 I'm delighted to bring you this last show for 2020 to leave you all instilled with hope, inspiration and excitement about the year to come. In short, inspiration to be your best self. In today's episode, we show you how you can be your best self in your car, at work, at home with your family and your pets, and how to perform a simple daily exercise program without injury. We will also talk about New Year's plans and goals and the four agreements. Let me welcome Michelle Sherman, Avid server and dental hygienist to help us do that today. Welcome, Michelle. How are you doing? Great. Hello. How are you? I'm good. I'm so excited to do the show and I'm even more excited to have you on the show as we get come to a close for 2020 and get closer to 2021. I'm excited to be here, excited to discuss the next year on to bigger, better things. Yeah, it's great. It's great. So I know that you and I have been talking a lot about all these different car pastures and things like that and you work as a dental hygienist, correct? Yes, posture is very important. Ergonomics are very important. Yeah, they are. So I'm going to jump to video number one where we're going to show how to be your best self in your car. To be your best self, it's important not to have neck pain and back pain while you're driving in your car. So one of the things I often tell people is to scoot the seat forward so you're not reaching out for the steering wheel, which causes your head to go forward like this. So you scoot the seat up forward so that you don't have to lean back and reach for the steering wheel. You'll be more erect in your car. And also you want to bring the seat back forward. So if people are lean back too much, you're going to reach and then it pushes your head forward. So you want to bring the seat back more erect. Now in today's cars, the headrest often pushes your head forward like this. And I think the design was to prevent the whiplash that causes such neck injury. But because of that, you end up driving with your head forward. So you need to get like a rolled beach towel or fleece. There's two places you can put it. If you have back pain, you get something very small like a fleece, sweatshirt or a hoodie. And you put it in your low back. You scoot your butt all the way back, put a small smaller than this in your low back just to support the curve and oh, freedom from back pain while you drive. But if you've got that headrest that's pushing forward because you've got a new flashy and expensive car with all this high tech stuff to prevent you from getting whiplash injury, you want to put a vertical roll like that. You can also use it if you're one of those slouchy upper back pastures from bending over for too many decades. Right at this vertically, right at the base of your neck, almost like between your shoulder blades to open up your chest. And now it keeps your head away from it and you can happily drive your car while you're resting your neck without having that forehead posture. It's very comfortable. I suggest you try it. It has changed how I feel in the car because I've suffered from neck pain since I was about 19 years old. And now I'm good thanks to the exercise I've showed in all these shows and having a healthy car posture. So be your best self in your car. This is something that's so important. And so, Michelle, you sent me in some great pictures. How did you learn to adjust your car? My pain motivated me. I noticed that the car just slouched me so far forward and like you said, the headrest pushes you forward and it was very uncomfortable and I just needed to get upright shoulders back. So I've got a pillow, a small pillow, and sometimes I'll do it square. Sometimes I'll do it like a diamond. And the diamond shape will help me put my shoulders back and down, but yeah, it's been really helpful. Yeah, I'm glad that the diamond shape that you mentioned, I was just showing someone yesterday at work. He was sitting at his office chair and in my office, we have these big fluffy diamond shape pillows that a patient makes. They're beautiful and they're really nice and fluffy. So I was showing him how you can kind of get your low back and that thoracic extension if you put it like this so it opens up your chest. So you're so smart. Pain is a motivator. Pain is a motivator, that's right. People will do this effect. People will do way more to avoid pain than to find pleasure. And that's very interesting. I think there was a whole big talk about marketing back in the day with reach out and touch someone and how it evokes people to buy things. And it's more that you don't want to see your mom looking so sad and lonely on the phone. It's painful. And so you pick up the phone to call her because you want to avoid that pain. Yeah. Rather do anything to avoid that pain than gain pleasure. And I think that's a good point that you mentioned. We want to avoid pain. We want to have pleasure by avoiding pain. Yeah. So let's look at some pictures that we could talk about them. We want to bring up image two. So this is a picture of Michelle sitting a little bit further back and then a little bit further forward. Do you want to explain kind of how you modify that? Well, I didn't even realize until I just saw your video that reaching while driving