Click on NOTE CATEGORIES to browse by topic, read through the entire archives, or type a topic in the search box.Biomechanist Katy Bowman talks to biologist Jeannette Loram about the importance of head and neck movement. This year, Katy’s annual exercise advent offers 24 moves for the head and neck and Katy explains her personal and professional reasons for choosing this theme.
Jeannette and Katy discuss the head and neck as a hub for our sensory, nervous, immune, digestive and vestibular systems, all of which require movement to support their functions. They discuss common issues of the head and neck region, as well as how repetitive head positioning and neck immobility can relate to broader experiences in the body, such as Katy’s discovery of a decrease in her height that she is working to reverse.
They discuss the basic movements of the head and neck and also cover the structures of the region including a neck anatomy lesson provided by their favourite 1970s musical ‘Grease’ and a third-grade attempt to mimic the album cover!
They share their own head and neck care practices and suggest strategies for listeners to add more daily movement for this part of the body; from changing their sleep set-up to pairing specific neck movements with a daily cue.
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OVERVIEW
(time codes are approximate)
00:13:05 - The Dynamic Collective (Jump to section)
00:14:00 - Let’s Talk Head and Necks (Jump to section)
00:24:55 - Problems, Pains, and Anatomy (Jump to section)
00:34:45 - A tangent - Burns and Skin (Jump to section)
00:42:15 - Back to the Head and Neck (Jump to section)
00:50:10 - Movement and the Head and Neck (Jump to section)
00:57:00 - Listener Question sponsored by SmartPlayrooms.com (Jump to section)
01:03:00 - Jeannette and Katy’s Head & Neck Movement Practice (Jump to section)
LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE SHOW
Skin Cutaneous Functional Units
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19506493/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27606559/
https://academic.oup.com/jbcr/article-abstract/44/5/1117/7077870?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Exercise Advent Post - The Platysma
Exercise Advent Post - Lifting the Chin
Smart Playrooms - 10% off with code: DNA10
Exercise Advent Post - Relaxing Your Head
Exercise Advent Post - Occipital Release
Exercise Advent Post - Rhomboid Push Up
Windmill - Exercise Advent 2021 - Day 11
I Know I Should Exercise, But… Presale
SPONSORS: THE DYNAMIC COLLECTIVE
This episode of The Move Your DNA podcast is brought to you by The Dynamic Collective, a group of six companies that create products and services helping you to move more. The Dynamic Collective is:
Correct Toes: Anatomic silicone toe spacers and other foot rehabilitation tools. Correct Toes are offering our listeners a $5 discount on all purchases with the code myd-toes5 valid until April 2025
Venn Design: Functional furniture for a balanced life - sit still less and move more
Peluva: Five-toe minimalist shoes that are functional and stylish. Peluva are offering our listeners 15% off their purchase with the code NUTRITIOUSMOVEMENT valid until April 2025
Movemate:World's first dynamic active standing board designed to make movement a natural part of your workday, without disrupting your workflow!
Smart Playrooms:Design and products for active living indoors. Smart Playrooms is offering our listeners a 10% discount on monkey bars, rock wall panels, and rock wall holds with the code DNA10 valid until April 2025
Wildling: Minimal footwear handmade from natural materials for toddlers, kids, and adults. Wildling is offering our listeners free shipping on all purchases until April 2025 with the code KATYWILDLINGS
PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
(Theme Music)
This is the Move Your DNA podcast, a show where movement science meets your everyday life. I'm Katy Bowman, biomechanist, author, and I often have my head in a book. And I'm Jeannette Loram, biologist, movement teacher, and I often have my head in a pool. Every body is welcome here. Let's get started.
KATY: All right. Welcome everybody. Welcome Jeannette.
JEANNETTE: Thank you.
KATY: Today we're talking about head and neck because I do an exercise advent every year. This is my 11th year doing it.
JEANNETTE: That's amazing!
KATY: Have you been there for every single one?
JEANNETTE: Every single one. For sure.
KATY: Do you follow it?
JEANNETTE: I do follow it, absolutely. Because I think I started reading your blog, which is how I first found you back in ... well it was either 2009 or 2010. So I have been here for all of them.
KATY: You've been here for a long time.
JEANNETTE: Yeah.
KATY: So for those who don't know how an exercise advent works, all it means is I post an exercise onto social media, Facebook. It used to just be Facebook because there didn't also used to be Instagram when I started way back when. And I would put them also on a webpagehttps://www.nutritiousmovement.com/?s=advent on my website: like a blog post where the exercises could be. And I always had a topic although I wonder if I look back if my topics were as well fleshed out. I think I had maybe "upper body" or "gait" as topics.
JEANNETTE: Yes.
KATY: You can find all of them if you want to go back and dig through the archives. You will find them all collated under exercise advent on the blog. And you can find 24 exercises times 10 at this point. We are a few days in to this 11th round by the time we're recording this. And we'll be a few more days in before the time this episode drops.
JEANNETTE: And so how did you decide the topic for this year? Which is, obviously, head and neck.
KATY: It's head and neck, yeah. So, I have 12 and 13 year old kids now. And I'm not sure if it's the same in your house, but everyone's very excited at our house about how tall everyone is. Specifically when they are almost as tall as mom or dad or passing them - leaving them behind. I know you're both tall and you have very tall children too.
JEANNETTE: Yes. One is considerably taller than me now. And one is still a little bit behind.
KATY: Yeah. So we have a wall where we've measured height.
JEANNETTE: Right. Yes.
KATY: And it has really ramped up, I would say, in the middle school years. When they were younger, they were kind of interested and now it's like checking the weather. "Ok how much did I grow last night?" And in addition to measuring their height relative to their own height on a wall tracker, they are also interested in actually figuring out how tall they were. So bringing out the measuring tape, "Oh, I'm 5 foot 5 now. I'm 5 foot 6." And my son had gotten just to be as tall as I am, maybe a skosh more. And he measured how tall he was and then he said "oh I'm taller than you now. I'm 5'6"." Ok, you probably can't see my mouth open right now because I am taller than 5'6". I am not 5'6".
JEANNETTE: Right.
KATY: So then I said, "Get me that measuring tape!" And I'm up against the wall now and I have my marking. And I measured it and I am shorter than I used to be.
JEANNETTE: Right. Interesting.
KATY: All of this talk about tracking my height and I have gotten shorter.
JEANNETTE: Right.
KATY: And I've written, in Re-Think Your Position, I explain the mathematics.
JEANNETTE: I love that piece.
KATY: I love that one too.
JEANNETTE: It's one of my favorites because it's so easy to see what you mean with your model, that you'll have to explain.
KATY: This is why I love - I'm really, I think, a short essay writer with really shoddy but helpful visuals made out usually some art and craft medium. So in this case, and the reason I love that essay too is because of the story that it starts with my dad.
