Video: Sitting posture: Postural awareness

﻿Hi there, my name is Sophie Brazier. I'm a children's physiotherapist. Thank you very much for joining me today. We are going to be continuing to talk about sitting posture. So we started last time in lesson seven, with an introduction to sitting posture, and today we'll be recapping those things. And then we will look at a sitting body posture check. And we'll finish with an activity where I'll get you to go through the posture check in a sitting position. So for the activity, you will need a chair with a back and make sure that you're comfortable in that chair. You may need some help from a parent or carer to get you a chair. And when you've got that, we can make a start. I would just like to give you a little message from our team. We as therapists have tried to think of the best way to continue to support children, young people and their families. So you may be watching this as a child by yourself, or you might be with a parent or carer. We will be exploring topic areas that we readily provide advice and support on across all ages and abilities. And each lesson we will aim to give you some ideas and activities that can be carried out either at home or in school. You may already have specific programmes that you're using or advice that has been given to you by your child's school or therapist. So please make sure that you're using any information I'm giving you alongside anything you already have. And if you do have any questions or would like help taping this to their needs, then please make sure you get in contact with your local therapy service. I think it would be good idea to begin with a little recap about what is sitting posture. So sitting posture is the position in which you hold your body when you are sitting. It is essential that the key parts of your body are correctly aligned for a nice ideal sitting posture. And a good sitting posture is supported by the right amount of muscle tension to hold you in that position. And the last point there it is individual to you. So this just means that your posture is unique to you. It might look different to your friends in class, or it might look different to your parent or your carer's posture. So everybody's posture is different. Now I'd like to go through what ideal sitting posture should really look like and some points to remember when you're thinking about this. Because it can be quite hard to really think about your posture and sitting. Sometimes you might hear people say, "Sit up straight, keep your back straight." Now, if you think about your natural curves of your spine, sitting dead upright isn't the most appropriate way to stay in that position. So really an ideal sitting posture, you need to be thinking about all these other things as well. So maintaining eye level. So if you're working at a computer, what you need to be doing is having your task or activity in your eye level. So you want to have a computer screen where you're keeping your posture in this position and you're not having to look down, or you're not having to look up to put strain on your neck. So it's really thinking about where you position the activity, a laptop, a book and you want to have your neck and your back lengthened. So again, that carries on for maintaining the eye level. If you're doing that, then that will help with your back and neck lengthening. And all I think a really nice way to think about your posture and how you should be sitting, instead of thinking about your shoulders back and everything about upright. If you imagine that somebody has got a piece of string attached to your head and that they are pulling it up, think up and growing tall. So if you're in a rounder push like this, you're sinking down and becoming smaller. And if you were growing up and growing tall, then you are correcting your posture, but you're doing it from here. So you're imagining that somebody's helping you grow. And that will probably feel a little bit more natural than bother sitting bolt upright. And the last thing there that I quite like is think that your head is light and it is lifting like a balloon. So imagine that your head is free from your shoulders and that you can just relax and keep it there in a nice aligned position. Now let's look at some points to remember for your sitting posture check. So what you need to think about, you can either start from your head and work your way down, or start from your feet and work your way up. So now I'm going to talk about from your head down. So your head and neck position, think back to those tips on the previous slides, we looked at about your eye level and thinking about your head and neck position. So you want to be keeping good alignment, maintaining eye level and you want to be keeping your growing tall position and then moving down into your hips. If you're sitting at a chair, if you have your hips at around 90 degrees, so that's a right angle, that's a good position to be in. You don't want to have your hips too squashed because that might get uncomfortable. Then you want to think about your knee position and the chair say all the parts of your legs supported by the chair. Is your chair quite small? So do your legs hang down too far? So again, around about right angles, say 90 degrees for your knees, and your foot position, you want to have your feet in contact with the floor, or if your feet don't reach the floor, maybe a step. It's just being mindful about all those points in your body and not just thinking about your back because your other parts of your body contribute to your sitting posture as well. I'd now like you to try this activity for your sitting posture. While you are sitting now, I'd like you to just stop and think, is this a good sitting posture? And by that, I mean, is it a good or ideal sitting posture. thinking about all the things we've talked about when that contribute to a good sitting posture. and the second thing, could you sit and engage in learning in this position for a period of time? So you might be sitting in a position and you're quickly changing it now as I'm talking, but that doesn't matter. When I showed you on the video, like you to pause the video and go through those things and have a little think about your own sitting posture. So watch this video now and pause it when you're finished and then you can have a go yourself. So for this activity for sitting posture, I'd like you just to stop and see where you're sitting at the moment, and think about, is this a good sitting posture? Could you sit there and engage in some learning and focused on a task for a period of time? Whilst you're thinking about, is it a good sitting posture? Think back to the slides we've just gone through where we're looking at maintaining eye level, we're keeping on neck and back lengthened, we're thinking growing up and tall, and remember thinking your head is light lifting like a balloon. Remember those points and have a little think about what your posture is like now. Pause the video, have a little thing and then come back. If you'd like to think more about your posture and sitting, you could break it down even more. And you could look at your position of your knees, the position of your hips, the position of your feet and your head and neck position. And just go into each one in detail and just think about each of those body parts and how they are. Are they aligned? Are they feeling nice and relaxed? Do you think your posture is comfortable? Do you think it's a good aligned position? So an ideal or a good posture? Well done, I hope you managed to have a little look at your own position. I'll just talk you through a few things that you could look at to take it a little bit further. So let's think about the position of your knees. Did you have your knees around 90 degrees so they were even, or perhaps just slightly lower than your hips? And did you try not to cross your legs, because crossing your legs can actually change the alignment of your hips and also of your back, and it can make you twist a little bit. So it's a good idea to try not to press your legs. Then the position of your feet. Did you have your feet flat on the floor, or if your feet didn't reach the floor, were you able to use a sit rest or perhaps make your own foot rest. Then the position of your hips, was your bottom back in the chair and was your weight distributed evenly? So this was where you sitting more on one side or where you twisted slightly. So it's just having a bit of an awareness about your hip position. and lastly, your head and neck position. Did you have that head and neck in neutral position, remembering your growing tall, lifting light like a balloon from your head. If you wanted to, you could pause the video to have a further look at those things now. And now we come to the end of our lesson today. So thank you very much for joining me. I hope you've learned something and can take some tips away for your own sitting posture. Please join me again next time for lesson nine, where we will be carrying on talking about sitting posture for another lesson. All that leaves me to say is I hope you have a great day and I will see you see you soon. Take care, bye bye.

Lesson summary: Sitting posture: Postural awareness

This lesson is a recap on sitting posture, looking at a sitting posture check with an activity aimed at postural awareness in sitting.

Sitting posture: Postural awareness

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Lesson summary: Sitting posture: Postural awareness

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