is terrible. When I was younger, I always thought, yeah, I'm looking cool. Chillin in my car. But again, it just the older you get, the more aches you feel. I'm like, that just doesn't feel right. It's just, and so, you know, you just put the seat back up further instead of long arms, your elbows are relaxed, your shoulders go down. And it was just naturally more comfortable. Your pictures are awesome to show that it really is great. It's one of the first things that I'll correct when people have back pain or neck pain in their car is I say, okay, so when you're sitting in your car, are your arms stretched out as they bend and scoot your car seat up as far as you can so that you can scoot your butt all the way back. And if they don't scoot it first and they scoot their butt back, usually they say, well, I can't reach the pedals by then. So then we scoot the seat up and then we scoot the back up to get that position. But you would never think because getting into a car with the seat up like that is tight, right? It's a tight fit. Well, and I have the opposite problem. I have a very long legs as you could probably see from the photos and the closer I am, the more scrunched my legs are. And even I feel like my hips are flexed too far up, but that's the ergonomics of the car. And I think finding a car that fits your body type is also important, but we don't always have that luxury. So you have to use pillows, props and things to get you comfortable, especially if driving is part of your job. And you do a lot of it. So it's really important to consider those things. That's a great point. I was in Connecticut and I had probably my commute now was 24 miles. And while I can get to work now in 35 minutes to get to work in Connecticut towards New York was an hour and a half sometimes. And I had a stick shift. So I was constantly moving my leg the same leg over and over and over again. So I actually had to take a beach towel and fold it and put my butt on it to raise my butt up because I have long legs as well. So that my knees, like in the photo that you have, you can see your knees are just slightly higher than your hips, which puts more strain on your hip and back. And so if you raise your butt a little bit in that bucket seat, you get more of that horizontal relationship, even though you still have room, you still need room for your legs. You'll need to not be reaching so that your head's not forward. So I had to do that. Or I started having that sciatica pain, which was traveling down the leg that I was constantly clutching and breaking with in bumper to bumper traffic. Well, now you don't have to. That's awesome. I know. I love it. I love Hawaii. So let's talk about how you can be your best self at home. So I want to go to video number four. Be your best self at home during this pandemic. Enjoy your pets if you have them in your family. So pet an animal if you have one. It's really kind of nice. This is Garfield. It's also important to take time to play with them and brush them too, especially if you're home where they're probably loving having you there. And it's also important to get some exercise. I know a lot of the gyms are closed and we have not been able to go enjoy our work out if you went. And also maybe life is a little more stressful because you're now working from home and taking care of your kids and everything. And you don't have time for those walks, those exercises. So be your best self at home. Wake up in the morning if that's your time and get moving so you can take some breaths. Raise your arms up over your head and breathe. Just take time to take some deep breaths in. And deep breaths out. You can grab each of your elbows and breathe in. Lift your chest up and look up to the sky. Take a deep breath in and out. Take time. It doesn't have to take more than a minute or two to get your mind and your body prepared for movement. If it's exercise that you desire, you can march in place. You can march in place. You can do some squats, but you want to suck your stomach in and sit back when you do the squats to protect your knees. Get some exercise. You can do some lunges. How I like to do them is put one leg in front of the other and just whoops. And then just go up and down. Up and down. You can go up and down like this. You just drop the back leg straight down 20 times to get a nice burn. And then you can do pulsing for 20 times. Pull your tummy in to support your spine. That's a great way to get your legs moving. You can do calf raises. You lift your heels. You can move your arms like this. The muscles in the upper body are so much smaller and they're closer to your heart. So it gets your heart rate up if you move your arms. I think that's back in the day of the Seperobics class. They would have you do things with your arms because it elevates your heart rate to get a cardiovascular workout. Work on your posture. You don't need any equipment. Squeeze your shoulder blades. Squeeze your shoulder blades back. You can do arm circles. Little ones. Big ones. Every kind of exercise that you can do is great for your body. And remember to stretch. Stretch your calves. One foot in front of the other. Bend forward. Stretch your calves and breathe. Ah. Calms your mind. Gets good oxygen into your lungs. So that's