 host Christine Linders, physical therapist, board certified orthopedic clinical specialist. I'd like to kick off the end of the year and into the new year by helping us live our best life. And so over the past three years, many of us have experienced increased stress, increased anxiety with the pandemic and being more isolated. A lot of that chronic stress has led people into my office with more pain. So I wanted to help us all to decrease our pain, decrease our stress and anxiety and find more joy in our life. So number one, as promised from last show when I had Jordan Coleman on myofascialexpert, we're going to talk about how we can decrease pain. So I want to show everyone out there who maybe has pain somewhere in their body, some of the benefits that you can get and fast when you see me physical therapist, massage therapist, myofascialexpert, etc. So let's go to image one and let's see a before and after. This is my mom. She had really limited shoulder range emotion. And there's Jordan off on the side, you can see the before she kind of looks like a big Y with her arms, maybe even in a U. And then after she's almost straight up and down. And that was probably in about 15 minutes of some myofascial release work. And that's so important for us to be able to have the function of our bodies and when you can't raise your arms above your head to get dressed, you can't reach for things. It leads us to have pain in other areas of body we start to lift our back a little bit more while we're reaching. So some people might get neck pain or back pain because they're compensating in that way. And let's go to image number two. Well, you'll see another patient of mine who had terribly painful right shoulder and you can see her arms kind of long out like back to the right. And then after the session, she was much higher. And so she's a busy person. She doesn't have time for all this dysfunction in her arms. It's really impacting your life. And after one session, she got more range of motion. And I want everyone to treat their selves now in the new year to a physical therapy appointment to a myofascial appointment to a massage appointment treat yourself to something so you can live your best life and have much less pain but more have much better function in your body. So let's go to video number three where I'm going to take you through a small exercise that you can do every day to feel better. If you want to live your best life, you can do one thing right now to get out of pain in various places of your body and it can only take minutes a day or a minute a day if you've got neck pain, shoulder pain, upper back pain or pain down your arms, you can simply sit in your chair, interlace your hands at the base of your head. Press your head back a little bit like you elongate your neck, chin down and squeeze your elbows back. Squeeze your elbows back, you can squeeze your elbows back, take a deep breath in. Expand your rib cage, open up your lungs. You can keeping your hands clapped to the base of your head, squish your head back, having your hands meet the resistance. Squish your head back into your hands, letting your hands meet the resistance. This helps get rid of all that neck pain, upper back pain from looking down at your phone or on the computer. You can lift your elbow up to the sky and breathe, keeping your chest up. That way you're not hunching forward. Lift your other elbow up to the sky and breathe. If you can't get your hands a high because you have shoulder pain, you can just put your hands around shoulder height and then squeeze back like you're doing a W. It's important not to do this because then you're pushing your shoulder forward. You want to get rid of your shoulder pain, get rid of your neck pain. Squeeze back, squeeze back like hands first. Squeeze back, squeeze back. If you have back pain and you want to alleviate some back pain, you can take your knees into your chest and breathe into your lower back. You can hug them a little bit over to your right side. Breathe deeply into your lower back. Big, huge inhales. Repeat to the other side. And also if you have any sort of back pain, you need to re-engage your deep core. So you want to lay on your back, keeping your spine and neutral, not pressing it flat into the table or the bed. You're going to pull your belly button in. Pull your belly button in like you're trying to zip up a tight pair of pants. Don't compress here and bring your ribs down. Belly button in, belly button in. Like you're going to make your tummy look smaller. You're going to hold it in and breathe and you can lift one foot and lift the other foot. This is trying to keep your pelvis still. Lift one foot, re-tighten, pull your belly button in. Lift the other foot. You don't want to feel any rocking there. So those two things can solve your neck pain, your shoulder pain, your back pain and get you on your way to living your best life now. That is just a couple examples of very simple ways that you can do in minutes to have your best feeling body. Collasp your hands. I do this one every day. My patients love it. Press your head back. You long at your neck. Squeeze your shoulder blades. Take a deep breath. Breathing not only decreases pain but it