MATT DRUDGE recently noted an anniversary of his aggregator news site
with a Twitter post: "18 years of DRUDGE REPORT in February! And STILL
sitting ;)."
Mr. Drudge, 46, hasn't just been sitting for two decades. Like so many
workers chained to their technology, he has been hunched over
desktops, laptops, smartphones and tablets, and it's all taken a toll
on his body. He tries to limit the time he spends sitting to four or
five hours a day, but sometimes he sits for up to 17 hours.
To ease his back, neck and shoulder pain, Mr. Drudge says he has
learned how to adjust his posture. Whether he's typing in the car,
from the wooden folding chair in his Miami home office, or from a
boardwalk bench at the beach on cloudy days, he makes sure to tilt the
top of his pelvis forward, roll his shoulders back, elongate his spine
and straighten his craned neck.
Mr. Drudge is one of thousands of people who have trained with Esther
Gokhale, a posture guru in Silicon Valley. She believes that people
suffer from pain and dysfunction because they have forgotten how to
use their bodies. It's not the act of sitting for long periods that
causes us pain, she says, it's the way we position ourselves.
Ms. Gokhale (pronounced go-CLAY) is not helping aching office workers
with high-tech gadgets and medical therapies. Rather, she says she is
reintroducing her clients to what she calls "primal posture" — a way
of holding themselves that is shared by older babies and toddlers, and
that she says was common among our ancestors before slouching became a
way of life. It is also a posture that Ms. Gokhale observed during
research she conducted in a dozen other countries, as well as in
India, where she was raised.
For a method based not on technology but primarily on observations of
people, it has been embraced by an unlikely crowd: executives, board
members and staff members at some of Silicon Valley's biggest
companies, including Google and Oracle; and heavy users of technology
like Mr. Drudge.
"I need to do things that make sense and that I can see results from.
Esther's work is like that," said Susan Wojcicki, 44, one of Google's
senior vice presidents, who has suffered from back and neck pain that
she attributes to doing too much work at her desk.
Ms. Gokhale is not the first to suggest that changing posture is the
key to a healthy spine. Practitioners of the Alexander Technique and
the creators of the Aplomb Institute in Paris similarly help clients
find more natural and comfortable ways to position themselves. Pilates
and physical therapy can improve posture and bring awareness to it. A
handful of companies, like Lumo BodyTech, now sell personal posture
monitors, offering smartphone users constant feedback about the way
they hold their bodies.
Ms. Gokhale's methods have not been tested scientifically, though a
doctor at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation is planning on conducting
clinical trials by the end of the year.
But Ms. Gokhale, who was trained as a biochemist at Princeton
University and studied at Stanford's medical school, has some
influence among medical professionals, particularly in Silicon Valley.
Over 100 have referred patients to her, and a similar number have
taken her course, she says.
FOR many office workers in the United States, sitting at a desk all
day goes hand in hand with back, neck and shoulder discomfort. Stress
and poor positioning can bring on aches or exacerbate injuries among
workers faced with heavy computing, constant travel and long meetings.
Regardless of occupation or lifestyle, backaches affect most Americans
— about 8 in 10 deal with the pain at some point in their lifetimes,
according to Dr. Richard Deyo, a professor of family medicine at
Oregon Health and Science University.
The expenses are huge as well. By one estimate that appeared in The
Journal of the American Medical Association, the national cost of
treating people with back and neck pain was $86 billion in 2005. And
with back pain one of the top reasons for worker disability, missed
work because of these aches may cost employers close to $7 billion a
year, according to one study.
For the majority of people with back pain, the aches are short-lived
and relief comes with rest and time, according to Dr. Deyo. But
methods to help those with chronic pain are diverse. Using a standing
desk at work has become a popular way to ease discomfort. Exercise,
yoga, acupuncture and chiropractic have also been shown to reduce
pain. Medical treatments like surgery and steroids continue to be
important options, doctors say, even amid concerns that these have
been overused.
