Lost+Posture_+Why+Some+Indigenous+Cultures+May+Not+Have+Back+Pain+_+Goats+and+Soda+_+NPR.pdf

15/06/2015 Lost Posture: Why Some Indigenous Cultures May Not Have Back Pain : Goats and Soda : NPR

http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/06/08/412314701/lost-posture-why-indigenous-cultures-dont-have-back-pain?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_ 1/8

daily life food & culture girls/boys health money new stuff

health

Lost Posture: Why Some IndigenousCultures May Not Have Back PainJUNE 08, 2015 3:25 AM ET

MICHAELEEN DOUCLEFF

Listen to the Story

Morning Edition 7:02

Embed Transcript

Primal posture: Ubong tribesmen in Borneo (right) display the perfect J-shaped spines. A woman in Burkina Faso

(left) holds her baby so that his spine stays straight. The center image shows the S-shaped spine drawn in a

modern anatomy book (Fig. I) and the J-shaped spine (Fig. II) drawn in the 1897 anatomy book Traite d'Anatomie

Humaine.

Courtesy of Esther Gokhale and Ian Mackenzie/Nomads of the Dawn



Editor's note, June 10: We have added an acknowledgement of several sources

that Esther Gokhale used while developing her theories on back pain. These include

physiotherapy methods, such as the Alexander Technique and the Feldenkrais

Method, and the work of anthropologist Noelle Perez-Christiaens.

Back pain is a tricky beast. Most Americans will at some point have a problem with

their backs. And for an unlucky third, treatments won't work, and the problem will

become chronic.

Many ancient statues, such as this one from Greece, display a J-shaped spine. The statue's back is nearly flat until



the bottom, where it curves so the buttocks are behind the spine.

Courtesy of Esther Gokhale/Gerard Mackworth-Young

Believe it or not, there are a few cultures in the world where back pain hardly exists.

One indigenous tribe in central India reported essentially none. And the discs in their

backs showed little signs of degeneration as people aged.

An acupuncturist in Palo Alto, Calif., thinks she has figured out why. She has traveled

around the world studying cultures with low rates of back pain how they stand, sit

and walk. Now she's sharing their secrets with back pain sufferers across the U.S.

About two decades ago, Esther Gokhale started to struggle with her own back after she

had her first child. "I had excruciating pain. I couldn't sleep at night," she says. "I was

walking around the block every two hours. I was just crippled."

Gokhale had a herniated disc. Eventually she had surgery to fix it. But a year later, it

happened again. "They wanted to do another back surgery. You don't want to make a

habit out of back surgery," she says.

This time around, Gokhale wanted to find a permanent fix for her back. And she

wasn't convinced Western medicine could do that. So Gokhale started to think outside

the box. She had an idea: "Go to populations where they don't have these huge

problems and see what they're doing."

Esther Gokhale'sFive Tips ForBetter PostureAnd Less BackPain

Try these exercises while

you're working at your desk,

sitting at the dinner table or

walking around, Esther

Gokhale recommends.

[Added June 10] So Gokhale studied findings from

anthropologists, such as Noelle Perez-Christiaens,

who analyzed postures of indigenous populations.

And she studied physiotherapy methods, such as the

Alexander Technique and the Feldenkrais Method.

And the original post continues ...

Then over the next decade, Gokhale went to cultures

around the world that live far away from modern life.



1. Do a shoulder roll:

Americans tend to scrunch

their shoulders forward, so our

arms are in front of our bodies.

That's not how people in

indigenous cultures carry their

arms, Gokhale says. To fix

that, gently pull your shoulders

up, push them back and then

let them drop like a shoulder

roll. Now your arms should

dangle by your side, with your

thumbs pointing out. "This is

the way all your ancestors

parked their shoulders," she

says. "This is the natural

architecture for our species."

2. Lengthen your spine:

Adding extra length to your

spine is easy, Gokhale says.

Being careful not to arch your

back, take a deep breath in

and grow tall. Then maintain

that height as you exhale.

Repeat: Breathe in, grow even

taller and maintain that new

height as you exhale. "It takes

some effort, but it really

strengthens your abdominal

muscles," Gokhale says.

3. Squeeze, squeeze your

glute muscles when you

walk: In many indigenous

cultures, people squeeze their

gluteus medius muscles every

time they take a step. That's

one reason they have such

shapely buttocks muscles that

She went to the mountains in Ecuador, tiny fishing

towns in Portugal and remote villages of West Africa.

"I went to villages where every kid under age 4 was

crying because they were frightened to see somebody

with white skin they'd never seen a white person

before," she says.

Gokhale took photos and videos of people who walked

with water buckets on their heads, collected firewood

or sat on the ground weaving, for hours.

"I have a picture in my book of these two women who

spend seven to nine hours everyday, bent over,

gathering water chestnuts," Gokhale says. "They're

quite old. But the truth is they don't have a back

pain."

