 Welcome to Holistic Wellness Revealeds. I'm Latisha Sharpe and I'll be your host today as we talk about prevention and preparation for all those little surprises that life has to offer us. Today, my guest is a colleague of mine, an author and also a very skilled physical therapist, Christine Linders. Welcome, Christine. Thank you so much, Tish, for having me on today. Oh, I'm so happy to have you back. So when we were talking about what we were going to be having a conversation about today, we, you brought up how about, I keep on wanting to say preparation, but you say prevention, right? And so as I felt into that, I thought, okay, prevention and what is a bigger sense of that, right? It's awareness. But do you think that's funny? Well, it's funny when you said preparation, I thought of an awareness. I thought, well, prevention is awareness. And when you're thinking about preparing for something, you're making sure you have these things in order to attain or to achieve or to become this. And so when you think of prevention, it's a very similar thing, is most people have something happen. And like from my standpoint as a physical therapist, I think of pain or an injury or something like that. And so that happens in life, but your awareness before that can prevent you from having that injury or like the awareness before would prepare you to deflect that injury from happening or prepare your body, prepare your mind, prepare everything or to prevent something from happening, not like you fell and you broke your leg, but more an injury that you don't know what's gonna happen because of something that is stewing in your body at the time. Ooh, what do you mean by that stewing in your body? Because what came out for me, I'm sorry, just let me, no, that's not good. I'm asking is because, so it came out for me when you said that was, how do we, sometimes we don't wanna prevent the injuries because the injuries are how we learn. That's how we go through the life experience of learning. So maybe it can also help you to be able to heal that and have the awareness of the healing kind of more to the surface so that it's not buried so deep and you can recover. You can heal faster even, right? When you do come across the same thing. So what do you, yeah, that's by something grueing. Let's talk about that. So I think of habit, we all have habits and habits are translating to movement and patterns in your body. So for example, someone may be sitting at their desk all day crossing their left leg over their right and you can see what it does to my head, you can see what it does to my body. So if you sit like that and work all day long, everything on this side, I think I'm pointing to the right side. No, I'm looking at the camera. Everything on this side is gonna get short and everything on this side is gonna get long and weak but also you see the difference in my shoulders and my spine is bending to the right. So there'll be more compression on the right side of your spine and more strain on the left side of your spine. So if you have awareness to the fact that you have a habit like this or some people sit on their sofa with their legs off to one side and they turn this way all the time to look at the TV, compounding that over five and 10 years you are developing a habit and a movement pattern that makes your body be in a faulty position. And then people all of a sudden go, I blew up my back, I don't know how or I bent over to pick something up and I blew up my back or, oh gosh, I'm getting migraines and my neck hurts so bad but I didn't trip, I didn't fall, I didn't have a car accident, I didn't cough and sneeze and jerk my neck, I didn't have a new baby, I'm looking down all the time, they did nothing and they have this horrible injury. And so the awareness which is like the prevention of the preparedness is what I like to say, something brewing in your body is something we don't know about, like a tendency that we have that puts our body into an altered position all the time that is bad for us but we don't know and if you call your awareness to it then that little really big injury that you had didn't have to happen. If you said, oh, wow, I didn't know that, well I'll spend some time doing it the other way or oh my gosh, why do I have no idea, I'll ship my soap so I don't hurt myself undeservingly. Like, you know, you didn't, again, just didn't trip and fall and that's an accident and now you have this injury or whatever, you know, those kind of things, playing sports, you're gonna injure yourself and sometimes you can't prevent those, they just happen. So I really like how you spoke to the, you just said compounded and this brings something to light that we've spoken about in the past is that compound effect. And what I like to say, and of course with my clients, my patients, I oftentimes will say, you know, it's that repetitive motion, that's what it is and when you maybe change your repetitive motion, then you're going to be able to change what that looks like in your body and what that looks like as far as pain and how that lives in your body. However, the compound effect speaks to that perfect storm. Perfect storm. So it's perfect that you use the word brewing, right? Cause doesn't the storm brew? It's like, no, I don't think I love it, right? I don't know what like name for it came. Right, so we're gonna have to use that somewhere, right? This storm is brewing and then it's perfect. And what I mean by a perfect storm is that this happened and that happened and so you do, you're sitting on the couch this way or you're like, for me, I've been really bringing my awareness to my shoulders, right? And as I work, my shoulders are forward, but also, I mean, I have emotional things that have affected me having my shoulders for protecting my heart, maybe keeping it closed, keeping those insecurities close to me and not letting people see them. And even though