JEANNETTE: Yes.
KATY: And I was trying to explain basically xy coordinates to the whole medical office as my dad is asking "how am I shorter?" Anyway, so when we think of getting shorter with age, I think a lot of people think about becoming more compressed. Meaning if you have vertebral discs between each of the bones of the spine and those get compressed and you've got a set of them and if each one gets compressed there goes your height over time. But really, I think a lot of our height loss is coming from the fact that we're curling forward. So imagine standing as tall as you can against the wall and measuring the height of your head, and then, we opened this up and I said "having my head in a book." Bending forward to look down in at a book or down at your phone, you will end up, because some of you has peeled forward, actually being less tall from the top of your head to the ground. So I have noticed also that my neck and shoulders, specifically, the last few years have been a doozy. Even before pandemic times. And I'm not sure if it's just accumulation of age or I think it has more to do with accumulation of stress. Not so much the accumulation of age. I noticed that this area was stiff. And I just really felt confirmed that I had lost an inch and a half of height. Or maybe an inch and a quarter. And I also have noticed that some movements that I've been very fluid in - so for example a yoga plow...
JEANNETTE: Yes.
KATY: ...being able to lay on my back and flip my legs over my head and have them touch the ground, that my upper back had become really stiff and not being able to accommodate that move as easily or without a significant amount of warm up for those spots. I needed an hour to kind of mobilize all these pieces. And I just realized, "Oh, this curve is starting." This deeper upper back curve. This deeper cervical spine curve in the opposite direction. And so I was just personally starting to work on it more. And that informed, I think, the exercise advent. Because I'm also looking at all the topics I've done over the last decade. And realizing this is such a neglected area. Even the courses that I teach and the virtual studio classes that I teach, this is not an area, the head and neck, that gets equal love to say the feet.
JEANNETTE: Feet and hips.
KATY: The knees and the hips and the lower back. But if you ask most people they'll be like, "Oh my neck."
JEANNETTE: That's right. It's one of the, I think second only to low back pain, that people complain about, isn't it. Neck pain is right up there probably as the second most common pain syndrome, shall we say.
KATY: And even if it's not painful, just a loss of function.
JEANNETTE: Stiff. That's right.
KATY: If it's just generally stiff and it's like, "I can't really look to the right or to the left." And if we talk about natural movement, there's very little for your head and neck to do now. We talk about sitting in a chair. Your neck and head are also sitting in a chair and pretty much just pointing themselves forward. So that's how I got to that topic.
JEANNETTE: I was wondering as well, because whether you had changed or wanted to emphasize that generally because I noticed in ReThink Your Position which came out last year, I believe, you started with the head and neck. And I've seen you start a lot of other things from the feet. Or maybe the pelvis. And sort of work foot to head and this one you started the other way around. And I wondered if that was also because you've been noticing in our tech age whether the head and neck are making such a contribution to our physical experience that you wanted to lead with it. Or whether it was just a different way of outlining a book?
KATY: Maybe a bit of both. I start a lot of things from the feet up. The feet is definitely a central theme through all of my work, but I think you could equally go in both directions. For that book particularly I knew that people would be reading it because I was writing this paperback book. But of course people could be listening to an audio book. But in general I knew that people would be in a particular shape when they were interacting with that essay. And that book is all about becoming more aware that you have options with your body. And the options are just simple adjustments that are quite impactful. So the first essay for that book, I not only opened it with - I organized it by body parts. Chapter one is for the head and neck. But the first exercise is how to do all these things while you are just sitting there reading a book. So for the flow of the book it wouldn't have worked. If I started with feet, because the feet aren't always involved with reading a book where the head and neck are.
JEANNETTE: That's true.
KATY: So I think I had that thought. And then also it was a little different. And I just kinda mixed it up a little bit because I do think especially for people who come to "natural movement" or if they're just coming for general pain, it's those feet, ankles, knees, and hips places. And they get so focused on those that we never move up above the pelvis.
JEANNETTE: Right.
KATY: Or up above the breathing. So, I'm just trying to etch everyone up.
JEANNETTE: We've got these other parts. I think it's hard because we think because we're so cognitive and cerebral - we always think the head is just there doing our thinking parts.
KATY: Right. Moving our legs around.
JEANNETTE: Yeah. So I think there's this disconnect that perhaps it also requires these physical movements which we'll get into. I love your family measuring. We have a very similar system. It's against a door frame where we measure height. We've had to adjust it because we had a different floor come in. So we had to adjust it. But the kids love it. But what made me laugh is my eldest son, who is now significantly taller than me - I would say about two, two and a half, three years ago I was slightly, just a skosh taller than him. And he said the only reason I was taller was my neck. If we looked at the height of our shoulders, his shoulders were higher than mine. I've just got a very long neck. So he was like, "If it wasn't for your neck I would be taller than you."
KATY: I love him trying to legitimize the fact that you're shorter. If it's anything more than just "you are not as tall as your mother..."
JEANNETTE: That's right.
KATY: Now I'm in on the measurement. I've grown. I've been able to claim a half an inch since really focusing on this area. So I now am tracking my height on the wall with the date.
JEANNETTE: That's amazing.
KATY: Just like the children.
JEANNETTE: I once gained 2 inches. Which sounds impossible and it is, in fact, impossible. I was so excited. We went to Glasgow Science Museum and this machine measures your height. And I think how it does it is with a beam from above. And it came out at 5 foot 9. And I was like "5 foot 9!" And my husband said, "Yeah I always thought you were taller than 5 foot 7." How can I be 5 foot 9? Well I'm not 5 foot 9. It turned out it was measuring the bun on the top of my head. So I had a hair bun. And it measured at it.
KATY: I thought it was making estimates from your neck. Scanning your neck. "Surely this person is 5 foot 10."
KATY: Yeah. Why is it so important? I mean it's no less important than any other area so we thought we would just map it out for people. Get a chance to think about it. Why should they consider it more? But before we jump into the main body of this episode, I would like to thank our sponsors. The Move Your DNA podcast is supported by a Dynamic Collective of Companies helping you move more. The Collective is made up of Peluva, five-toe minimalist shoes that are functional and stylish, Movemate, a dynamic active standing board, Smart Playrooms, design and products for active living indoors, Correct Toes, anatomic silicone toe spacers, Venn Design, functional furniture helping you move more, and Wildling, minimal footwear handmade from natural materials. Thank you to our sponsors. All right, let's talk head and necks.
JEANNETTE: Ok, so it's probably worth talking about all the important stuff that goes on in the head and the neck just so while we flesh it out, why head and neck movement is so important, I thought it would be worthwhile talking about all the things that happen in the head and the neck.
JEANNETTE: Right.