She tried to figure out what all these different people

had in common. The first thing that popped out was

the shape of their spines. "They have this regal

posture, and it's very compelling."

And it's quite different than American spines.

If you look at an American's spine from the side, or

profile, it's shaped like the letter S. It curves at the top

and then back again at the bottom.

But Gokhale didn't see those two big curves in people

who don't have back pain. "That S shape is actually

not natural," she says. "It's a J-shaped spine that you

want."

In fact, if you look at drawings from Leonardo da



support their lower backs.

Gokhale says you can start

developing the same type of

derrire by tightening the

buttocks muscles when you

take each step. "The gluteus

medius is the one you're after

here. It's the one high up on

your bum," Gokhale says. "It's

the muscle that keeps you

perky, at any age."

4. Don't put your chin up:

Instead, add length to your

neck by taking a lightweight

object, like a bean bag or

folded washcloth, and balance

it on the top of your crown. Try

to push your head against the

object. "This will lengthen the

back of your neck and allow

your chin to angle down not

in an exaggerated way, but in a

relaxed manner," Gokhale

says.

5. Don't sit up straight!

"That's just arching your back

and getting you into all sorts of

trouble," Gokhale says. Instead

do a shoulder roll to open up

the chest and take a deep

breath to stretch and lengthen

the spine.

Vinci or a Gray's Anatomy book from 1901 the

spine isn't shaped like a sharp, curvy S. It's much

flatter, all the way down the back. Then at the

bottom, it curves to stick the buttocks out. So the

spine looks more like the letter J.

"The J-shaped spine is what you see in Greek statues.

It's what you see in young children. It's good design,"

Gokhale says.

So Gokhale worked to get her spine into the J shape.

And gradually her back pain went away.



Healthy spines in the Western world: The J-shaped spine is often seen in photographs from the late 19th and early

20th centuries.

Library of Congress

Then Gokhale realized she could help others. She developed a set of exercises, wrote a

book and set up a studio in downtown Palo Alto.

Now her list of clients is impressive. She's helped YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki and

Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report. She has given classes at Google, Facebook and

companies across the country. In Silicon Valley, she's known as the "posture guru."

Each year, doctors in the Bay Area refer hundreds of patients to Gokhale. One of them

is Dr. Neeta Jain, an internist at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation. She puts Gokhale's

method in the same category as Pilates and yoga for back pain. And it doesn't bother

her that the method hasn't been tested in a clinical trial.



"If people are finding things that are helpful, and it's not causing any harm, then why

do we have to wait for a trial?" Jain asked.

But there's still a big question looming here: Is Gokhale right? Have people in Western

cultures somehow forgotten the right way to stand?

Scientists don't know yet, says Dr. Praveen Mummaneni, a neurosurgeon at the

University of California, San Francisco's Spine Center. Nobody has done a study on

traditional cultures to see why some have lower rates of back pain, he says. Nobody

has even documented the shape of their spines.

"I'd like to go and take X-rays of indigenous populations and compare it to people in

the Western world," Mummaneni says. "I think that would be helpful."

But there's a whole bunch of reasons why Americans' postures and the shape of

their spines may be different than those of indigenous populations, he says. For

starters, Americans tend to be much heavier.

"If you have a lot of fat built up in the belly, that could pull your weight forward,"

Mummaneni says. "That could curve the spine. And people who are thinner probably

have less curvature" and thus a spine shaped more like J than than an S.

Americans are also much less active than people in traditional cultures, Mummaneni

says. "I think the sedentary lifestyle promotes a lack of muscle tone and a lack of

postural stability because the muscles get weak."

Everyone knows that weak abdominal muscles can cause back pain. In fact,

Mummaneni says, stronger muscles might be the secret to Gokhale's success.

In other words, it's not that the J-shaped spine is the ideal one or the healthiest. It's

what goes into making the J-shaped spine that matters: "You have to use muscle

strength to get your spine to look like a J shape," he says.

So Gokhale has somehow figured out a way to teach people to build up their core

muscles without them even knowing it. "Yes, I think that's correct," Mummaneni says.



Support comes from:

SHARE

About

Subscribe

Connect With Us

"You're not going to be able to go from the S- to the J-shaped spine without having

good core muscle strength. And I think that's key here."

So indigenous people around the world don't have a magic bullet for stopping back

pain. They've just got beefy abdominal muscles, and their lifestyle helps to keep them

that way, even as they age.

chronic pain back pain global health

He Was In A Cab Stuck In Traffic. A Beggar Asked For Alms ...

0-%&3

As MERS Outbreak Surges, Genetic Tests Show Virus Hasn't Mutated

/&8&3

2015 npr

Lost+Posture_+Why+Some+Indigenous+Cultures+May+Not+Have+Back+Pain+_+Goats+and+Soda+_+NPR.pdf

Documents

Transcript of Lost+Posture_+Why+Some+Indigenous+Cultures+May+Not+Have+Back+Pain+_+Goats+and+Soda+_+NPR.pdf