Dr. Haleh Agdassi, a rehabilitation doctor with the Palo Alto Medical
Foundation in California, sees back and neck pain so frequently among
heavy users of computers that she calls it the "Silicon Valley
syndrome." She encourages clients to try a mix of nonsurgical
strategies, but finds it frustrating that treatments for such a common
problem are only modestly effective.
"There's no magic bullet out there for back pain," she says. "That can
be overwhelming for patients. It's an anxious, vulnerable crowd —
they're looking for solutions."
Ms. Gokhale, 52, can relate to the anxiety of searching for an answer.
She previously dealt with pain in her lower back, first as a college
student practicing yoga, then as a young mother with sciatica. She
eventually had surgery for a herniated disk, but it failed, she said.
When doctors suggested she try a second time, Ms. Gokhale began a
search for other answers. Many of her own clients come to her
similarly exasperated, she said.
Mr. Drudge read Ms. Gokhale's book, "8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back,"
before training with her in person. "I needed her touch, her
observations and her humanity," he said.
Donna Dubinsky, co-founder and former chief executive of Palm, worked
with Ms. Gokhale two years ago after trying chiropractic, cortisone
shots and physical therapy to minimize the pain of herniated disks in
her back.
"All of these other things were about symptom relief. The question for
me became: what could I do to address the root cause?" said Ms.
Dubinsky, 57, who now stands during many meetings to practice Ms.
Gokhale's posture lessons. "Not that it's a miracle cure, but of all
the things I've tried, what Esther taught me was the most effective,"
she added.
IN Ms. Gokhale's courses, offered in her Palo Alto, Calif., studio and
in cities across the country, students relearn how to sit, stand,
sleep and walk. While some clients take private classes, many enroll
in group workshops with eight to 10 people who meet for six 90-minute
sessions. While the students are often strangers, the classes are
casual and intimate: most clients wear yoga clothes or sweat pants,
and they giggle awkwardly as Ms. Gokhale adjusts their bodies.
Ms. Gokhale says that most Americans tend to be relaxed and slumped
(think of a C-shaped spine), or arched up and tense (an S shape), the
stand-up-straight style of posture that some parents demand of their
children. She helps her students return their bodies to the stance
that she says nature intended: upright and relaxed (a tall J spine).
With the care of a kindergarten teacher, Ms. Gokhale adjusts clients'
bodies from bottom to top. She helps clients relax the front of the
pelvis downward, so the belt line slants forward and the butt angles
back, so "your behind is behind you, not under you" (a contrast to the
neutral pelvis recommended in Pilates and some physical therapy).
Ms. Gokhale guides students' rib cages that sway too far back, so they
are flush with the stomach. She takes their hunched shoulders, rolls
them up and brings them gently back and down. And she helps students
release tension in their necks by re-centering their heads over their
spines and pulling upward slightly at the hairline on the neck. The
result is an elongated and well-stacked spine that many students say
they can maintain comfortably because their muscles are not strained.
Ray Bingham, 67, the presiding director of Oracle's board, was
referred to Ms. Gokhale last fall for his lower back pain. Mr. Bingham
says he has found relief after using her methods and he diligently
practices his newfound ways of sitting, walking and standing. "This is
not an approach like physical therapy with a beginning and an end;
this is a new way of being from now on," Mr. Bingham said.
Ms. Gokhale encourages people to take the class with co-workers and
family members, so that students can help remind each other to adjust
their bodies. But even those who work alone find ways to remember
their posture.
After doing a group workshop with Ms. Gokhale this year, Mr. Drudge
says many things now remind him to make adjustments — seeing others
with poor posture at Starbucks or the gym, passing by his reflection
in a window, or sitting down in a chair to work.
"But I don't beat myself up about it. When I'm aware of my posture, I
fix it," Mr. Drudge said. "And eventually, I think, it becomes who you
are."
nytimes
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