one way you can be your best self at home. I love that video because my cats like to be in my quick videos when I start talking and they come around and I adore them and they love it when I'm home. So I try to enjoy them and it does, it does bring me joy. I was hurrying trying to unpack from the big island and get ready to pack to go see my mom and Garfield and Pookie were running around and I just sat down. I took a minute and I started to brush them and play with them and I just, I became so calm and so happy at the same time. I was just in that very moment not thinking about that I have to do this and I have to do that and all this and it just brought me this like, oh my gosh, I just am having so much fun sitting here petting my kitties brushing them and they were loving it. And so I mean, Michelle, do you have any, do you have any morning rituals or exercise rituals or pet rituals that can help you be your best self? Yes. I have my most favorite man in my life is Mr. Caddy. Second favorite, but he requires a lot of play and petting and attention and like you said, it is very calming. It's very therapeutic and I kind of get into a calm space and then I can take my tasks one step at a time after that. But what I do for myself is every morning I do stretch before I go to work. I need to open up my shoulders. I need to stretch my hamstrings in order to get ready for my day of sitting and doing dental hygiene work like this. And every night I come home, I have got to stretch it out. I have to undo it. I lay on my long foam roller along my whole spine is along it. And I open up my arms and I stretch up and down and I have to undo everything from the day. Otherwise I wake up the next morning and it's very achy. So, yeah. That foam roll is one of my favorite exercises and I remember when I was a new PT, I had suffered a car accident and before I went to PT school and at work they had this foam roll thingy. This is a long time ago, this is in 2000, year 2000, 20 years ago. And I would stretch on that thing every chance I got on my lunch break and I would get up and I would jump on that thing. It's so important to be aware of everything bent forward, all the tension that's building your neck from holding your whatever, seven or eight pound head up as you are working at work and as I'm working at work, it's so important to open up your chest and undo the activities regardless of what they are during the day. You're preparing your body for work and I think people who have sitting jobs and sitting should do but it's it's a way to be your best self isn't it yeah it's really important it's good grumpy exactly don't yeah you feel you feel better when you take care of yourself right yes absolutely I feel better when you neglect yourself and you put yourself last it's oh well I could speak for myself I get more frustrated and agitated and when I spend more time taking care of myself and make me first I feel so much more at ease and and and happier yeah absolutely I'm exactly the same way yeah yep yep so let's go to video number five a self is to read something uplifting whether it's online or someone that you follow an Instagram that's fine but I have this book that my friends and I traded books about 15 years ago I gave her a mutant message down under by Marlo Morgan which is a great story about a woman traveling through Australia in the outback and about healing and all those kinds of energetic things fascinating book I think it's a true story she says it is but we're not sure anyway but I traded that book for with my friend Lisa 15 years ago for this book called the four agreements sorry it's reverse but it's actually very cool and we'll talk a little bit about them and it's I just read a few pages of it the other day and it was so uplifting it put a smile on my face and made me feel calm and I think it's important to be our best self to be reading something that is inspirational or helps us to remember just to be ourselves because we're all great so be your best self by reading a good book yeah I love I love reading books for that reason in order to change like your your headspace and I know Michelle you and I were briefly talking about different books that we've read and I know we're gonna talk about those books in a few minutes but what you said you were reading a few books and how it it either changed your perspective or how it helps you do you want to mention that yeah I am I'm really into self care and I find that a lot of women will care for others before they care for themselves so I have a book called boundaries it's like cloud and towns and and they just teach you how to say no and how to make choices for yourself take care of your mental health and your physical health and I also have another book that I read years ago I've read a lot of it it's called the language of letting go by melody beady and that's a really inspirational book and it's it's the same thing it's it's self-care and it's teaching yourself to learn what you need to do help you and you know also help others but respect yourself and your health I love that I absolutely love that I since I was I don't even know probably in my early 20s or maybe before I was in college I had discovered a few books now isn't my 20s and they're all that self-help