I put a picture. So the image on the left of on Betsy, you could see that her head isn't quite on the wall and her shoulder, like the center point of her shoulder is forward over the wall. That's that little rounded that happens. She has good posture. But as you age, sometimes you can just you just cave in because we're getting older. And the posture on the right, you could see the head is on the wall and the shoulder axis is a little bit further close back to the wall. So that's just what normal posture is and say you're late 20s. And then posture that happens as you get older, if you're not thinking about it. So image number four is one of the exercises. And I don't know if I've showed you this, but I will have people stand against the wall. Number one, it's easy and everybody has a wall. And number two, it gives you some proprioceptive feedback. So if you can see on the image on the left, the two fingers behind the wall and the image on the right, there's still two fingers behind the wall. But what I wanted to point out about this picture as an exercise is in an image on the left, I have her tuck her chin down before she tries to squeeze her shoulder blades and push her head back. A lot of people in the image on the right, they like to lift up their chin to try to reach their head back. But that causes a lot of compression in the neck. So this as an exercise, it's really important because it helps you to see where you are as far as where you're getting to good posture. You squeeze your shoulder blades. You don't lift your head to get back to the wall. You keep your chin level and then you push back. That also strengthens all the muscles on the front of your neck, stretches all the muscles on the back of your neck and also reeducates those postural muscles in the back to help you be more upright as you walk. Does that make sense? Have you done that before? Yes. Okay. What did you think of it? It makes a difference. It makes a difference. You feel the difference. You feel the difference. I think that's what people tell me. To go back to Mary Massary, the woman, I think you probably heard me say, wow, I took this great class. I learned so many things. One of the things that she pointed out in the class that rung true to me because not you, but one of my patients, she said it's a phenomenon with the diaphragm that helps with postural stabilization because the way it intersects with that very important muscle, the transverse abdominis, which I know I talked about and I think two shows ago. But when you are walking, let's say up your driveway or an older person in the hospital walking down the hall and they start to get tired and they start to bend forward, one of the things that Mary called out to us in the class was that your diaphragm works for postural stabilization. It plays a role in that. But when you are getting tired, it chooses breathing all the time because we absolutely have to breathe. That's number one function we have to breathe. And that's why people will notice as they're walking up a hill, as you get older, your posture starts to fail or that person that's being deconditioned in the hospital starts walking down the hall. And I know you've seen this because you've worked in group homes for years. So they start crowding down on their walker because we're always saying sit up straight, sit up straight. But the reason why that's happening is they're losing their diaphragm as a postural stabilizer and it's going only to breathing because they're taxing themselves to walk that distance. And what that exercise on the wall does is help to open you up and reeducate those postural stabilizers that need to be strong enough to hold you upright so that your diaphragm can breathe and you don't lose the postural support. Is that a cool concept or what? Yeah. Okay. So slide five, let's just look at slide five. This is one that I love for people because in the image on the right now, you could see the thumbs are hitting the wall, her head is on the wall, her shoulders are on the wall, her buttocks are on the wall. So there's no cheating happening. In the image of on the left, same thing, no cheating happening. But you can see her thumbs don't quite get to the wall. And Bev had mentioned a stretch that she did in the door corner to stretch out her chest. Well, the reason why her thumbs are hitting the wall in this slide is because the chest muscles get tight over time because we're doing everything forward. I'm doing everything forward at work and then I'm going home and washing dishes and then I'm playing with my animals and then I'm going out and surfing and everything is in front of me. And so that's a good way you reach back and touch the wall to reeducate again the back muscles, your postural extensors to hold your body upright that way when you're walking. You don't get tired or when you're running for the pickle ball and you're tired, your posture is not collapsing because you're tired and then you're tripping on your feet and falling. I know the wall thing was like a one off. I'm not saying that you had bad posture. But anyway, so do you think that you'll be incorporating some of those exercises into your daily life as well? Yeah, because, pass it. And also because I'm going to be doing my stained glass again, which requires standing. Okay. So, so what, well, how do you do that? Do you set it up on a podium or? It's on a table. It comes up about to here. Okay. And is it a flat table or is it one of those? No, it's flat. So you'd be bending forward a little bit. Yeah. So what exercises I always like to say undo the sport? What exercises are you going to be doing to undo your stained glass for? Well, I think standing against the wall. Okay. That's, you know, just making sure that I stand up straight and stretch backwards. And is there anything that's a great one? And I'm glad you plugged me for that one. But it is a good one. I like that one. It's an easy one to do. Are you going to be doing anything to protect your low back while you're standing for how many hours and doing stained