to many I come off as a super secure person, there have been a lot of times in my life where that hasn't been the case. So for me, when I'm keep on going, oh yeah, and it's not so much drop your shoulders and pull them back like this feels so contrived. You know, it feels, doesn't that feel, but if I just feel like open my heart up, lift it up to the sky, that drops my shoulders immediately and opens it up. So it's that perfect form. It could be emotional mixed with the physical, mixed with maybe stress, right? Happening that her anxiety. So I'm really happy you spoke to that. Do you have anything else to add to that? Well, about what you just said, I like what you did, which is like, you forced your shoulder blades back and said that feels contrived, feels forced. And then you also lifted your heart to the ceiling. And I think what's interesting to distinguish is that when you, and this is for people, there's so many ways to have emotion happen in our body using different ways and different muscles. Now, when you shove your shoulder blades back, you use the muscles on the back and you clench them, right? It's like tense. And people do say, oh God, that feels unnatural. Is that what you want me to do? But when you lift your heart, it doesn't use those muscles to do that. It uses different muscles to do that. So you've accomplished the same thing in essence, which is shoulders are back, your posture is better, your chest is up, but you didn't shove them back. You lifted them back. And it's very funny ways that we can move our body. Like you can turn your head to the right for people that have a stiff neck. You could turn your head to the right. And if your neck muscles are like tense, you ain't gonna turn very far, right? I like that. You ain't gonna turn. I used to slide in there. Or you could take your left leg and push your foot into the ground and then your body will turn and your neck will follow. Now you just used a different muscle action to allow your cervical area to rotate that doesn't involve your neck muscles. And so I wanted to mention that because you just showed everybody right away, there's two different ways. There's many different ways. There's two different ways to open up without like making it feel so forced and so unnatural. So that's what I wanted to mention. And I did ask me to speak to something. I just forgot what it was because I was so excited that you mentioned that point. I wanted to share it to people because a lot of people go, well, how am I gonna turn my head like this? It's like, oh, well, if you push down with your foot, then your body turns and your head follows without using these muscles that are tightened at the time. Right. And I mean, so I feel like coming to you and when you've helped me through so many of my my injuries or quote unquote ailments that I've had over the years, you are so skilled with your knowing of what and how the body works that you continue to find ways for me to be able to correct or find a new pattern of movement, right? And so I feel like you are the medicine for me to get better. And so that's a different way of looking at physical therapy, right? Cause a lot of times we go, oh, that's just therapy. Yeah, well, what is therapy then, right? Therapy is medicine. So let's cut up what it is. Now there's another thing. What is an injury? What's an ailment? That is medicine too, because before that injury or ailment or whatever the pain, how the pain is showing up in your body which is really just your body communicating, hey, pay attention. This is something's happening here. I'm trying to talk to you. So that can be the medicine as well. So being prepared to listen to those and having all of your medicines in a line and ready to be able to be activated is super important. So I appreciate you and your skills and I'd like to ask you a question about, so say I'm gonna start surfing and I've never surfed before. I'm from Iowa and there's no ocean there but I've been watching these movies and I wanna go surf and I'm tired of being cold in the winter and Hawaii looks like a great place to go. So I'm gonna go there and I'm gonna start surfing. So as far as my muscles go, how would I prepare for that adventure? That's a really good question. That's a very loaded question. No, I think, well this, cause in my brain all of a sudden it's going, like what do they need? What do they need at their neck? What do they need at their back? What do they need at their shoulders? What do they need in their hamstrings? What do they need at their ankles? And so if you're gonna start surfing, the first thing you need to be able to do is paddle. And I always think, how can they now paddle and not hurt themselves? Let's say they had a desk job like you were talking about, keeping our heart protected and keeping our insecurities closed when we're feeling down and what that does to our posture, it rounds it forward and how you lift your chest and so many of us do that, that we lift our chest and it's like, no, everything's okay, I'm okay, I'm enough. You do that. Now you're gonna learn how to surf and you haven't done it before and you need to be able to have the right amount of this mid body, your thoracic, your torso extension to be able to paddle on the surfboard so you don't damage your shoulders because you need to have full range of motion at your shoulders in order to paddle. But if you are rounded in this area, you're not gonna get that and you're gonna paddle for a week and all of a sudden go, wow, my shoulders are hurting, surfing's bad for me. Or your neck, if your neck is more suede, like this from looking down at your phone or your laptop or hunching over a laptop or something like that, then you're just gonna increase the compression on the nerves in your neck and you're gonna end up with either headaches or tingling down one arm. So I think of those things from the upper body standpoint and