health

Each generation brings fresh perspectives to the way they live their lives. 

Each generation finds its own way of looking at things…Image from Pixabay

One trend to emerge from the Millennials (born 1981–96) and early Gen Zs (born 1997–2012) is self-optimization. 

Personal optimizers are aiming to optimize their productivity, happiness, intelligence, and health. If personal growth is about doing the right things, then personal optimization is about doing things right.

Healthy posture and a pain-free body enable you to optimize your work, rest, and play! Image from Pickpik

So what do self-optimizers work on?

Optimizing can be about doing what you are doing better, faster, with fewer resources, to higher quality, and with better results. The optimizers’ mindset needs self-awareness: awareness of your preferences, and what choices you are making every day—look at all the options and pick the best one. 

Some examples of self-optimization include exercising regularly, taking care of your diet, managing time and stress, and getting enough sleep, all with the aim of making your body and mind more resilient against fatigue, negative mood, and illness.

Broadly speaking, optimization is the act of changing an existing process in order to increase the occurrence of favorable outcomes and decrease the occurrence of undesirable outcomes. And this is exactly what the Gokhale Method® does—it enables people to exchange unhealthy, damaging, painful posture, for healthy, healing, pain-free posture. This allows you to meet your potential for musculoskeletal health.

Gokhale Method students can use the latest biofeedback tech with the Gokhale PostureTracker™ to assist in optimizing their posture.

Healthy posture helps you walk your talk

Healthy posture gives you a body that is upright but relaxed, and super-comfortable to live in, with an athletic bearing that says you are ready for life. People instinctively perceive this in others, and it makes a positive impression. 

Wealth coach, life coach, and entrepreneur Ramit Sethi saw himself in a photo taken from the side, and didn’t like what he saw. Presenting himself well is a priority for Ramit, so he went looking for help—he had no idea if such a thing as a posture coach existed. Back last December, he spoke generously on his YouTube channel about his sessions with Gokhale Method teacher Cynthia Rose, which he described as “life-changing.” 

Ramit explains how he optimized his Gokhale Method sessions to a busy schedule in NYC. For Ramit, healthy, good-looking posture is one of life’s riches.

Rahul shares his posture optimization on Google

Rahul Reddy runs his own business doing analytics for internet startups. Before his Gokhale Method course he wrote, “As a result of many hours at my desk I’ve lost strength, flexibility, and most certainly good posture. My goals are: 

1) Better posture and physical activity habits on work days. I have picked up bad movement and posture habits as I spent more time building my business. 

2) Rebuild my strength in other activities—I maintain a small vineyard, and work with clay… and I did enjoy doing more with my hands during the pandemic. 

3) Continuous improvement and future-proofing. 

Rahul took our in-person Foundations course, and later our online Elements course. Among the many techniques he has learned in becoming pain-free, he knows to externally rotate his legs, roll open his shoulders, open his chest, lengthen his neck, and engage his inner corset. Rahul now enjoys a more stable, athletic, and symmetrical stance.

Rahul was delighted to get out of pain and enjoy his activities more than ever by learning the Gokhale Method. Thank you for your Google review, Rahul!

Don’t be a posture pessimizer

Ok, that’s not a real word, but if you are a posture pessimist then you might find yourself saying things like, “I think I inherited my bunions,” or “Everyone in my family has a rounded upper back,” or “Nobody in my family has a butt,” or “I’m learning to live with my back pain.”

These statements are usually premised on misinformation, or are wanting in alternative points of view and experiences. For example, a posture optimizer will know:

• Bunions happen due to poor stance and undue pressure on the first metatarsophalangeal joint.
• A rounded upper back is often a result of tucking the pelvis.
• A flat butt simply points to the fact that you haven’t yet learned to use your buttock muscles in walking.
• Just because back pain is common does not make it normal! We should expect to not have it.

You don’t have to be a Millennial to be an optimizer! Every generation stands to gain from being inspired by healthy, pain-free posture. We are passionate about helping all people discover their best, pain-free selves.

Best next action steps

If you would like to optimize your posture, get started by booking a consultation, online or in person, with one of our teachers.

You can sign up below to join any one of our upcoming FREE Online Workshops…

In the 1990s, Ofer Ben-Shachar suffered a leg injury. Doctors recommended he get surgery, estimating they would have him back running marathons within weeks. Before going under the knife, Ben-Shachar wanted to find data on this surgical option to see how effective it really was. However, the little research he could dig up was confusing and inconclusive. Frustrated, he succumbed to the assurances of his confident surgeon. What happened instead was so debilitating, it took him five years before he was able to drive a car again (you can read more about this story here). He vowed that one day he would create a website to help people get the kind of information he wished he had had at the outset.

