The Connection Between Your Posture & Your Success with Moylan Ryan, Rolfer®

Moylan Ryan: [00:00:00] Being in the body is vitally important. Otherwise you just have this mind, but the body needs to be supporting the mind so that you can have this cohesive, collaborative journey that brings you to your destination.

Heather Frederick: [00:00:16] You're listening to the Happy Doc Student Podcast, a, Podcast dedicated to providing clarity to the often mysterious doctoral process. Do you feel like you're losing your mind? Let me and my guests show you how to put more joy in your journey and graduate with your sanity, health and relationships intact.

I'm your host, Dr. Heather Frederick. And this is episode 28. I'm recording this episode in May of 2021. And some of you might not be aware of this because it was kind of news to me, May is posture month. So I have a very special guest, an expert in posture. His name is Moylan Ryan. He was a somatic psychotherapist in Europe.

Then he came over to the States about 20 years ago. He's a Rolfing® practitioner. And if Rolfing is a new word for you, don't worry, I'm going to have a links in the show notes, so you can learn all about this amazing type of bodywork. He is a certified posture exercise, professional; an Akido practitioner and teacher; a movement educator; a provider of continuing education with the national certification board of therapeutic massage and bodywork.

And he also does work as an embodiment coach running virtual men's groups. Moylan, welcome to the show. 

Moylan Ryan: [00:01:40] Heather great to be joining you? Especially during pasture month. I'm very excited. 

Heather Frederick: [00:01:44] And you know, I'm guessing most people listening, whether you're sitting or standing, you probably found yourself straightening up a little bit with the word posture.

So why don't we start with, when we talk about posture, are we just talking about what the body looks like, and if you're standing up straight?

Moylan Ryan: [00:02:04] Historically, you know, we tell children, for example, or to, to sit up straight, to pay attention to , throw your shoulders back- a multitude of things. But I would imagine that posture is really a representation of how we feel, how we feel about ourselves is even on a deeper level.

Heather, it's a representation of our self-image, our self-worth our self-esteem. What's interesting about posture is that most people misinterpret it as being static. But posture is based on a triad of experiences. It has balance, alignment, and motion. So I will say that posture is usually measured how you move through the world and that's really, when you watch and become an observer of yourself, you'll see if you're moving into a contracted state or an expanded state.

And this is something that's vitally important for us. 

Heather Frederick: [00:02:53] Okay. So I want to unpack some of what you said there. As you were talking, I was thinking, wow. Balance, alignment, and movement. Three things that aren't probably at the top of the list for doctoral candidates who are sitting hunched over a computer.

But before we go there, let's talk about this idea of posture is important for a lot of reasons. Not just because when we have a good posture, we look better. But when we have good posture, it benefits us not just on physical levels, but psychological levels as well. 

Moylan Ryan: [00:03:30] Heather  when you look at it, for example, the way that you might choose to dress. If you dress a certain way, you feel a certain way,

when you see that reflection in the mirror. And it's the same when you're out and and you get a glimpse  of yourself in some type of glass window or whatever, and you see yourself. Well, what's it like if you see yourself in a concave and a collapsed state, but how is that going to affect your psychology?

So you have two types of bodies, and over the years, this has become very clear to me. You have a body that's expressed intention, torsion and compression. Now, when you've torsion in the body, it becomes compressed, but there's also a twist and it becomes smaller. So we're in a collapsed state. We're playing small in our psychology.

Now the opposite of that is a body that has length, breadth, and depth. And when your body has a three of those, then it has space in it. Most bodies have run out of space. But you have tension, you have torsion and compression and just think of torsion because you're you're you're and this is a very interesting from a psychological aspect.

Heather is that when you have torsion you have a tendency to turn away, so you're turning away from yourself rather than turning into yourself. And imagine how that has an effect, a deep effect on our psychology. 

Heather Frederick: [00:04:52] So we've got people who are under a lot of tension. Their bodies are constantly in this habitual shape of being bent over a computer.

You've talked about how that's going to have a psychological impact and this psychological impact is not a small thing. You're at a point, in your life in your program where you can't play small. So there's that reason to be concerned about your posture, but when you have that compressed shape, that takes a toll on us physically as well.

Isn't that true? 

Moylan Ryan: [00:05:23] Very much. So I would say posture definitely influences and affects your psychobiology. So to speak to what you said is that you'll see, we have an epidemic of forward head position, of, protraction in the shoulders and the body is so intelligent that it supports our activity, or inactivity. 

So if youaere sitting for long periods of time in that stooped concave type of positioning, your body will lay down layers of connective tissue, which is primarilymade of collegen , that will keep you in that shape, like a jello that's liquid, and you put in the fridge, it becomes solidified. So you become shaped around your habitual practices.

And if your practices are to study for long periods of time, to sit in this position, your body will, will remain that way and will not be able to return to its upright position and to speak to what you said, Heather, yes. This epidemic of forward head position. When the head shifts one inch, it increases by 10 pounds.

So a person who has two inches of a forward head position, their head is now 20 pounds heavier. It's putting pressure on their what's called the thoracic cavity. So it's impeding the pulmonary function, your breathing ability, and also it's having a diminished effect on your cardiovascular system. So down the road, it's leading to heart  disease and COPD, but immediately what it's doing is it's compressing your ability to remain in the flow.