KATY: There's the musculoskeletal situation of what's going on and then it's, as sensory creatures, and we've got sensors all over our body. But there's some pretty important structures and functions that reside in the head and neck that I think are influenced by how it moves - how this part of the body moves for sure. So some of those...
JEANNETTE: We've got eyes...
KATY: ... important pieces: eyes...
JEANNETTE: ...ears, nose. Mouth, too, taste. We've got everything going on there.
KATY: Yeah. The brain.
JEANNETTE: The brain. And then all the neurology to support those sensory systems.
KATY: That's right.
JEANNETTE: Which, not only the brain but you've got the spinal column that goes obviously through the neck. So you've got that. Yes, it's the sensory hotspot, I would say.
KATY: Yeah. And eating and swallowing. Right? So then not just the input of data but just actual input...
JEANNETTE: Literal input.
KATY: ...literal input. Swallowing's a big one. And I've talked about the neck a lot for the last, I don't know, 12 or 15 years, writing about the alignment of the neck for swallowing. Also for breathing. For even sound generation, too, vocal chord health. I think all of that's important.
JEANNETTE: Yeah. Anything else? These important tubes that go through the neck.
KATY: Blood supply.
JEANNETTE: Blood flow. Blood supply to the brain. Very important. And also for alignment you want to keep those tubes nice and straight. So blood flow is nice and even. What else?
KATY: Well and also it's a complex geometry. So if you remember back to Move Your DNA and also I bring this up a lot in the virtual studio classes, if you think about the structure of the body, there's a lot going on at places where there's complex anatomy. Hip joints, shoulder joints, and neck joints is probably confusing but where your head and neck meet. And also where your neck meets with, I would say, the shoulder girdle. So when you have places of complex geometry, the anatomy of those areas indicate a lot of movement. There's a lot of movement that goes on at the hips. Much more so than that goes on, let's say, mid-thigh because there's no joint mid-thigh. There's plenty of anatomy in those areas but there's not a lot of complexity. It's not the meet up point or the attachment point. And so where you have complex geometry in the body, you also tend to have lymphatic ducts gathered, conglomerate. There's a larger volume of them in these areas. Why? Because this is a system that depends on the movement of some of these smaller ... would we call these organs? Would you call a lymph node an organ?
JEANNETTE: I think I would.
KATY: I would too but I wasn't sure if it was right. Because I say...
JEANNETTE: I think I would.
KATY: Part.
JEANNETTE: It's hard. I'm trying to think back. I think we can go with that. I think we can.
KATY: Would it be an organelle?
JEANNETTE: It's not an organelle really. But I think we can say organ. I think we can say.
KATY: So you've got these little parts. You've got these parts of this larger system that require a lot of movement. And it's not an accident that they're in these areas of more complex geometry. The neck is a place of complex geometry. It has a lot of smaller parts that articulate in a lot of different ways. And when you see those areas in the body what it should indicate is this is an area that can take a lot of movement. And when something can take a lot of movement, not just volume, but often in different directions ... when you have an area that can take a lot of movement ... The way I think about it is, a lot of movement formed this anatomy.
JEANNETTE: Yes.
KATY: Do you know what I'm saying?
JEANNETTE: Yes I do.
KATY: Thinking over a longer timeline. And also that we could think of movement being a necessary input for the function of that area. Because they were once all packaged together. So you've got movement in forming the shape. And then that shape depending on the movement that once informed it. And so when you go into a situation like a modern context like right now that doesn't ask very much from our hips, and then you start to see breakdowns of not only the musculoskeletal anatomy but a loss of certain functions. Like ankles that don't move because they're quite stiff. And then a loss of cardiovascular support because there's not the amount of steps going to that area or the range of motion to that area. I think of the neck as also kind of a large player in our immune system. And so often that's an area that's checked, right? For swelling of the...
JEANNETTE: Lymph nodes.
KATY: ...lymph nodes in that area. So I don't like any area where there's a conglomerate of lymphatic nodes to become very stiff.
JEANNETTE: And it's also worth, I think, pointing out that the head is one of the areas that lots of pathogens have their first point of entry. So having a robust, you know, lymph nodes that are well moved and are functioning well is quite critical for that first line of defense. So we've got a lot going on.
KATY: And then functional too. Balance. I think so much of the vestibular system that's all in the head. That's different than the proprioceptive system which is distributed over a greater part of the body. But that vestibular system and our balance mechanism is also above the shoulders.
JEANNETTE: And I love that you started your advent actually with a balance move.
KATY: I did. A vestibular system challenge. And so there's an art to coming up with the exercises for the advent. Because they need to be easily accessible. You need to look at it - you're scrolling and it pops up on your phone and I don't want you to have to drag out three pieces of equipment. I might get into that later once you're hooked and you're in it. But I start with things that are really easier to do at your desk. To do usually standing up. So I started with something that was, and also maybe more energetic. The whole point is to keep up a mindful body connection through a period of time that can be sort of full of distractions and stress for a lot of people, ironically.
JEANNETTE: Yeah.
KATY: This time of connection/celebration has become something that is more disconnected. So I am always trying to slow it down and reconnect you to yourself and take the three minutes or the four minutes to be able to do that. So I started with a vestibular challenge. For those of you who haven't looked at it yet, you can stand on one leg, so you have a little bit of balance, and we tend to practice our balance where you spot focus. If you take yoga or you're even doing physical therapy exercises for balance a lot of times you'll stare at a fixed spot. I'm asking you, instead, to pivot and move your head and neck around, up, and down, and move it around so when you get this eye movement, you'll see if there's a loss of balance just because your eyes aren't staring at a single location - a fixed object. Because having your head dynamic is part of moving...
JEANNETTE: Right.
KATY: ...in the real world. And so we don't want our balance to become overly dependent on staring.
JEANNETTE: I thought it was brilliant. I'm going to try to do the challenge in a 12 days of Christmas way.
KATY: Yes!
JEANNETTE: So I've done day 1 and day 2. I did the two exercises. So I'm going to try and do it all the way through, so on day 24 I'll be doing all 24. That's my challenge for myself.
KATY: And one of the challenging things about head and neck, so again I will teach head and neck in a virtual studio format. That's when people are kind of committed to a longer class form and they're listening to a lot of instruction and I'm able to warm things up. And be like ok we're going to move our head this way, but you want to make sure you're not sliding your head in this direction when you're lifting your chin. A lot of detail. Social media is not conducive to that level of detail. And so I was a bit reluctant to really address some of these small joint subtle movements because I wasn't sure that I could do them in a way that would make sort of the casual looky loo at exercises do them in a safe and effective way. So the first four exercises of this advent, you don't know this yet because we're just on day 3 at this point, the first four exercises have been set up specifically to be a daily warm up to do the rest of the movements.