After selling a successful startup, Ben-Shachar was able to follow through on his promise and funded a venture that he has named HealthOutcome.

Health Outcome homepage showing the highest and lowest rated solutions for Lower Back Pain

The website reads, “To [Ofer’s] surprise, no one from the medical community (his doctor, the hospital, or his insurance company) contacted him to learn about the result of his surgery.” Ben-Shachar goes on to say, “There is no meaningful data on medical treatments or surgery outcomes available to patients or physicians." Despite over 51 million surgeries (750,000 of them back surgeries) performed annually in the US, there was little to no patient-reported outcome data available to patients. "We are actively addressing this void of outcome data with a platform built to capture the voice of the patient.”

Data on medical outcomes has been limited and is not always trustworthy

In response to this lack of information, HealthOutcome has democratized treatment outcome data by collecting crowdsourced ratings and reviews. People need to hear from each other, not just in anecdotes, but in numbers. Ben-Shachar explains, “after 80 reviews are submitted for an intervention, we see the rating stabilize, which is in itself a sign of validity. The scale of the studies we are doing here is beyond anything happening in clinical trials. At 1/10,000th the cost per patient, we pool unbiased results from the public and are reflecting important truths about what works and what doesn’t.” There is truth in numbers, and the website has gotten the attention of a group of Stanford researchers who have recently published an article about the site "Is Crowdsourcing Patient-Reported Outcomes the Future of Evidence-Based Medicine? A Case Study of Back Pain", showing it to be a valid tool for measuring medical outcomes.

In the Evidence-Based Medicine triad, ‘relevant scientific evidence’ can now be bolstered by crowdsourced outcome data

Researchers note that the findings on HealthOutcome are consistent with the findings from randomized controlled trials, while the numbers are vastly greater than can be achieved from a randomized controlled trial (RTC). Furthermore, HealthOutcome allows for people to rate treatment success many months or years later, giving a better picture of the longevity of an outcome. For most surgeries, doctors perform little or no follow-up, and controlled trials are limited in that they cannot check back in on the trial patients one, two, three years later to see how their condition has progressed.

The Gokhale Method Institute recognizes the need for research on our program, but has had to face the reality of how difficult it is for a small organization to gather ‘pure’ data, in the form of an RTC. These trials are expensive and take specialized knowledge and a specialized cast of characters to design, implement, analyze, and publish.

This figure shows the change of mean values of the number of check-marked pain-related questions from the Roland Morris Pain Questionnaire due to Gokhale Method Foundations course.

In our journey for scientifically sound data, various studies have been conducted on the Gokhale Method. A San Jose State University study showed increased vitality and increased hamstring flexibility from taking the Foundations Course. An ongoing in-house study has shown remarkable changes in the frequency of back pain that students experience before the course, at completion of the course, and four weeks after completion. These studies, though highly encouraging, fall short of the RTC standard.

Enter HealthOutcome with reliable and valuable data!

HealthOutcome, with its overwhelming validation of the Gokhale Method and Postural Modification, was therefore a very welcome recent discovery. Lower back pain is one of the conditions the site has highlighted and...drumroll…Postural Modifications wins by a landslide margin! While most treatment options on the site differ by only 0.1 or 0.2 points (on a 0–5 rating scale) from the next best treatment option, Posture Modification stands head and shoulders above the next best treatment: compare a rating of 3.7 for Posture Modification with 2.9 for Yoga, with over a thousand reviews between them.

The Gokhale Method had been added to the list of interventions on the site, and we’re very proud to have a 4.6 out of 5 rating. With less than 500 reviews, our treatment doesn’t yet make it ‘above the fold.’ However, this excellent rating is a huge deal for the Gokhale Method, for back pain research, and for the public.

The Gokhale Method needs more reviews, but it is quickly becoming the top-rated solution on the Health Outcome website

This site is a tremendous service to us all, and I hope it flourishes and expands to cover an increasing number of conditions. There has long been a need for an efficient, trustworthy way to collect reviews of available treatment options, both to help patients gather the information they need to make informed medical decisions, and to help inform medical professionals (who have little time to research new treatments for every condition and to compile detailed treatment reviews) of the variety and efficacy of the options available for their patients. There is also a great need for a platform that non-clinical treatment options, such as posture modification and exercise regimens, can use to efficiently gather data, learn how effective their programs are, and share this news. The Gokhale Method is very excited to be able to see quantifiable validation of what we hear from our students every day, and to share our success with a larger audience.

I hope as readers of this article, you will share your experience after taking the Gokhale Method Foundations course on HealthOutcome if you were suffering from either lower back pain or neck pain.