And so it's detrimental to your health. That's why I love the idea. And on my desk, usually I stand at my desk so I can actually move away and come back and regularly have that habit. So I'm breaking the pattern and mindful if I'm, if I'm spending longer than I should in a specific pattern, that's going to create tension, torsion and compression to my being.

Heather Frederick: [00:07:20] So you've talked about the psychological repercussions of not having a good posture. You've talked about some physical things, and then you kind of threw in a little bonus there. You said you have a standing desk. Is that what you use? 

Moylan Ryan: [00:07:35] Yes. And speaking to that, Heather, very important points to speak of as well,

is that because of the forward head position, there's a shift in our cervical spine and the, it impedes the flow of the oxygenated  blood coming up into the brainstem. So now your nerves in the brain STEM and your brain, isn't getting the oxygenation it needs. So you're becoming exhausted and tired.

And your ability to be functional, especially when you're trying to apply yourself to be successful is greatly diminished. 

Heather Frederick: [00:08:08] So taking time to be concerned about your posture, work on your posture is going to have the psychological benefits of kind of stepping into yourself, not playing small, the physical benefits of keeping you healthy.

And it also sounds like some cognitive benefits of having a clear mind. 

Moylan Ryan: [00:08:28] Very much so because a lot of people have brain fog. A lot of people feel exhausted, and uninspired, and, and I would say, you know, Heather, I love these words. I all the time, link inspiration with respiration. If you're not breathing, it's very hard to feel inspired.

And, and that's something well worthwhile even thinking about for a moment, how do I increase my inspiration? Because I believe that successful people stem from a good resource of inspiration and inspiration. It depends on the capacity for respiration. They're all interlinked with one another all infused in,

how would I say an approach for you to be successful, to get to your destination? 

Heather Frederick: [00:09:09] That sounds like the gem that I think we should spend some more time on, because you were saying, if your body is kind of crouched forward, it's having an impact of not being able to take that deep breath. And if our inspiration is related to our respiration, how we breathe, it sounds like what you're arguing here is that in order to really accomplish these goals that we have for ourselves, we have to physically have the capacity to take a deep breath. 

Moylan Ryan: [00:09:38] For sure.

And most people Heather,  are caught in a reactive what's called stress response. Like for example, if you put your hand on a hot pot, you jump back or God forbid, somebody jumped out in front of you and gave you a fright to you go up. So what happens is the diaphragm, which is the most important muscle in the whole breathing apparatus  that becomes spastic.

And it's stuck here under the actual ribs and it never really goes down and sinks down. So, so we lose the capacity to do this abdominal breathing. Now we also live in a world where it's very popular to have a tight abdomen, a six pack or whatever. So we have a tendency to go up and out into the world with our expression.

If you look at a Buddha, for example, you'll never see a picture of Buddha with a six pack. Because in that world, they know the value of going down. It's going down. It's where you meet your center. And centeredness is the portal to being grounded, grounded in your own truth, grounded in your fullness, your capacity grounded in your "you self" is what I call it so that you know, your innate capacity, you can actually drink from that source.

And it's a different way of being in the world. Most people, I would say that are caught in the startle response they are either in the future and they're experiencing some type of anxiety. Or in the past and that's what really brought ourselves open to depression. Going down into the body being centered and grounded is the threshold that brings you into the present moment awareness.

And that's where choice lives. That's where efficiency lives. That's where capacity lives. That's where your truth lives. So being in the body is vitally important. Otherwise you just have this mind. But the body needs to be supporting the mind so that you can have this cohesive, collaborative journey that brings you to your destination.

Heather Frederick: [00:11:37] So you're kind of getting into this whole mind body connection. 

Moylan Ryan: [00:11:42] Yes, that's it. Yes. 

Heather Frederick: [00:11:44] And this idea of needing to be centered and grounded, do you have techniques that you share that can help people do that?? 

Moylan Ryan: [00:11:54] I think that first of all is to, is to be able to look at your own breathing pattern. You can put your one hand in your tummy, below your navel, if you just breathe into that, just have a reference of knowing, Oh, this is, this is actually where I truly exist.

This is my source of wisdom down here. And then up here in your chest, you can put one hand here and as you breathe, just allow your tummy to expand. And then just follow that with a hand on your chest to allow that to expand. So we breathe in and then we have a long exhalation. The exhalation  is more important

because it's going to activate nerves in your body and your autonomic nervous system that helps you to relax. The secret of living an embodied life, I would say is to be relaxed and to be in the now moment. The body only knows now. Like if I asked you Heather, how you felt or how you feel, you won't tell me how you felt 10 minutes ago, because we only have now.

And the other thing about the body is that it will never leave you. The body you have is the body, the body that you love. So we have to take care of it and be mindful and journey with it and to occupy it because it's here to serve us. And so it's about having a greater awareness rather than just changing the physicality of our bodies to get into shape.

