Are You Living Your Life Inside a Box?

By Dr. Brett Diaz, D.C. / Dr. Desirée Irvine, CA

To Find Out Take This Quiz!

Questions:

1. Do you sit a good portion of your day?
2. Do you work at a computer?
3. Do you drive a car?
4. Do you sit while watching television?
5. Do you spend the majority of your waking hours in a sitting position?

If you answered “yes” to one or more of these questions, then chances are that you too are living your life inside a box and don’t even know it.

In fact, I would venture to guess you rarely move outside of it. Like most people your box probably measures about 4 ft. x 4 ft. and goes from the top of your head to your waist and about a foot to either side of you.

How do I know this? Because MOST people in our society DO live in such an invisible box and the vast majority of them don’t even know it. Think about it, if you work on a computer your movements are limited to the inside this box, if you drive home in car you are again limited to the same box and chances are if you watch the tube on the couch with a remote control in your hand you limit yourself to that box again!

So it’s fairly safe for me to say that most of us live inside this box most of the time. We’ve all heard the saying that it’s a good idea to “think outside the box”; well I’m here to tell you that it’s equally important for your health to MOVE outside the box as well.

Living inside the box has it’s consequences on the body. It cramps your body and causes you to slump over as you head falls farther and farther forward, compressing the nerves in your spine and extremities, compromising your lung capacity, putting added pressure on your vascular system, internal organs and causing degeneration to the joints of your body because they lack movement.

If we were going to give the cause of your “disease” a name we would have to call it “Civilization”! It is the single greatest cause of our collective body’s current lack of movement. We have become so successful at finding ways to for our technology to do our movement for us that we have been able to avoid it almost altogether.

The problem is our bodies are still designed to be constant movement machines. Our current upright form evolved over 3 million years and remains essentially unchanged since our “hunter and gather” ancestors. Although the demand we place on them since the days of hunting for our food has diminished greatly with the advent of agriculture, the industrial revolution and the advent of computers, our bodies still require movement to stay healthy.

When we limit our movement in many ranges our muscles are forced to adapt. Muscles we don’t use enough weaken and shorten; others become overly tight and if left unattended eventually go into spasm causing pain and disability in the body.

There are specific patterns of “muscular dysfunction” that tend to occur in people. Identifying a person’s particular pattern of dysfunction is key to helping them find a solution out of their pain. If the correct pattern is not identified then it is left up to chance that the movements that are applied will correct or worsen the condition.

We’ve all heard the story of someone in pain who decides that all they need to do is start moving again and their body will fix itself. So they go to the gym or do yoga or start running, etc. and they end up aggravating their condition so they stop doing that activity figuring it is what hurt them.

The problem wasn’t that their premise was wrong. Chances are it WAS the LACK of MOVEMENT that caused their bodies to become dysfunctional and in pain in the first place and exercise was part of the solution that they needed to correct their issue.

The problem was they needed SPECIFIC corrective exercises aimed at THEIR particular condition to correct their particular dysfunction. The problem wasn’t that they began exercising again; the problem was that they did the WRONG exercises for their individual dysfunction and aggravated their condition.

Give this same person the correct exercises for their condition and their bodies will return to its natural upright state. Once they achieve this THEN they can return to doing any kind of movement they like without the risk of injury.