As the summer sun mellows and fall approaches, this is my favorite time of year to go hiking. Hiking brings so many benefits, from lifting your spirits and relaxing in fature, to catching up with friends and spending quality time with family.

The physical health benefits of walking are well documented. Choose your terrain well, and hiking provides great cardiovascular exercise for all ages. If you have a sedentary job, walking around town can be an important part of what helps you to achieve and maintain a healthy weight.

10,000 STEPS A DAY

If you like to track your progress, a pedometer to measure and increase your steps is a great fitness tool. Pedometer researcher Dr. Catrine Tudor-Locke published a study in "Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise" in 2004, showing that men in the survey took an average of 7192 steps per day and the women an average of 5210. The research showed that a sedentary person however might average only 1,000 to 3,000 steps a day. For people in this category, gradually adding steps is the way to go.

A reasonable goal for most people is to increase average daily steps by 500 each week until you can easily average 10,000 per day.

MODERN KNEES HAVE ISSUES

Among the common problems that prevent people from walking very far are knee problems. Ironically, a common source of knee problems is a problematic gait. Moving less then compounds the problem with stiffness and weight gain, which puts even more stress on the knees, setting up a downward spiral.

In our culture we now have an epidemic of knee problems; most are not associated with any injury. Over half a million Americans a year are diagnosed with meniscus (cartilage) tears and bone spurs. They have sometimes suffered years of inflammation, pain and loss of mobility in the joint. Thankfully, surgical repairs can be pretty good at restoring knee function, but it's always best to prevent the damage, try to improve the situation simply if possible, and use surgery as a last resort.

Let’s look at the figures:

http://www.healthline.com/health/total-knee-replacement-surgery/statistics-infographic

• More than 4.5 million Americans are living with at least one total knee replacement. That is 4.7% of people aged 50 and over. By age 80+ the figure is 10% and rising

• Knee replacements increased by 84% from 1997 – 2009

• Osteoarthritis is the principal diagnosis of knee replacement recipients

http://www.healthline.com/health/total-knee-replacement-surgery/understanding-costs

• The average cost of knee replacement surgery is $49,500, plus in-patient charges of $7,500

• The average cost of knee arthroscopy surgery is $11,900

• An estimated 850,000 meniscus surgeries are performed each year

http://www.newchoicehealth.com/Directory/Procedure/130/Arthroscopic%20Knee%20Surgery

A SIMPLE PREVENTIVE POSTURE MEASURE FOR KNEES

If you observe young children’s gait, you will see that they land on a slightly bent front knee. You can also see this in people from non-industrial cultures. Bending the front knee provides extra shock absorption for the knee joint. By contrast, if you are in the habit of landing on a straight leg (a result of inappropriately using your quads to lengthen your stride) the knee cartilage will be subjected to a much greater force as your foot hits the ground.

Landing on a straight front leg is often accompanied by several other postural aberrations as listed below. Conversely, bending your front knee at landing can help induce some of the other aspects of a healthy gait like a stronger, more propulsive action in your back leg and buttocks.

TRY IT

Start from standing with your feet hip width apart in a relaxed micro-squat position (with your knee and hip joints softened). This will help antevert your pelvis. Now imagine you are walking up a hill. This will lean you slightly forward. Your back leg can now propel you forward and your front knee is more likely to be bent at the moment of impact. Squeeze the upper buttock muscles (gluteus medius) of your back leg as it propels you forward, and use this muscle to help slow the landing of your front foot. You should land heel first, but only by just a fraction ahead of the rest of your foot (avoid an extreme heel-toe one-two step). If you succeed in making your landing soft, you will be providing additional protection for the knee.

It may help to try walking barefoot, on dirt or grass if possible. When doing this, you will instrinctively land more softly to protect your feet, which are no longer over-protected by thick shoes.

A good general principle to keep in mind is to use your muscles and spare your joints.

In addition to being a healthier way to walk, you may experience that a lighter landing on a bent front leg is more pleasant than crashing to the ground with a rigid front leg.

Walking is one of the techniques where students most benefit from hands-on coaching. In our six-lesson Gokhale Method Foundations course, we introduce elements of walking in the first lesson and build on them with each successive lesson. This gives students a chance to digest, practice and refine their technique with feedback from the teacher.

Walking habits can be deeply ingrained in your muscle memory and even your psyche—after all, it’s part of who you are and has been a lifetime in the making! It often takes a lot of repetition and hands-on cueing to change these habits. Gokhale Method teachers are trained to help you learn good habits by logically breaking down walking into smaller moves and then linking the new moves together. We teach elements of walking in our Free Workshops, our Initial Consutations and, most comprehensively, in our six-lesson Gokhale Method Foundations course.

We hope to see you in person at one of these offerings!