JEANNETTE: Oh right. Nice.
KATY: Because I feel like if you've clued in to a few, done some general head and neck motion with some big body heat, and then you've done some rhomboid push ups so you've tuned in to those pieces and then we've got some occipital release to deal with excessive curvature, if you do that every day then you can just plop on the next exercise. Even if you don't do all 12 days. But I think that the people want to see a video of you doing it on day 24.
JEANNETTE: Ok. On day 24. I'll do it.
KATY: The whole thing together.
JEANNETTE: The whole thing. Yeah.
JEANNETTE: I will. Brilliant. So that's why head and neck are important. Why not a little bit about the problems that people experience? We've talked about neck pain, which is sort of a general thing. But other things that go on in the head and the neck that might alert people that they need to pay some attention to the head and neck. And I'm talking just local to the head right now. So headaches. Eye strain. And related to headaches. I experience all my tension on my right side which is through my whole right side. So I only ever get headaches really, this tension headache, on my right side. Which is definitely related to muscular tension. TMJ - So jaw discomfort. And then maybe issues swallowing/coughing that we alluded to earlier. And then what I call more global issues which you've already talked about a little bit where you've got this - the position of the head, particularly in this forward position when you've got your head in a book can actually cause things downstream, as it were. So you've got this very heavy head, which when positioned repetitively in a certain way can start pulling on other structures. And we've talked about that as a loss in height but could also be kyphosis, breathing issues, anything that comes associated with that forward curve and forward shoulders.
KATY: Bone.
JEANNETTE: Bone yes.
KATY: Specifically in the upper spine.
JEANNETTE: And potentially lower spine pain.
KATY: Well eventually, sure.
JEANNETTE: And balance because your head is out in front of you. So there are quite a lot of issues that can manifest from that.
KATY: So those are some ways you can clue in to how it's doing in a general sense. But what is some of the anatomy involved? And my hope is, at the end of the advent, and I just want to say that for those of you listening to this when it comes out, you'll be in advent season. You'll be able to clue in to the exercises. If you're listening to this next year, or three months later, that advent list of exercises still exists. So you can go right over - just go to NutritiousMovement.com, go to the blog, search advent, and then you will find, like I said, all 11 advents. But you can go to the heads up advent, that's the name - because I like a good pun. And my hope is that everyone gets a better sense of the general functions of the area but also the anatomy. So let's talk about the anatomy in this area. We've got the neck. What is the neck? This language is so difficult for an anatomist.
JEANNETTE: And we get back to philosophy, where does the neck end. Because everything feeds into each other. But I think we can start from the top. Let's start from the top. It's easier. And then we'll stop when we feel like we've reached the back.
KATY: Well when we're in the shoulder we're done.
JEANNETTE: So we've got the head which sits on the first cervical vertebra. And then we've got 7 vertebrae in total.
KATY: 7 cervical vertebra.
JEANNETTE: 7 cervical vertebrae. But within the head we've also got separate bones. We have the jaws. So it's not just one head. So the jaw can articulate.
KATY: I think a lot of cranial sacral therapists want to say, too, that what we call the cranium, what we call the non-jaw part of the skull, are plates that do not have joints with easy to detect movement like we see at the neck or at the jaw. But there is perhaps some subtle play between the plates. Even though the plates fuse that there is, I don't know if there's a cartilage movement, and I don't really know anything about it. But I'm speaking out for the people who are yelling at the podcast going "you don't know." And I don't really know. That would not be in my anatomic training. But I'm open to if someone says that. I've got some friends who come from the allopathic community who are saying "absolutely it's something."
JEANNETTE: I'm sure it must do when you've got things - they don't fuse until well into baby's development. So it would make sense that there's some movement there. And then we have the muscles - all of the head, neck, feeding into the shoulders. And this is where it gets a little bit tricky. Because I would put things like the trapezius in the neck but then it also becomes the upper back.
KATY: I wonder if we can use an intrinsic/extrinsic model like we do for the foot.
JEANNETTE: Yes.
KATY: You know for the foot we talk about anatomy that's intrinsic to the foot and we say that these all start and stop within the structure of the foot. But extrinsic foot musculature, one end is in the foot and another end is elsewhere. That we can say that there is intrinsic head and neck anatomy and then there is extrinsic.
JEANNETTE: Yes. That's inspired. I love it.
KATY: So we'll go back to the top with that anatomy. I've made attempts at doing a lot of head and neck things and one of the places where I think I've done quite a bit is jaw movement. You've seen it show up in - usually in the books it's in breastfeeding sections. But it would also be in Movement Matters. It's just in the fact of chewing. So one of the things I like to do if I'm teaching anatomy in the elementary or middle school, is give people four or five slices of apple and have them put their hands on the side of their jaw and chew. And then I have them move their hands to their temples and chew. And touch the sides of their skull and chew. So that you can see that chewing is not really just this wizard of oz tin man jaw hinge. That that work is really distributed. And it's why we chew gum to keep our ears from getting clogged. We didn't even talk about sinuses.
JEANNETTE: No.
KATY: We need to go back. Everyone stop. Going back - sinuses and, I don't know, would we call it peristaltic activity? It's not necessarily. But there's peristaltic activity through the, I don't know...
JEANNETTE: Peristalsis is a particular wave muscle contraction.
KATY: That's right.
JEANNETTE: I do not know enough about sinus to know if it's actually a wave-like contraction or not.
KATY: Same. But let's just say there is movement in these tissues that are processing and removing waste through this area. We need an ENT or we need a speech pathologist to probably tell us. Write us in and let us know. Because you aren't the only one with questions. We also have questions.
JEANNETTE: Absolutely.
KATY: But chewing and the movements of the jaw are a big part of how a lot of other things happen. You know, the skull is complex geometry in itself. So the masseter, the muscle of the jaw, just a little bit of trivia, if you ask people what is the strongest muscle in the body it's going to be the jaw muscle with the exception of the uterus.
JEANNETTE: I was going to say, I thought it was the uterus.
KATY: Well, so the uterus is smooth muscle, and as far as muscle. So the uterus is the strongest amount of force production per unit of area of the muscle. But for the skeletal muscle, the jaw wins on this one. And it's underused. Again we've got this situation of this super strong muscle being fairly atrophied in many people. I make a lot of chewing recommendations as a way to tone or use, not just that muscle but all the other areas around - all the other muscles around. Other important muscles - I would say the sternocleidomastoids.
JEANNETTE: Which is an extrinsic would you say?
KATY: We would call it extrinsic because it attaches down in the shoulder girdle to the clavicles. And then we have my favorite muscle of all which is the platysma.
JEANNETTE: Yeah.
KATY: Am I allowed to have a favorite muscle?