that will then impact your low back while you're paddling. So let's say you're in good posture, you have good range of motion, they sit up well, they're undue, I always say they undo their desk job or as us, our manual therapy, forward posture, that kind of thing, they're stretching their chest, they're able to do all that. Then the problem is, do you have enough hamstring length to be able to pop up? And that is something that I find in people when their hamstrings are tight, they injure their back when they're trying to surf. As far as preparedness. So what about like doing it while you're not in the ocean? Because once you get in the ocean, then those insecurities are gonna happen like straight away because, and you're gonna be like, oh, and you're gonna try to balance and you're gonna be worrying about drowning and getting in people's way and then you're gonna panic and all this stuff, right? Yeah. I've been there. So like at their home, on their living room floor, or their bedroom floor, what do you suggest? Like I've always said, okay, try to do some tricep strength building, right? And maybe do some pop ups or? Yep, absolutely. Yeah, so I, definitely like how I learned was I had to get to do the pop ups. I had to get down on my stomach and press up, like pretend like you're paddling and then press up and then try to slide your legs through so you know the flexibility. But are you talking about if they already have the good posture or and everything like that or? Well, I mean, I'm just saying that there's different components. So there's the strength and maybe what, I mean, what about if they start with the pop ups and they're doing that and then they start feeling, oh, there's pain in my neck or I'm now I feel stuff. So then that could also be another aspect of prepare this, right? So they're bringing their awareness to it before they're throwing themselves in and having more of a gentle approach, right? With a gentle with yourself. In grace, right, exactly. I heard something funny. It's funny, the gentle with yourself, for one, I would say like the preparedness as far as strength and flexibility. I like a lot of exercises that where you don't know if you could see me, like let's say your head is slower. If you're gonna stretch your neck, you can tuck your chin down. But if you're gonna strengthen your neck, you could tuck your chin down and push into your hand. So it's a stretch and a strengthen. You can also clasp your hands behind your head this way. Tuck your chin down, press your head into your hands and resist and then squeeze your shoulder blades back. That's a stretch, a strengthen and now you're getting retraction, which works on the muscles that you need to keep your back up while you're paddling. So I like to do those things that you need rotation to swim. And so lifting your left elbow up to the ceiling will stretch your thorax, which will allow your shoulders to get full range. And we'll also let your torso rotate when you're paddling. And when you have to be able to rotate to get your legs through. So those are some things that I'll tell people and you can prepare for surfing while you're sitting at your desk. You're... And what I'm noticing while you... Yeah. What I'm noticing too is I'm mirroring you here is that if you do it in front of a mirror, you can kind of see, like even just with the tilt my chin down and then, okay, so what was it? I tilt my chin down. Yeah, tilt your chin down and then push back into your hand. Push back into my hands. Okay, so even just that, look at my neck muscles. So next video, right? Yes. Yeah, look at that. And then if I kind of try to extend my spine, which this is a big one for me, but I don't normally look while I'm doing it. But wow, I mean, you can see the different muscles engaging. Yes. That's incredible. I think I need to start doing that in the mirror because it's great for you to be your awareness. Correct. It's funny, right? Like there's stuff that your nervous system knows, like if I was sitting like this all day long, and I see this every day, your nervous system feels like you're straight. And then I'll tell people to sit up straight and they'll maybe do like kind of like that. And they'll say, I'm sitting up straight. And then I'm like, can I end your phone and I'll take a picture with their phone? And they're like, oh, oh, and then they kind of like get up straight. So the nervous system is interested in because the nervous system sets as normal what we do all the time. And that's your set point. But when right, make your eyes see that you are not straight or that this muscle is bulging more than this or that you notice your chin's a little tilted this way when you push back, your brain's like, oh my gosh, wow, wait, I see that. And then you can kind of like, look at Boogie, she's figuring it out right now. You could straighten yourself out when you- Wait, that was the cat pose. I know, it's time to, good job. But looking in the mirror is great because it gives input to your nervous system that your normal isn't aligned. Right, it's not necessarily natural. The way your body is meant to be. So let's move on. I wanna get through a couple of different body parts. We just did neck and kind of upper body. What about the low back? You were talking about how you sit in your chair and sitting up. So what are some tools and tricks that you could do to be able to bring your awareness and prepare to be able to combat any of those pains that might happen in that low back if say you were at a sitting job or you drive a lot, right? Yes. What's like a couple of simple things. So one of the biggest things, I have, coincidentally I have them right here, but one of the biggest things with sitting and people with back pain is that it's very hard to maintain the neutral position of your spine, which is the back has a backwards curve when we sit. We like to hunch just a little bit. Like