increases our parasympathetic nervous system response which helps to calm us down. It helps to decrease stress. It oxygenates all the tissues that are like this like white knuckling and gets us to perfuse with blood and calm down. Now I always say and I believe this. You get out of your body what you put into it. So if you put into it this that takes one to two minutes with the breathing. If you put into it suck your stomach in and march. Engage your deep core. If you have back pain or if you watch all of my other videos on think tech and get one little video exercise that you can do you are going to be putting into your body something so you can take out of it the freedom of movement and being free from pain. So I want to challenge everybody watching the show today and everyone in the world to do something good for your body. If we could do five minutes of exercise every day and exercise could be what I did in that video stretching out exercise could be grabbing an exercise band while you're at your desk and doing 10 repetitions three times that day that would take you about 30 seconds. That is something that is going to enable you to reap the rewards of being pain free and getting rid of those nagging irritations that are stressing you out making you more tired making you more irritable or making you more depressed because you can't do what you need to do in your life or what you want to do in your life without pain holding you back. So the second part of this show is how do we decrease anxiety or decrease the stresses that are really getting to us that are preventing us from having our best life and that is multiple. You can do exercise. Exercise is great for relieving stress. If you don't like to go for a run if you don't like to play sports that's fine. You can do mindfulness meditation. You can get involved in a hobby so I'm going to show you a couple things that I love to do in video number four. Now I happen to live in Hawaii. It was an amazing beautiful place and I've lived many other places but the beach is my safe haven so even in Connecticut in New York I would find a place to either walk on the beach or run on the beach but if you can't there's other places you can do. Green space has been shown to decrease stress and anxiety and just taking a walk around your neighborhood has been shown to really decrease the stress that you feel. It calms us down. It quiets us down and it stops the mind from going so if you can just take a five-minute walk around your block at some point during the day or if you're feeling if you're at home and you're feeling like you're just really starting to get anxious and stressed stop what you're doing and just go outside. Go outside take a little bit of a walk take some deep breaths maybe like curl your toes in the grass and do something different to give your body to calm your body down and get rid of some of that stress response. Let's go to the next video video number five where it shows me I took up a new a new hobby and this is actually helping me to get rid of my pain in my back because it's really engaging my core but also look at that I watched the video when i'm stressed because it just it just looks so peaceful there's a dog on an inner tube right there the lady's pushing her dog on an inner tube and it's just having fun doing something to calm yourself down that's my new hobby I do it about once a week once every other week and there's lovely people there when I get there it's really great to connect with people again being a physical therapist I was keeping myself pretty isolated during the pandemic I didn't want to catch COVID I didn't want to give someone COVID I was just being super vigilant with what I did and with whom I did it with because I was more nervous and when you get nervous it leads to fear and so I just um I just am happy to be seeing people again I love being outdoors and it's something that I'm doing I challenge myself to help me have my best life and to be at my best so let's look at video number six for just another way to decrease stress and anxiety stare at something beautiful this to me is beautiful but looking at a picture of your family could be beautiful to you looking at a picture of a loved one my mom my dad my dad's past but looking at a picture of him fills me with joy it fills me with love it fills me with calm and so find something beautiful to look at that can give you that little smile and I play with my pet sometimes playing with a dog is super fun it decreases your stress you're kind of lost in that moment of what you're doing a hobby a craft paint a pumpkin I'm gonna go get it I painted a pumpkin for Halloween and I thought it was terrible at first I had a little cat sitting on the top but the creativeness and there's this but the creativeness of a hobby I just had some acrylic paints I've been getting together with the two same friends to the whole entire pandemic they're both physical therapists and we said let's do some crafts let's paint on a pumpkin let's paint on a glass find something new this was new for me and so when I was painting on this pumpkin I may have been frustrated because it doesn't look good but actually looks pretty good I think right now and the whole entire time