JEANNETTE: You can. Why do you? Because this is not my favorite muscle.
KATY: Why? You don't think it's fun to say?
JEANNETTE: It's fun to say, for sure. It's interesting. I do not like stretching it. That's, I think, why I don't. I definitely have tension in that area and stretching it slightly aggravates me. I don't find it a calming thing. Because I do think I have a lot of tension in that area. I guess it's a love hate thing.
JEANNETTE: It doesn't but I think that is partly why my right side is so tight because it extends quite a lot. But I do think it contributes to the tension in my upper body for sure.
KATY: I don't know that people know that about you. Maybe you've mentioned it before. But you had a traumatic burn when you were a child. And there's burn scar tissue there.
JEANNETTE: Yes. I'm this perfect kind of example in classes. Because it's all on my right side. So I have quite different ranges of motion side to side.
KATY: And not just that. It's not just stiff tissue like with scar tissue. You can't stretch it like you can work on other scars. There's a lot of tearing.
JEANNETTE: It's weaker and for me, what's interesting, and I find this very interesting - your listeners might not have read or heard about stress risers - but your work on that definitely for me sometimes because that tissue won't stretch even the unburned tissue between can take a brunt because I've got this very stiff tissue next to more pliant tissue.
KATY: So that stretch load gets concentrated on a centimeter bit of tissue that does stretch instead of the stretch being distributed across the section.
JEANNETTE: That's right.
KATY: And I love, I remember years ago we were in Castricum in the Netherlands and we were talking about hanging. And you can hang on one side, but the other arm didn't hang as well because of the stretch. And so rather that - we were trying to create a workaround. This is just for all of you going "I just have body parts, I have a disability in an area, or an injury to an area and I can't do this area". So you can't, for example, on that left side hang like you can on your right side. But we came up with you can hang with arm folded over the bar. So you can still be working on that side because by knowing exactly what the issue is, i.e., my skin can't take this stretch, you know what you can localize.
JEANNETTE: That's right.
KATY: You can localize in your mind what the problem is.
JEANNETTE: That's right. And also, if you remember, I just can't passively hang at all. But I can actively hang with no problem as long as I pull my shoulder blades down so there's this contraction. I'm not hanging on the tissue that won't take it.
KATY: You're not hanging on the skin. Right.
JEANNETTE: Yeah, I'm not hanging on the skin. But it's very interesting for me. And so this is going completely kind of on a tangent.
KATY: As we do. As we do. And the people are here for it. Give the people what they want.
JEANNETTE: So I have read, which you might have come across too, it's interesting. Because it's been done mostly in the armed forces research. Because obviously they have veterans.
KATY: Money?
JEANNETTE: Well they have money but they also have people with burn injuries.
KATY: Oh right, this is burn. Got it.
JEANNETTE: So it's something that they're very interested in. And there's something called cutaneous units. And I always think it's interesting because in the movement field we talk very much about bones, and muscles, and fascia, and skin doesn't get much of a mention. But actually, if you raise your arms overhead, skin right down at your pelvis has to stretch for you to do that move. And for someone like me that doesn't necessarily have that stretch, it just requires a more mindful approach to certain things like hanging. But yeah, we should do an episode on skin. Because I think it's fascinating.
KATY: Well, I love skin. When we talk about skin we're talking about ... my brain ... calluses. I couldn't recall it. I'm looking down and touching it and I'm going "what are these things called?"
JEANNETTE: What's that word? Of course, calluses.
KATY: Calluses and even the fact of the skin changes shape in water for traction. I mean I'm fascinated by it.
JEANNETTE: Yes.
KATY: I'm fascinated by skin. And also I was listening to Gil Hedley who is an anatomist. And he was talking about skin. Because skin is one of those organs that can get bigger...
JEANNETTE: Of course, yes.
KATY: ...through load. And did you define what a unit is? A cutaneous unit?
JEANNETTE: Cutaneous functional units. Because I haven't really looked at this literature for a while so I'm not sure how they define it but there are certain, in each movement, there are certain functional cutaneous units that are invoked. So maybe there's like 9 between - I'm making this up.
KATY: I wonder if that's a unit that they've created to explain the phenomenon.
JEANNETTE: I think so.
KATY: It's not like an anatomical structure, a cutaneous unit. They're basically saying that the distribution of the movement has to be spread out over these cutaneous units.
JEANNETTE: That's right. And I think they're looking at it in burn survivors. They're saying how is their movement going to be affected because they've got burns in these functional units.
KATY: Yeah. So your cutaneous unit is just that tiny bit of area between the parts of the area that don't want to stretch.
JEANNETTE: To move. Although it is interesting. That's the reason I started swimming, actually. The surgeon said to my parents "she's not going to be able to straighten her arm. We're worried she's not going to be able to straighten her arm so get her in the pool to get that stretch." And I can straighten my arm without a problem. And I also successfully stretched the skin on my abdomen through two pregnancies. So it's possible to do it which is why I keep experimenting. Because it can grow and change. And it's always going to be weaker and it's always going to be less structurally sound, but it can change.
KATY: Well it's all about the loads. So when you're pregnant, it's just this daily, gradual, constant stretch. Totally different than trying to - I just think that that's such a great metaphor for what we're trying to do here overall. How these constant lower loads to create the change rather than what we think changes which is doing something hardly at all but with a fast, abrupt,heavy weight. It's all about trying to put the smallest amount of time. It's really about time. We're trying to make these changes - changing as little about our life as possible. I get questions about injuries so often. "When will I get better?" Well, we're looking for constant low input that's pushing you in the direction of getting better. And the question that people are asking is "what three things can I do for 15 minutes?" It's almost the opposite of what it takes. Which is why that very light movement lifestyle modification can really get you in the direction you want to go.
JEANNETTE: Right.
JEANNETTE: So where were we? Platysma.
KATY: Oh Platysma!
JEANNETTE: I'm interested in this. Because I think it's the only muscle, isn't it, that it's not beneath the subcutaneous tissue. It's actually embedded. And I wonder why would that be? Because the platysma is all about facial movements, isn't it? Lower face movement.
KATY: Yes. For people who are wondering about this muscle, I wish this was a video podcast so people could see what I'm about to do.
JEANNETTE: Maybe we can pull it out though.
KATY: Right. We can show it. So when I was in the third grade we had record players. Do you know Grease? Was Grease a phenomenon?
JEANNETTE: I loved Grease - on repeat.
KATY: Exactly. So we had the Grease soundtrack which has a lovely picture on the cover of Danny and Sandy. And Sandy was played by Olivia Newton-John. And she's just posed in this really - she's got her head turned out the side and she's got a neck much like yourself, long and elegant. And I have more of a short squat neck. And so I just really loved the way, which what I know now, you could see the definition because she's also slender.