it doesn't look like I'm doing much, but I just rounded my low back. The best thing to do when you're sitting is to be able to sit and take that thing off your table. Like don't force yourself to sit up straight and extend your back so much. Use a pillow. I have these little pillows all over my house. I have one, oh, I have one right behind me actually. I was looking for it. And a pillow, so like if you're sitting, I don't know if you'll see it in a while, but I think you can see it a little bit, right? Nope. Okay, I'll do this for now and then I'll fix it afterward just a little. You just put, you could put a pillow in your low back and you have to soothe your butt all the way back and right there, I just supported my back and I no longer have to have conscious awareness to try to maintain my spine in a perfect position. If you're finding that that's not enough and this is me when I'm driving, I'd use a pillow like this, it's 12 inches by four. I actually had a patient make them for me because they're so perfect that I couldn't find anywhere to buy them. And I had a patient's wife make them for me. As you put it in your thoracic spine like this and this is what I use in my car. And what it does is what you said to this, it's lifting my chest, my shoulders immediately go back and then I drive versus the low back pillow doesn't move these back, these can still be here. As soon as you do this, then I'm up and I can drive and then my neck's in the perfect position and I no longer have to think about how I sit. So it's very important when you're sitting to use these props, like especially in the car, nowadays cars have the seat head pushed forward. I believe because they're trying to stop people from getting these terrible neck injuries from whiplash, I pat it twice and it's damaged my neck in a very, very bad way. But I think that's why they're doing it. But when they do that, now you're forward. As soon as you take this vertical pillow and you put it in there, your head can sit normal and the seat rest, the head rest will hit your head where it needs to be. That's such a great point because I, I mean, this isn't safe. So don't do this, anybody don't do this. But I took the head rest off and I turned it around and I put it back in so it's tilted way back. So if I did go back, I would completely get whiplash again for the seventh, eighth time. So, you too, right? And that's, but I didn't know about the thoracic spine pillow and I use a, I use a roller under my, like in between my sits bones and my, and my sacrum, is that kind of the, is that also, would you do it in addition to that? All those, those other two pillows or would you maybe choose the low back pillow or the roller? You put, you put it under your sit bones like this to lift you up in your seat. Like, yeah. Yeah. And it sort of looks like this. It sort of tilts. It tilts you forward. Yeah. That's good too. I have, in my car, I have a towel that's in the back to lift my butt up a little bit because a lot of the seats are angled this way and they tend to make you lean forward as a result. And I've had like yourself every injury in the book. So I prop my surroundings so that I can be pain-free while on my activities. So I will. My surroundings. That, yes. Prop my surroundings. Is that in your? Yeah. I'm not letting you put it in your butt. I'll watch this already, no, but I'll put it in there. I'll put the prop in there, I'll do it. And brewing will be in there. Yeah. You don't know what's brewing in your body until you see it. So, yeah. And as you have helped me over the years, one thing that I've always appreciated about how you help, not just me, but many of my patients come to you, I refer people to you all the time, is that you look at my body not as, okay, this is the way a low back acts. You look at me as, oh wait, no, this is the way your low back is acting. And that is so important because everybody's so individual and so unique. So with any of these tools and tricks that we're giving you or that Christine is giving you right now, it's some fun that, hey, if it doesn't work, give it a week, do you think? About a week? Yeah. And then if it doesn't work after a week and you're getting way more pain or something adjusted, move it around a little bit. It doesn't have to be specific because everybody isn't the same. Everybody is different. We are, we're all different and unique. And that's such a huge point to say to everybody is because there's a lot of, and one of my friends said this to me and she had hurt herself doing yoga. She's been on the show and she said, I was trying to fit myself into what everybody else could do. And I thought I should be more flexible and I can do that pose and I should be able to do this. And then she realized, wait, we're all unique and we all have different things that we can do amazingly and different things that we can't do that somebody else might be able to amazingly. And if you, the vertical pillow I have found works for, but sometimes people need like what you need or what I need is I need to put something under my butt too or some people will need to throw a sweatshirt in their low back and then shove the pillow in between. I've had to do that before where my back was really bad and now I don't need it anymore. So mess with your proper image because if you have scoliosis, I have scoliosis. It's not huge, but if you have scoliosis, it's big. You might need your vertical pillow to be a little bit off to one side where the rip hub is to shift your spine or prop yourself while you're sitting on the sofa and stick something under the one butt cheek that then makes your nervous system set your body straight. So we are all unique and different, but these, the bottom line is, is yes, use these to set your environment up so that your body has success while you're in a position that's gonna be prolonged. Like I know you and me were always on the