I was doing it I was focused on painting I couldn't think about my pain I couldn't think about what I was doing the next day or if I had to get up early it was really lovely and so find yourself a hobby get get lost so let's go to video number seven work we're going to see a published author my brother Dave who published a book he's going to tell you all about it and the beautiful mindfulness that he got to enjoy in working on this project so I made the first copy of the ABCs of NYC 16 years ago as a gift for our friends daughter's first birthday and I wanted to publish it and since that time endlessly I've looked for and found letters in multiple cities around the U.S. in Germany in London and you know my family would happily tease me about it but I finally published the book this year but there's one of the benefits of the book that I found by the time I finished it surprised me and essentially there's three benefits two of which I expected and the one that I'm sharing with you today is that looking for letters hiding an architecture and nature around you and in your neighborhood it can be fun for kids that's one two it can be fun for parents and kids that's two and the surprising one which I only realized within the past couple years is it's a great mindfulness exercise for adults when you are out for a walk I mean frequently we're looking at our cell phones or thinking about meetings we have or remembering something that we need to do but if you are looking for letters while you're walking it kind of forces you to be present you have to pay attention and where it really starts to work is like you'll see an A you'll see a D somewhere but then all of a sudden you realize you've gotten almost a whole alphabet you need to find a Q and you start to have to use your imagination about where a Q might be and and it's in looking for some of the difficult ones that you kind of I kind of get lost in just paying attention to what's around me and it's easy to do on a walk it's fun to do with your kids um as I've said and and Christine could share you know my daughter my kids have found letters on their own that I would have never seen um and I just wanted to share that with you today I'm looking at the book because I actually I had it out here that's my laptop propped up on on it and I bought several of them because I think they're great as gifts and I'm so proud of my brother and actually it's been really fun I think over the years um he thanked my dad in the book for helping us find shapes in the clouds and letters on sidewalk cracks and really to just be observant to things while we were maybe just bored walking around the block as kids and so I love this book it's and I love looking for letters now actually I think I've kind of inherently been doing that all my life because my dad used to do that with my brother and I but I think it's important that was a way that in doing this gift for his friend's child he found a way to be mindful in New York City and it's amazing when you're I lived there when you're racing up and down the streets there's noise there's truck driving by hitting potholes there's clanging and it's very jarring for us for those of us that live in Hawaii it's beautiful and calm and serene and that is one of the huge draws that I love about the family style and awesomeness of the culture here in Hawaii but in New York City it's a faster pace it's a louder place and it's a little more stimulating for your nervous system that stress response so when you walk around and you're lost in finding letters you don't hear the noise anymore it doesn't penetrate you so here's a here's a few of the letters that you can see in case you want to walk around Hawaii or wherever you're living to look for some of these letters so let's go to image number eight where the first one is a v the second to w and w w and the last is an x and I just think it's so fun to find these letters and in the next image my brother just surprised me for my host of the award last week and this is kailua beach and looks like they took that tree down but there's a nice v with a beautiful view and I think it's a fun thing and image number 10 we'll go back to the w tree at Lanakai beach we were going there for sunrise the other day and I don't even know if I noticed that but I mentioned that to my friend oh yeah we have a great w and he said oh the w tree so it's just kind of a nice thing for everyone to go around it and lose yourself lose yourself in painting a pumpkin lose yourself in looking for letters lose yourself in a new hobby lose yourself in a good book um petra kitty I could see her over there um and then uh in image number 11 there's one more letter which is an f it's a real is my niece kenzie is a really funky f but uh she saw that and I don't think I would have noticed that as an f it's a pretty pretty cool example this is a photo of me living my best life and I really love this photo because I'm all taped up I have had numerous injuries since I was 13 years old I've got tape on my shoulder blade on the left I've got tape on my elbow and I am off like I'm uneven in the jump because of all my injuries that I've suffered from a teenage going up to now and so I just love seeing that because