JEANNETTE: Yes.
KATY: Her very pronounced sternocleidomastoids. Kind of the ropey muscles that go down the sides of the neck. So when I took my school photo, I wanted to invoke the feeling of that cover.
JEANNETTE: I love that.
KATY: Oh my gosh. And so ...
JEANNETTE: Isn't Byron famous? Byron does the same thing. There's this bust of him doing exactly the same thing.
KATY: Right. That's fun anatomy. You want to show off that anatomy. So I, too, wanted to show off the anatomy. I didn't know what anatomy was at this point but I knew that I wanted things to sort of pop out in my neck to be more visible. So what I did was grimace, essentially. And so it's how you flex. If you're going what's the platysma? Let me unzip my hoodie here so you can get a clear shot. You'll have to go look and we'll share a video clip. I did this.
JEANNETTE: Right. So you fired up your platysma.
KATY: So to fire up the platysma, the platysma is a sheet of muscle that attached to your mandible, the wobbly part of your open part of the jaw, and goes down the throat, covers the front of the neck and goes down to, I mean really into the top of the chest. But if you pull the sides of your mouth down and kind of push your jaw forward you get folds - platysmal folds is anatomically what they're called. So I, in trying to create this ...
JEANNETTE: Elegant...
KATY: ...elegant, heron-like, glorious neck, I grimaced. But I didn't know what I did. I just knew that I tensed the neck. So then the photos come back.
JEANNETTE: And your mom's like, "What did you do?"
KATY: Back in the day you had to wait 6 weeks or 2 months and then you'd get these pictures along with a retake form. And I've got a full grimace. And I think my mom was like, "What are you doing in this picture?" And in my mind I was so beautiful and elegant. And I wish that we had saved.
JEANNETTE: Yes.
KATY: I just keep hoping. Sometimes I find a box. I know that those got to live somewhere.
JEANNETTE: That is so awesome.
KATY: Somewhere in my house but we retook them. Anyway so that's the platysma. And, I'm not sure why the anatomy is the way it is. What would be the benefit of having it set up that way?
JEANNETTE: I actually think - people weren't really sure very much about the platysma. It's not one of those well-studied muscles and I just wondered why would this structure be so that, it's kind of embedded within the - it's just below the skin in this subcutaneous tissue. So it's just interesting. There must be a reason that it's function is ...
KATY: Enhanced by it.
JEANNETTE: ... enhanced by that in some way or that it's - yeah, I don't know.
KATY: I wonder if it has something to do with adipose affecting its function and really prioritizing ...
JEANNETTE: Maybe to get that really fine control?
KATY: How important is the jaw? We think about it in terms of communication and all these things that are really societal. But you could look at it in terms of eating. Mastication. And maybe there's some benefit there. Well, we'll have to mull on that. But it's really interesting, too, when you look at any anatomy in this area, I would say in the same way that you were able to find that skin study coming more from burn research rather than just anatomical - understanding of anatomy in general. A lot of this is coming from plastic surgery.
JEANNETTE: Yes, that's right. Cosmetic.
KATY: That's where the money is.
JEANNETTE: That's right.
KATY: So for "Where should we cut? When we cut to do a face lift should we cut through these muscles? What's going to be paralyzed?" And so it is very interesting trying to gather anatomical functions from the only papers on it which are biased towards surgical alteration of these areas.
JEANNETTE: And they're actually trying to get the folds to disappear. Because as you get older those folds become more pronounced. So that's what I realized. There's very little looking at actually what the baseline function is other than these sort of low face movements. Because everyone is just interested in their appearance.
KATY: And interestingly enough, sadly enough, that goes for breast tissue as well. There's more cancer research now but in terms of trying to get baseline function and looking at areas without disease or trying to look at papers to deal with disease, there's no money in just knowing how things work. So we have to go through this funnel of where the money is which is going to be through disease research or through esthetics. I just find that interesting, as someone who leans heavy on research, to just keep in mind that knowledge, like even the questions that are being asked by a group, are affected by the culture of a group. That's always in play.
JEANNETTE: Yeah. Absolutely.
KATY: Ok, have we said anything else. Platysma, chords. I'm trying to think of all the exercises that I have in the future.
JEANNETTE: Yes because I only know three so far.
KATY: That's right. And so stay tuned.
KATY: No early release for you. So let's talk about movement. We talked about bits. Now let's talk about the ways these parts move as much as we can on an audio podcast.
JEANNETTE: Right. So I wanted to ask you about My Perfect Movement Plan which is your most recent book. And you don't specifically call out head and neck movement per SE apart from eyes. You do call out dynamic eyes as a micronutrient. And I'm wondering where we could look in those domains or the structure of that book, where we could look for head and neck movement.
KATY: There's a micronutrient tracker which lists, it sort of breaks up all the different body parts. Body areas that you want to be looking at. You can add a column either literally or just in your mind to think how much am I using and moving my head and neck in the ways that the anatomy really shows that it needs to move in my daily experiences. So just really quickly, what the head and neck does, your head turns and looks over the left shoulder, it looks over the right shoulder. It can look up. It can look down. Those are like north, south, west, east. Your cardinal coordinates. And then it can also, if you imagine, circling. It can go the 360 degrees around the compass. It can also slightly articulate right to left. And it laterally flexes taking your right ear to your right shoulder and your left ear towards your left shoulder. And then I put eyes in My Perfect Movement Plan really focused on (that's a pun) up close and distance looking.
JEANNETTE: Yes.
KATY: This idea that you want to be focusing over a large range of distances. But the vestibular system has a slightly different need of eye movement. And so that would be like, can my eyes really move separately from my head. The idea that your head might be going one way but your eyes could be going the other. Your head, not just turning to the right and looking to the left but you could be bent over. And let's say you are looking for something in your closet or you're climbing under something and you have to bend down and look up over your left shoulder. Right? So you're getting these complex head and neck motions with your eyes. Those can really play with your inner ear especially if you have not been doing exercises that challenge your ability to stabilize yourself in sort of like a whirlwind. So kids are really good at getting on spinny things and spinning around. And your optic flow is challenged and your inner ear pressure.
JEANNETTE: I've also heard, this might be an urban myth, but as you get older the fluid in your inner ear thickens so it's actually harder for you to adjust compared to children who have this lovely fluid. But presumably you can assist that.
KATY: Yeah. I mean we're definitely drying out as we get older. As I look at the lovely leaves. But I wonder always, too, how much lack of practice ... because I think that we would stop with those sorts of play movements decades before we're affected by the loss of them. And I know pilots do quite a bit of training. Again, with military quite a bit of training to make sure that people can handle those types of movement.
JEANNETTE: Right. Of course.