glass? Is it labor intensive? I've never done it. You know, there's always the suck it in one. Okay. So how would you do that? And what is that for? Is this a test? Yeah. So should I tell this story? So this day that Bev and I went kayaking, we were, I guess we were taking the kayaks off the back porch right here. And I said to Bev, she was up on the, on the deck and I was down the three stairs and we were coming down. I said, now, Bev, make sure you suck it in before you pick up the kayak. They're heavy. What are they 35 pounds? Yeah. And this wasn't a new concept to me. Right. I know. So yeah, that's, that's what's funny about this, right? Bev knows about the concept. And so I said, are you, make sure you suck it in before you lift it. She goes, oh yeah, what does that do? And so I said, what does that do? Are you kidding me? But anyway, for those of you who hadn't tuned in two shows ago when I talked about low back pain, when you suck it in or pull your belly button into your spine, it activates your anatomical girdle, which is your transversus abdominis muscle and you're in the front. And then your, your deepest abdominal muscle and then your multifidus muscles in the back. And when you pull your belly button in, it forms a co-contraction of those two muscles that stabilizes your low back. So that's one of the things that I always like to go over with people because it's supposed to be an automatic function. But whenever you have something wrong or an injury or you're walking funny or you have back pain, that mechanism isn't working properly. And so you have to consciously engage it by telling yourself, suck it in, pull your belly button in. It's not holding your breath. It's just like you're in a tight dress, your pants are a little bit too tight and you're zipping them up and you got to pull your belly button in to get it tight. That's what it is. So I always tell people, especially when you're retiring and you're going to be moving furniture around your house, picking up your pod and packing up your surfboards and your kayaks and all that kind of thing that you need to take care of your body because you don't want to hurt yourself by slouching forward. You want to pull your belly button in, squeeze your shoulder blades back and then you go lift that item or then you go bend forward. You can absolutely bend forward while you keep your shoulder blades back and pull your belly button in. And that's like the proper way to bend. Do you agree? Exactly. She's great. That's great. And it makes a difference. And it makes a difference. So now I would like to show a brief clip of tips from the wizard. Tips from the wizard to stand tall. You pull your stomach in and imagine like a string is pulling you straight up from your head. That's fantastic. So I didn't tell really Bev about this because the place that I worked where I met Bev, the front desk started calling me the wizard because a lot of people would come up to the front afterward and make very positive comments about what they had experienced when I went through my assessment the first time. And I don't know you were one of them. Were you? Yeah. Okay. So they started saying to my patients when they would come back for the first time. I'm meeting them. Hi, my name is Christine. Come on back. I'm going to be working with you today. They would preface it. Well, they said, oh, you're seeing the wizard today. And will you better be good and all these kind of things. So anyway, that was a close thing to my heart. And so many people have called me that over the years that I think I'm going to start incorporating some tips from the wizard. It's a good idea. Okay. So now that we talked about tips in the wizard, I do want to talk a little bit more about reflux. And I know Bev had mentioned to me a couple of times when I was harping on her posture, why she was having so much difficulty when I was like, set up straight, squeeze your blades. And she mentioned that she had reflux for a forever. And so you're not sleeping flat. No, no, I can't. So how do you sleep? Well, I don't mean, I don't mean do you sleep well? How do you sleep? Do you sleep propped up? Are you on your side? Like kind of on my side. Okay. With a couple of pillows. Okay. And one of the things that I worry about when people have reflux is their inability to be flat when they sleep and what it does to the positioning of your neck. If you have to be propped up on pillows on your back or some people's reflexes so bad, they have to be sleeping up in recliner where they end up being like this. And then at night, even though you've been forward all day, you don't get to recover by being flat on your side with one pillow or on your back with one pillow. And then your spine gets to assume that normal position or undoing the task. So one of the things I gave Bev, because I think some of the medications that you take, I also have a friend in Hawaii too that's having a hard time with the medications, having a side effect of maybe anemia. Yeah. They interfere with the absorption of iron. That's, yeah. And you had a problem with that. And she had a problem with that. And so I pulled on Mary Massery's awesome concepts of the diaphragm in casing the lower esophageal sphincter with muscular contractile tissue and an exercise that she taught us in a one day class, mind you, I was blown away. How to exercise your diaphragm to help support the area where the lower esophagus goes through the diaphragm and into your stomach so that that muscle can be the restraint so the stomach contents don't come back up through your diaphragm up into your throat causing you to not be able to sleep laying down. So do you want to demonstrate this exercise or do I? No, you can. Okay. So here's a little coffee straw. Now is this McDonald's or Dug and Donuts? No, I ordered those by the box. Oh, you did? Yeah. To do this exercise? No. Yeah. Okay. So let me show you this. Thank you. But you can get a McDonald's. My dad did this. He had a hang on hernia and he would cough and cough and cough and cough after he ate and