that's me living my best life I don't hike hard hikes this is not a very difficult hike it's a very short one too it takes about 20 minutes but the fact that I can still do that to live my less my best life is what I want to share with you guys it doesn't have to be perfect and I have accepted some limitations and adapted as well but that photo is just so cute because I've got tape everywhere so that I can go and enjoy what I do and I want to share that with all of you and know that you can do it you may need to see a physical therapist I was just in physical there myself you may need to see other health professionals but you can do it you can live your best life and decrease your pain and I know it so I just want to tell everybody here let's really take us through one little exercise so this is exercise can be something that people shy away from when they hear the word exercise and so exercise for me just means it's something that you're about to do something that you're practicing something that you're doing I'm going to exercise patience I'm going to exercise my body I'm going to practice mindfulness and I had the amazing Dr. Pauline Lucas on who was from Mayo Institute and she talked about taking a mindful shower and I know so many times I'm rushing around where I want to get in the shower and get out of there and I'm thinking about okay what am I going to do do I have to get my lunch do I have to and she said you know what think about your shower how awesome the water feels on your body if it's warm how smooth the soap feels on your skin and that reminded me of an activity or an exercise that I did when I was in Connecticut in a very busy orthopedic practice I was running from patient to patient to patient I had to wash my hands in between and one of my coworkers went to a mindfulness thing and told me that they said it was amazing they said would you go to wash your hands instead of being like oh my gosh I have to clean the table oh my gosh just put your hands together and just rub them together so I asked all of you you know I don't have soap on my hands you probably don't either but rub your hands together and see what it feels like mine don't feel smooth I feel friction I almost can feel the texture of my fingerprints actually when I do that but when you're doing that all you're thinking about is that feeling and if you have soap in your hands you're thinking wow look at the bubbles and oh wow this water feels so nice on my hands every time you take a moment we're not even talking a five minute challenge we're talking a moment out for yourself to calm your mind and calm your brain you improve your health and vitality you decrease the stress you decrease the cortisol you improve endorphins which help us to be healthier which help us to be more vital which help us to live our best life so that's one exercise another one that I showed you in the video was doing this kind of thing you can also grab your elbows if it doesn't hurt your shoulder I like to put my head in front but I don't want you to be like this looking down at your phone I came up with this exercise because everybody's looking down at their phone always I saw two people walking down the beach today with their heads down looking at their phone and so I wasn't one of them not today but if you grab your elbows and you push your head back that gets your head back over your shoulder so if you have been looking down at your phone and all of a sudden you're watching this going oh my gosh I was just hunching watching this video you can grab your elbows if you can't grab your elbows you can grab the middle part press your head back don't lift your chin up press your head back and breathe in deep breath make sure you exhale fully breathe in make sure you exhale fully if you can't get your arms up because you have shoulder pain and you're used to shoulder you can actually just grab your grab your shoulders and squeeze your shoulder blades back that that and then tuck your chin down and breathe and exhale there's many mindfulness applications that you can listen to and they all start off to decrease anxiety decrease stress take a nice deep breath in and then fully so I want to challenge everyone to have their best life and to live their best life to decrease the stress and anxiety in your life to decrease the pain in your body by doing something for your body remember you get out of your body what you put into it exercise wise stretching food breathing taking that moment taking that mindful shower washing your hands and find the joy in little moments find some letters smile at someone walking by talk to the neighbor's dog whatever it is that you love find some joy so that you can start to live your best life right now I want to thank everyone for watching over this year it's been amazing and thank you to think tecawaii and all our sponsors and donors for allowing us to be here today life is better when you listen to your physical therapist aloha everyone thank you so much for watching think tecawaii if you like what we do please like us and click the subscribe button on youtube and the follow button on vimeo you can also follow us on facebook instagram and linked in and donate to us at thinktecawaii.com Mahalo