self-care you read them it enriches you as a human and as a person and also opens up your mind in a way to things that maybe you know but it kind of smacks you in the face and you're like oh so I think that's really it's really great and it's really important to do that self-care and to put ourselves first and be our authentic self and reading those books I find helps you to be your authentic self and like you said that I got to read that one like how to say no that's a challenge of mine I used to say I'm a yes girl you know and I don't know why maybe personality God gave me but or maybe it's just something that I need to learn how to say no to care for me I was just saying today to my partner I was like I need less going on right now I just want a little downtime and this is because I said yes too many times this week and it's okay to cancel once in a while I mean if you need some downtime it's okay because 90% of the time you are true to your word you have that integrity and I think that's really important it's have that integrity but to others but also to yourself yeah that is that is so true it's this is such a good segue into the four agreements but I'm gonna postpone it just for a minute because I want to look at your work videos a little bit about how they can be holding themselves during the day and not realizing they could be damaging their body so let's go to video number five and sorry sorry sorry let's go to video number six where we can talk about what you're doing at work there okay okay yeah so I have a saddle chair which is a really ergonomically great that one could tilt forward a little better and there's the fake teeth that I'm using and this is a very common position and I'm rotating right and I do see that my my arm is out and they call that the chicken wing what do you think about that Christine yeah I noticed that too when I sleep at these videos last night it's one of the things I used to tell businessmen in New York City who would kind of sit I'm if you could see like with their hands out like this at business meetings and what that does is it rotates like the shoulder blade and the shoulder complex forward but also it extends your neck a little bit so I would tell them hey when you're gonna meet and keep your elbow touching your side because when you keep your elbow touching your side you're gonna need to move your arm forward but you can bring the elbow in a little bit and move your arm out this way instead of this way to help that there's gonna be times you have to reach at work like that too and this posture right here where I'm tilting my head I do that a lot unfortunately and you're supposed to be able to see indirectly with a mirror but reality is often different well I think the the important thing that you notice is you notice what you're doing at work you notice the arms out you can bring it in you could take a break or you could squeeze your shoulder blade back when you're changing utensils you notice that you're tilting right so you could maybe shift and tilt left or just come back and retract your neck I know you know tons of exercises now that you can do and in between patients when you have to change your gear a lot of times in between patients and I'll just push my head back like that to undo it if I had to be looking down or doing something it's just the quick little things that I do throughout the day or like you know those stick them up so things that we've all done you and I stretch in the doorways between patients stretch in the doorway between patients that's awesome those are those little things that you're calling attention to that every day that you work on patients over and over cause problems because they're overuse of certain muscles so that's that's actually great video for that yeah and now let's look at the other one video number seven oh yeah this one you can't really hardly see anything but in this operatory I stand because the patient chair is often too high and my arms are far too elevated during work so I stand and as you can see I'm leaning to the right I'm shifting left and right and I'm again looking down and adjusting the chair I try to adjust the chair as I can sometimes we get very impatient and I'm like oh I just have a couple more teeth in this quadrant to do I'm just gonna tilt my head and get it get it down instead of move the chair for you know three teeth yeah yeah I noticed I noticed too that the standing can be a problem when you have to stand for a period of time at work it can take a toll on your back and it could take a toll on your body and sometimes people don't know how to stand to like your back could be more swayed it could be more rounded and just right I have the same problem at work oftentimes I'll tell my patients like are you sucking it in because I'm sucking it in right now because I'm standing bending over like working on their leg or something like that I do what you do I sit and work and I stand to work I mix it up so that I can take a break sometimes I can't if I have like five shoulders in a row which has been very common during this pandemic a lot of people hurt their shoulder so I have to stand a certain way and twist and now I'm talking to the patient so I'm looking down and sometimes I look up and I tell them I'm