KATY: And I think there are people who I think are more susceptible to feeling discombobulated - not being able to quickly right themselves. And there could be an anatomical variation that we have that just makes us more sensitive. But adding more things - that's one of the nice things about certain yoga that will have you bending over and looking up over your left shoulder and looking up and testing your balance while you're doing all these other things. I think that that diversity of movement is a gentle way to just make sure your head and neck experience isn't looking forward all of the time. So where do we get these - that was the second part of your question, right?
JEANNETTE: So which domains could we? The way the book's designed is that you've asked readers, and readers need to put in their movements in different domains like: sleep, eating, transportation. And actually head and neck go into quite a few of those.
KATY: That's right. Sleep is the biggest one.
JEANNETTE: Sleep is. Yeah.
KATY: I've written a lot about this as well. Maybe not from this perspective of head and neck nutrients although one of the reasons I went to reducing my pillow height over the years was because this is, sort of, repetitive positioning for the head and neck. And I had found that my head was being pushed forward relative to my shoulders. So gradually going down to a thinner pillow over a long period of time. Sometimes not using a pillow at all. And that's just not only when I'm on my back but when I'm on my side. Although I will say that with this period of stress - and stress for me always shows up in the shoulders - sometimes having a pillow... I don't like anything that's over 2 inches max. But it's nice sometimes to have a little bit of support if my neck feels particularly stiff. So sleep is a big one. Leisure would be some of the things that we're talking about. Picking a mode of exercise that had you moving your head.
JEANNETTE: I always think that. I swim so I get a bit of that when I'm swimming freestyle - a bit of a head turn. Climbing is another one. Maybe you're looking different ways.
KATY: And soccer too. Football. When you're running in one direction but your head is looking behind you. And I think that would be more of that natural movement way of using your head. It's the idea that you have to be aware of what's going on and game playing is really great.
[00:57:06] JEANNETTE: Now we're talking something fast and aerobic like football. I think this might be a good time to actually, we've been talking for so long, we have a great reader question. A listener question. Which ties into the listener's experience when she is doing something pretty aerobic. So can I ask you that?
JEANNETTE: So this question is from Lilly and it's brought to you by Smart Playrooms. Smart Playrooms are one of our Dynamic Collective and they provide design services and products for active living indoors. You can find them online at SmartPlayrooms.com. And they are currently offering our listeners 10% off Monkey Bars, Rock Wall Panels and Rock Wall Holds with the code DNA10. That's DNA all in caps. So the question is: "I heard Katy talking about moving hands while hiking to prevent swelling. And I wanted to ask about a head swelling thing that happens when I heat up while exercising. Basically, are there any head/neck/face movements that can help circulation during exercise? I get migraines from heat/exercise sometimes. And I can feel that the tissues in my face are swelling up and my face turns tomato red. I don't really know how to think about increasing movement in the eyes/face/skull. So I wanted to say one thing with this questions which is possibly an outlier. But there is a thing where exercise can cause what are essentially allergic symptoms. So things like hives, swelling.
KATY: Histamine.
JEANNETTE: A histamine thing. It's like a hypersensitivity. So I just wanted to say that that it's probably something that a medical professional should... if that is the case. I think it's possibly just heat. But if it is you're getting other symptoms with swelling like hives or any kind of itchiness then that could be a hypersensitivity. It could be essentially an allergic thing.
KATY: Now I know a lot of people who would love to be allergic to exercise! Guess what everybody? I am actually allergic to exercise.
JEANNETTE: I cannot possibly do this. So I just wanted to put that out there. I am obviously not a medical person but maybe just something to check out.
KATY: Well and it would be really interesting to experiment with yourself to see is it all types of exercise? If you were in the cold and you could eliminate heat as an issue would you still have those same symptoms? What about effort during intensity? Do higher intensity exercises kick that reaction up but lower don't? And then you get something more specific. Because exercise is a massive category. If a histamine reaction is basically kicked off by intensity or by heat, now I think you have a much more malleable movement plan directive. You know, you can easily stay moving but around that. Whoo, I don't think it's as easy as the hand swelling which is very much that physics of the swinging...
JEANNETTE: Pushing the blood.
KATY: ...and pushing the blood into the hands. There's not going to be blood that's pushing up. What I would look for, though, is maybe jaw clenching or lots of shoulder tension...when you're doing something - when you have physical effort. The second exercise advent was practicing relaxing your head while you're on your hands and knees. Because a lot of people don't realize how much they are actually stiffening and tensing the muscles of the neck. And almost bearing down. I wonder, too, about your breathing - the listener, not yours - if there's like a valsalva. It didn't list the type of exercise that was being done, right?
JEANNETTE: No. She didn't. But she's talking about heat so I think she's doing something fairly aerobic.
KATY: Or you could be lifting heavy weights and be in a situation. But that's my checklist. I would be looking that the breath is flowing easily, that there's some relaxation around the shoulder girdle and above. Again clenching the jaw, furrowing the brow, tensing the head overall. These are all things that I do when I'm highly focused on something. It's almost like in order to keep that focus I shunt everything up. I can create a lot of pressure in that part of my body. And she mentioned swelling.
JEANNETTE: She does say "my face swelling up and my face turns tomato red" but there are some people, just because of the capillaries and skin thickness they do go more red. I'm one of those. People with thin skin. It's the heat out. So that's not necessarily...
KATY: Hydration. Check your hydration. Make sure you're hydrated. And your sodium too.
JEANNETTE: That's true.
KATY: Those are two other things. So that's what we've got. That was a good question.
KATY: A lot of times there's not answers to things but there is a range of threads that you can pull on to maybe figure out something else that's going on with yourself just by pulling on some of those threads. But let's finish head and neck with - I would like to know what you do? What's your movement diet like when you're considering the vitamins for your head and neck? What are the things that you turn to?
JEANNETTE: I definitely do some head and neck movement and part of what I would say is getting on my mat. Doing some actual prescribed movements for the neck. Because it's definitely a stiff part. Moving through these ranges of motion, flexion, extension, etc. So I definitely do that. But I also do a lot of starting straight ahead. And it's a thing that I need to probably focus a little bit more on. I do, as I say, swim. And that adds some rotation, definitely doing freestyle. Although some of the rotation comes quite a bit from the torso actually. So it's not all head and neck. And then actually the other strokes, certainly backstroke and breastroke, have a very rigid head.
KATY: That's right.
JEANNETTE: It's held in a very stiff position actually. You move your arms and your torso sort of around your head. So actually my neck can get tight from being held in that position. And I definitely need to do - two of the exercises that you have done so far are my favorites: the ball at the base of my skull.
KATY: The occipital release. That just came out this morning.
