What Helps Improve Balance Most
What Helps Improve Balance Most
Audio link: http://tiny.cc/lsz3101
Balance has more to do with a trio of communication among your core, the contact of your feet, leg and buttock strength, your vision, and, too often overlooked, your ears. This is your vestibular system, which is the fluid-filled canals in your inner ear that detect head movement and orientation. When these three systems work together, you’re more able to remain upright. Your fall risk reduces, and you feel more competent and able to do things without worry. Age affects the functioning of our vestibular system, but recent studies have elucidated ways to improve its function.
One of the core strength approaches is to stand on one leg and notice how long you can remain balanced. Which leg did you choose? Is this the leg you feel more balance on? Where do you look? You might notice movement, referred to as postural sway. The greater the sway, the greater one feels a loss of balance. Now compare standing on your other leg, it’s different, and are you aware of this? Maybe have a support structure near you. All these ways are intelligent and enable one to improve, but more important is noticing how much we rely on our eyes to focus, as well as on core strength, which sometimes interferes when we start to brace, stiffen, and hold. Now, what about your ears? How do they affect your balance? Here’s a simple task to explore, and please allow yourself to feel safe. Stand near a structure that you can touch; you don’t need to push yourself, especially if balance has become an issue for you. It’s all about learning strategies and ways to explore daily to improve something that has gone offline.
“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Stand on one leg. Which leg did you choose? Have your eyes open, and notice where you look. Now, if you need to gently hold a support, please reduce your risk-taking here. Hold on, but gently, and if you notice your grip on the support gets tighter, that would indicate where you might have lost balance. Now do the same thing, still use the support, and this time do it with eyes closed. What just happened to your balance? I gather that you felt you lost your balance almost immediately. Notice how important your eyes are and where you focus to maintain your balance, even for a brief moment. When we close our eyes and remove this focus, our inner ear, the vestibular system, is at a loss because the fluid in the inner ear is confused without the focus of our eyes to know where we are in space. You might start to feel like a toddler, seeking your balance, or, if you’ve ever been at sea and didn’t know where the horizon was, this too would disrupt your balance.
So here’s a suggestion: turn off all the lights and explore this process with eyes open in a dark room. You can partially close your eyes, barely looking, and when you feel you are losing balance, put your foot back on the floor, open your eyes. For those who feel safer, lift only the heel of your foot so you rest on your toes. Anything that begins to awaken how to respond to restore balance, allow. Return the foot or heel to the floor, and open your eyes. Slowly begin to train your nervous system how to improve your vestibular system, retraining little bits to awaken how this trio works together.
“All perception and sensation take place on a background of muscular activity. And though we are unaware of it, this activity is most strictly shaped by gravity. There are several systems cooperating in orientating our bodies, but the vestibular apparatus is the coordinating chef d’orchestre. The vestibular apparatus coordinates all sensory impulses that influence muscular tone and attitudes.” – Dr Moshe Feldenkrais, Body and Mature Behavior
Here’s another way into reawakening balance. Begin to explore movements of your head and eyes. Turn or roll your head from side to side, then rock your head up and down. Explore slowly to start. Can you side-bend your head, as you look forward, so the right ear comes closer to your right shoulder, then do the same to side-bend to the left. Is it just your head and neck that move, or might you feel something responding in your ribs? Then, can you gently create a circling of your head? Start slowly and invite the rest of you to passively participate in this movement. This begins a process of creating more mobility in your neck and spine.
“The signals in the vestibular system are ‘driven’ by movement, and movement is key to life. It has always made sense to me that if you exercise your eyes and move (stimulate your vestibular system), that you will optimize health.” – Susan Whitney, DPT, PhD, professor of Physical Therapy and Otolaryngology at the University of Pittsburgh
Begin to play gently, awakening little bits today, and then, every day, explore and reclaim your balance with ease. May this become a method of influencing behavior by suggesting desirable life goals.
I hope I’ve earned the privilege of your time and attention this week.
Wishing all the best,
Peggi