table and I have to point my toes outward when I'm massaging and loosening up someone's back or doing some joint moves because of the back injury that I had years ago and then my curve compounding onto it. There's that word again. If I turn my right foot straight and I have to twist, it sets off my back. So now I adjust and I open up my feet and then I'm fine, but I'm not gonna go telling everyone, oh, this is how you got to do joint moves because my body is very different based on my injury experience and my scoliosis. And so it took me a long time to figure that out though, I have to say, even as a physical therapist with myself, I was thinking, gosh, I have to turn my foot out. And somebody said, well, turn your foot out then. And I'm like, yeah, great, you know. Right, because you've taught me to turn my foot in and I've also had other people teaching me to push that big toe down. And that's me immensely with my injuries, with hiking and running and walking and doing all the things that I choose to do. That's great, that's great. And that's the thing, that's what we all want as health practitioners, right? Is we want someone like me to be like, oh my gosh, what are the helps that you say? Wait, somebody told me to put my foot down, my toe down and now it helps me with hiking. And you just activated your body in a more, so that altered muscles don't start to fire to do the same job. And that's what could lead us to the injury that is brewing in your body, that you're gonna then learn from, so that you can actually probably correct more things in your body as a result. Like if you come in to see me with your foot and I'm like, oh, but wait, what's going on with your back? What's going on with that shoulder? That injury just gave you a big opportunity to heal other things in your whole entire body and being. Yes, yes. So it's funny because as I'm sitting here, I was like, oh, I crossed my leg, I uncrossed my leg because I've got you right in front of me. I crossed this, no, no, I uncrossed that. That's it. So I want to talk, okay, so one quick little thing that I wanted to bring up is with the low back also, one of the big tools, and this is the tagline of your book that you just wrote that is going to be coming out soon, people by the way, and we will share that with you as soon, we'll have to have you back on after your book comes out so that we can make sure that everybody has access to that is suck it in, right? Suck it in. And so when I tell people to suck it in, I say don't suck in air, you're pulling your belly button in towards your spine, you're sucking your stuff back in, so I'm doing it right now and you could hear it maybe change the sound of my voice because this muscle attaches a little bit to your diaphragm on the side, but when you do that, you stabilize your spine from the inside out and you can get rid of your low back pain forever. So that is coming out a couple of months. Yes, and what about, I believe that I added your YouTube on some of the information with the show, but how can people find you in order to be able, cause you have multitudes of videos out there for plantar fasciitis, for neck pain, low back pain, shoulder pain, all of the things. And even one of my clients, before she could get in to see you, which it took actually a couple of months for her to get in to see you, she, I told her go and start looking at her videos and she went and started looking at your videos and she started doing your exercises off of your videos before she ever came and saw you. So she was prepared to receive your medicines. Do you know what she was, what's that? Thank you for that. I was just gonna say thank you for that because that makes me feel my heart saying to hear people helping themselves, preparing themselves in a way that is things that I provided out there with the why I did it. So thank you for that. So how do people find you? Okay, so the easiest way to find me is if you go to YouTube and you type in my name, just Christine Linders, I have a YouTube channel. Amazing thing about Think Tech Hawaii is I had a show for four years and they will get lumped into my show that I did for the first three that's Movement Matters and the other one that's physical therapy for a better life. And there shows just like your amazing show where it's 25 to 28 minutes of packed advice and videos where you can watch that. So that's where I send most people because it's great, it'll be on the hip, on the back, on the knee, on your scoliosis, how to get ready for surfing, golf, everything. So I tell people to go to the YouTube channel. You can also go to Instagram, right? I've been posting a little bit more lately but the YouTube is the best place because in each show, I pack about five to 10 videos of instructional videos for you within the show. Even when I'm interviewing someone, I will throw here's how you do X and then I will have a video. Here's how you do this and I'll have a video. So I do like to send people to YouTube to watch these amazing thing tech shows because it's great, they're the best I think. Awesome. So everybody go to YouTube and look up Christine Lunders, L-Y-N-D-E-R-S and go ahead and help yourself before you can do that to be able to research how your body responds to these different exercises and medicines to be able to prepare you for life's little surprises that may compound over time. So Christine, thanks so much for coming on. It's always a joy and a pleasure and I look forward to the next time that we're able to meet in person or on camera. Thank you so much. This was so amazing. I'm so grateful to you. Thanks for all of your wisdoms and your skills and also thank you to Think Tech, Hawaii and to all of our donors and our sponsors for being able to provide a platform like this so that we can all be able to have these conversations and discussions and explore how we can be our best selves. Until next time, Aloha.