not being rude I just I don't have to see to do this but you do so I'll look up just to get my neck a break and then I'll look at them and talk some more just to get that little break in my body you know work yeah and I find my my core gets lazy especially standing my as you say bucket stills forward so my hips still forward so I think just being conscious I need to be more conscious about it and new year is a perfect time to start doing that I love so yeah so do you make new year's resolutions or new year's goals I don't I do make goals but I find that resolutions are notorious for failure because I feel like I will over commit to something that's unattainable so I like to make attainable goals throughout the year I've started biking to work one to two days a week I have a partner who likes to push me to be my better self and he's like you should do it three or four days of like well I'm gonna start here and then I'll go here and then here I have to do attainable goals yeah that's I like that though and I like that he encourages you to yes more that's that's so awesome yeah I am I've definitely been more physically healthy having a partner who also focuses on that yeah that's that's really that's really awesome I am I probably I don't know if since when but I know in San Diego I used to at the beginning of the year I always got excited about the end of the year I would kind of wrap things up and get into what do I want to do in the next year and sometimes I'd write you know want to go rock climbing and Joshua Tree want to take an Italian class want to you know write five poems or you know in this case like write a book and I would make a list I want to go to Italy I want to go to Nepal and I would write all these things down if it was I want to go visit one of my friends who lives somewhere else I just write everything down read five books something and I'd write it all down at the end of the year when I was going through my stuff again to get ready for the next year I always found this you know eight and a half piece of paper that I would scribble my what I wanted to do the next year and I swear it was so fun because maybe I didn't read five books but I went to Nepal I visited my friend I you know took an Italian class and I have never even looked at them they say you should look at these things and they'll happen for you more but I never even looked at the fact that I even wrote them down got me closer to achieving them whatever they were I'm glad that you said that because that I do journal I do write and I think writing down my goals for this year would definitely be a motivator and just to piment it because learning remembering writing is a very integral part of remembering things yeah they say I'm not sure the statistic I've said it in a show last year but how about me the close of last year show I was talking about goals when you write down your goals you're not let's say 90% more likely of that happening for you in your life if you wrote it down versus if you just said it it might not be 90% but it's something like that yeah yeah so we just have a couple more minutes and I wanted to talk about this for agreements book that I traded with my friend Lisa about 15 years ago that I was just glancing at the other day it's by Don Miguel Ruiz and the four agreements were to be impeccable to your word don't take anything personally don't make assumptions and always do your best and I think the always do your best when I was driving home on Sunday kind of inspired me to do this show because on Friday that's the only one I read and I thought wow that's really great I'm just going to do my best and my best doesn't have to be good it doesn't have to be like my friends best or my co-workers best but my best is the best that I have to put forward today and maybe other people don't think it's good but today it's my best and I wanted to inspire everybody to go into the new year being impeccable to their word about themselves and others like hey I'm not ugly I'm pretty or hey I'm not stupid I'm smart like watch the words that you say to uplift yourself and also don't take things personally you know try to take a deep breath and realize that that action is about the other person not about you it really is powerful to practice those things I'm very new at it I just started like yesterday or last week on Friday when I read be your best and and so I think that's a great way for us to go into 2020 I feel less pressure on myself yeah and my best is never perfect and that's okay but biking up this hill two times a week sure is better than what I was doing last year so I'm happy about that progress could it be better yeah but it's a lot it's really good for me right now and I'm happy with that that is great so I I need to close Michelle thank you so much for coming on the show you are so inspiring to me and I want to inspire everyone who saw the show today to make an agreement with yourself right now today to be your best self your best always do your best don't think take things personally find the courage to ask questions and not make assumptions and be impeccable with your words to be all you can be your best self words I live by since I was young are work hard think fast laugh loud and love you live with aloha aloha everyone