has this terrible burning in his throat. So I had him stand up against the door like I showed you after he ate and do deep breathing. And I also had him during commercials when he was watching TV to do the Mary Massery's coffee straw trick. So you exhale your air and then you breathe in slowly through this little teeny straw. So you breathe out and you breathe in and your diaphragm descends pulling airs into your lungs. Now, are you supposed to do 10? Yeah. But I tend to get a little lightheaded after three or four, maybe after one in this instance. But I'll tell people do three or four and then you're done. And then the next commercial do three or four and then you're done. If you could do 10 and you don't feel lightheaded, that's great. Don't worry about it. But if you can't, then do whatever you can because it really does help. I've tried it on several people so far and I believe it because Mary's just a genius. She's been researching this stuff for decades. But I've tried it myself. I've tried it with patients and everybody says the same thing. It really helps. And one person is not taking the reflex medications anymore. And I did ask Bev two days ago if she was still taking the medications. And what did you tell me? I said, yeah, I'm afraid not to. I know. And that's okay. That's one of the things that is scary because I mean, reflux feels bad. Yeah. Reflux feels bad. And it's one of those things that you want to make sure that you don't have that feeling all the time. It also can do damage that you don't want to have to your body. But it does help. It does help. I just do it during commercials. Yeah, great. So we could talk a little bit about balance too. I mentioned posture and balance. And one of the things that's so important for you to enjoy your retirement, not have back pain, not have hip pain or any of those other things that are limiting you from falling out of your kayak or tripping over the wall where you're trying to get to pickleball or sitting and knitting because that's what you want to do is to strengthen your hips because you got to be able to walk, to do your grocery shopping and any of those other things that you want to do. So if we go to slide seven, this is to work your gluteus medius. So the one on the left, you're laying down. You can use a band around your ankles or no band. Pull your toes up. You squeeze your buns very tightly. You push your legs down into the surface and then you slide out to the side. You can do them both at the same time, opening together and then also one at a time. Why you don't want to lift is because you lift your leg, you're using a completely different muscle. It's a hip flexor muscle on the front and attaches to your spine. We don't want that muscle. We want to use your hip muscles so that you can have stability on one leg when you're walking, which will improve your balance. And the other exercise is just a way to put it into function. You can with or without the band, stand up and walk sideways down your hallway, up and down. If you have four balance, you could walk sideways, touching onto the wall as you go so that you have the stability or not at risk for falling while you put that gluteus medius into practice as you walk side to side. And you can also use a band as well, but I caution people on using the band at home. And I probably told you this too, because if you're walking up and down the hall using your band and you do have a balance problem and someone rings the phone and you instinctively go, oh, let me go get the phone. I don't want anybody to fall because they forgot their legs are tied together because of this silly physical therapy exercise to strengthen your legs. But that's another tip to help you improve your balance, not just improve your posture to improve your balance, not just activate your postural extensors to improve your balance, but actually work your hip muscles to improve your balance so you can play pickleball and not get back pain, hip pain, any of those things. So have you tried any of these exercises? Yes. And what do you think? Because I know you've told me many things about your love for certain of these simple physical therapy exercises. I have the bands. Okay. I'm so proud of you. I'm not worried about the phone because I, you know, I can take phone calls on my wrist. I'm so proud of you. And I'm now upgraded to, if I fall, my phone will call for help. So I'm all set. Wasn't there a commercial about that I found and I can't get up? Yes, but I don't have that. I've got the Apple version. Okay, well, that's good. That's another important thing to do as you retire, or if you live alone to have some sort of safety measure, if you do fall or something does happen that you can get in touch with people, always bring your phone with you, have your Apple Watch or your smartwatch with you, or they have medical alerts that people can wear if they're by themselves, just in case we want to be safe as we get older and retire. Well, you know that because like, what was it? Three years ago, I fell down the stairs on the ice and nobody knew I was out there. And I didn't have my phone here right out there. How long were you out there for? 15 minutes, because I had invited the next door neighbor over. So I knew he'd be out eventually. Oh my gosh, did you break anything? Yeah, my ankle. Oh, that's right. I met you shortly after I met you a year after that. Wow. So I never go anywhere without my phone, even if it's to the basement or to a different floor in the house. Well, that's fantastic. I'm so glad you're okay. And see, we never would have met and we wouldn't be here today broadcasting from Beverly's home or child at home. Talking about packing. Talking about packing and reflux and all those things. See the smartwatch and telling us to stand right now. Well, anyway, thank you so much, Bev, for coming on Think Tech Hawaii and Movement Matters. And thank you all for joining us on Movement Matters. I'd like to thank Think Tech Hawaii, the producers, and all the donors for having us here today. Mahalo and aloha.