JEANNETTE: I know. I haven't done it yet. I looked at it literally before we got on the podcast. It's one of my favorites. And I notice all the tension is on my right side. And the rhomboid push up. For me they're my absolute go to. And actually the windmill which I don't know if you're going to do that one yet, but if listeners can go to any of your books, I like to do the windmill but follow my arm with my head.
KATY: Oh beautiful.
JEANNETTE: And that, for me, and I do it many times, and that just gets all the kinks out from kind of neck through to hip.
KATY: Mm-hmm.
JEANNETTE: How about you? What's yours?
KATY: Well I'll give my answer sort of in domains. Just to finish out because I don't think we finished out all the different domains. So for sleep, like I said, I make that pillow free sleeping or very small pillow. That's a big part of - 8 hours of neck care. I think we tend to not think much about that sleep domain. But the sleep domain might be your largest domain so it could really use a lot of makeover. Leisure, I like targeted movements for the head and neck. I really like the latest virtual studio class I put up. I had shared something that I like to do. So if you get down on your hands and knees ... so we'll start the thoracic stretch where you put your hands on a counter and you drop down. That's the easiest version to start working with that upper back. And then when you do it when you're on your knees, your arms are reached down on the ground but your head is resting on the forehead, but that concentrates that extension a little bit higher in the cervical spine. And then I just introduced an even more advanced version where the chin goes slightly forward to concentrate further. It's just below C7. C7 is - we talked about the 7 vertebrae of the neck. The last one is that big knob that sits on the back of your lower neck. So just below that, I like to work on extension through that area. Occupation, I was just thinking, it would be really great, in addition to a standing desk, if I could just turn so that my computer was to my left and then turn my head to my left and work on it that way. And then I could just stand in the other direction. But head ramping, I think, shows up a lot. I have my tech neck stickers that I designed on my computer and on any screen that I'm looking at just to remind me to pull my head back and up and be working on that height. And in transportation, you know a lot of people, we're thinking about walking form and thinking about where your feet are and where your shoulders are. I really focus on head ramping a lot and also side-to-side movement. And I don't think I've done anything for home. But the one single movement that I've found myself doing a lot is actually putting my head up. How much time is my head down and forward? And I just want my head to go up. And so I've just kind of created this exercise when I'm standing around and waiting - it's all about what I'm doing for the head. So I will reach, I don't drop my head back (and that will be one of the advent exercises). There's a difference between dropping your head back and lifting your chin up. I do that and kind of go side to side. And really just stretch not just the platysma but the sternocleidomastoids down here on the side. It's become a fidget. I've made that neckwork a fidget for me.
JEANNETTE: I haven't done that. That's why I resist. I resist that movement. It's hard.
KATY: And it's not practical. You can't do anything but look up at the sky. But if I'm standing around not doing anything anyway then there's no reason I can't pull my shoulders back and look up. And it feels really good. It's like an instant reward.
JEANNETTE: I'm doing it now.
KATY: Now you said it doesn't feel good to you.
JEANNETTE: It just feels like, as I'm doing this I'm moving my head away from my mic, so as I'm doing it it is all stretching. It goes right down into my right side. I think it's just intense.
KATY: Yeah. You're sure you're not allergic?
JEANNETTE: I might be. It's definitely one that I resist. I need to persevere with it.
KATY: You need a cue. What I'm learning... I just got done writing this book with psychologist Dr. Diana Hill. I learned so much that I have instantly folded into my life for me and movement that I am already, like, feel fluent in movement and it's still helping me tremendously. It's just brilliant - it's a cue. You need to pick a cue for anything that you want to do, you have to create a cue if you want to make a habit.
JEANNETTE: Right
KATY: So I've always used "I'm standing still there's nothing going on" to do a move. So pick a cue. Whether it's waiting for your kettle to boil in the morning - and if you can set up that cue then that cue starts doing the work for you to remind you to do it.
JEANNETTE: That's brilliant. I'm going to do it and at 24 days, I'm going to add that one in every day along with my 12 days of Christmas advent and I'll report back. And when is this book - this book is coming out next year? Right?
KATY: It's coming out, preselling...
JEANNETTE: Presale already.
KATY: The presale just started a couple of days ago. We'll be shipping it in February. But what I'm excited about is - we always have to sweeten the deal for pre-sale or else people just go to Amazon to get it which doesn't not help everyone out as much as you think it would. Although get it wherever you get it. So My Perfect Movement Plan, too, really had you hone in on your values. What are your movement values? And that is what this book is really culling. You need your movement why is what I would call it. In psychology they call it your core values. Your core values, you have to align movement to your core values. You can't just move for movement's sake. Many people can't do that. Some people can. But many people cannot. And the people who can probably have movement as a core value.
JEANNETTE: Right. So it's already been done.
KATY: You're just still on your core value. So you write these books and you're like, "Here's what to do. Just find your values." Ok, that's challenging. How do you find your values? And I asked prompting questions and she asked prompting questions but we thought we would do a workshop for an hour where you actually leave knowing what three of your core values were. And those are just keywords. And then they just sit out there. So that's if you pre-order you'll get to take this live class or watch a recording if you can't make it live and leave with what I've called your personal mission statement before, your movement why, your core values. They're all the same thing. It's you taking enough time to look inside yourself and say this is what's actually most important to me. And it's like great, now that you know that how does movement fit with those? And then once you make that link, your body starts letting you know when it's time to move. You don't have to muscle through it with your willpower. Willpower is yesterday. That's just such a hard perspective to swim upstream against again and again and again.
JEANNETTE: I'm really looking forward to this one.
KATY: I'll get you a copy.
JEANNETTE: Thank you. I'll buy my pre-order. Ok so head and neck. That ended up being quite a lot.
KATY: It's an important piece that we've laid out. All right. Head and neck. Thanks to everyone for listening to this episode which has been brought to you by our Dynamic Collective of Correct Toes, Smart Playrooms, MoveMate, Peluva, Wildling, and Venn Design. Thank you so much. We really appreciate your support. If you have any burning questions that you want answered send them to podcast@nutritiousmovement.com which goes to you, Jeannette.
JEANNETTE: It does indeed.
KATY: And you send them an email back.
JEANNETTE: I always reply.
(Theme music)
KATY: All right. They all should be...
JEANNETTE: Send them to me.
KATY: ...coming in like gangbusters. All right y'all. Keep your heads up!
JEANNETTE: Bye.
KATY: Bye.
Hi, my name is Brenda from Southeast London in the U.K. This has been Move Your DNA with Katy Bowman, a podcast about movement. We hope you find the general information in this podcast informative and helpful but it is not intended to replace medical advice and should not be used as such. Our theme tune was performed by Dan MacCormack. This podcast is produced by Brock Armstrong and is transcribed by Annette Yen. Make sure to subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to audio and find out more about Katy, her books, and her movement programs at NutritiousMovement.com
(Music Ends)