Here's the question I would ask. What do you stand for? What a powerful question. You know, what do I stand for in life? Because the opposite to that is to go into a collapsed state of being. And so you have to have a very, I think, efficient, effective type of supportive platform. Everybody needs that. So you can build something that serves your purpose, serves your, your dream, and you can actually move forward from there, but you have to have a strong platform.

So you can step from that into something bigger and better. 

Heather Frederick: [00:13:44] Knowing what you stand for and having that strong platform from which to go forward. I couldn't help, but think how we will talk a lot as chairs to our students. "You need to really work on this problem statement because unless you have a solid, strong problem statement, your entire dissertation is going to be built on sand and it could fall apart."

So it sounds like what you're saying is you need to spend some time and really care about where your body is in terms of the posture that it's taking. Can you talk about it's this triad balance, alignment, and motion? So knowing that my audience is out working, they have day jobs. Most of them sitting at a desk and then they come home and in the evenings and the weekends, they're also sitting at a desk.

What advice would you give them in terms of finding time for, or integrating in or learning about their balance, alignment, and emotion? 

Moylan Ryan: [00:14:52] I think every client that comes to me, Heather, the very simple thing to do with them is ask them to stand on one leg and you will be surprised how many people struggle just to stand on one leg alone.

And yes, it is a test, but I believe that the body that can, as you said, take a stand. We can develop this lovely, strong type of supportive posture, but we have to find that ourselves. And, and as you suggested, there is like, what can we do to support that. While standing on one leg at a time, and these are the practices that are taken from yoga,

it doesn't have to be anything intricate. You can place your hand gently against the wall and practice until you have the efficiency to be able to stand on one leg at a time. And then you stand on both your feet. Then you look at your feet and see, are they in alignment? Because if they're not, it's going to be very difficult.

If your feet are skewed and going in different directions, well it's very hard to find your directional compass, if we're being pulled into different directions. 

Heather Frederick: [00:15:56] Let's stop there for a minute. When you say stand on one foot, are we talking about like, pulling your knee all the way up to your chest, or just hovering your toes over the ground?

Moylan Ryan: [00:16:08] I start by standing  on foot and then just gently lifting my foot a few inches off the floor. It doesn't have to be anything complex. It has to be within their scope of practice as such, you know, it has to be realistic and attainable because we want to instill confidence and they can actually lift their knee up further to explore.

Heather Frederick: [00:16:26] Okay, so this could be something you're doing while you're waiting for your coffee to brew or brewing your cup of tea in the morning, you could put your hand against the wall, kind of play with this idea. Hey, let me stand on one foot the other. And then when you're looking at your feet and looking to see if they're aligned, what you mean by that is that they're they're parallel and your toes are pointing forward.

Moylan Ryan: [00:16:46] Yes exactly that. Exactly that because if your wheels in your car were going in different directions, you'll bring you'd bring it immediately to the shop. But off time, our legs and our feet are going in different directions, but we accept that has being normal, but I often see that in clients and when I hear their stories, I see that they're being pulled in two different directions.

So it's finding the alignment of your feet, that support your knees, that supports your hips, that supports your upper body, your neck and your head. 

Heather Frederick: [00:17:10] You know, and you mentioned that some of the things that you would do with your body to get it into alignment and the way that you could move would be yoga practices.

And, you know, in yoga, you'll talk about finding direction in your life. You're doing this breathing, so you're connecting to your center and maybe you're correcting some of these misalignments. So literally this physical practice is practically changing your experience of your reality. 

Moylan Ryan: [00:17:39] Yes. And it is changing your experience of yourself and your capacity.

For example, when we find a different capacity for breathing, we have greater energy and we have a greater resilience. And I think that's a key word here. We want a body that's resilient. So life comes and challenges us, but we keep showing up. And I think that in these programs, The successful person is a person who keeps showing up.

And that is determined by the amount of resilience and resilience is in the body. To be able to move with ease gracefulness. Be pliable, be malleable, be able to change, to be able to adjust rather than be rigid and atrophied. 

Heather Frederick: [00:18:23] We talk about resilience a lot in this podcast, but up to this episode have talked about it in terms of either a personality trait or a mindset.

We haven't brought it back to the shape of your body, which I think is fascinating for people to consider. So some tips you're giving balance on one leg at a time. Look at the alignment of your feet. Be curious about that. What other things do you have for us?

Moylan Ryan: [00:18:48] Uh, a big one would be Heather if a person is sitting for long periods of time that they can use this exercise.

And I would say that this is vitally important. We want to relax our core because when we get tense in our core, it's radiant out through the body. So when I'm talking about core, I'm talking about musculature and fascia and connective tissue that attaches to your spine. So I would suggest to a person to work from the bottom up and literally from your bottom.

So your pelvic floor, everyone has an idea of where their pelvic floor is. Everyone has an idea, hopefully, where their pelvic floor is just behind her genitalia. And so we're sitting on that and then notice if it's tense and we have terms in our society, we call it being uptight. Now when that is tight, unnecessarily tight, we're clutching, we're holding and it's affecting our breathing capacity.

So once you sort of relaxed the pelvic floor, the next thing is to take a breath and just feel and allow your tummy to expand. So the diaphragm can drop down. That's the second phase. And the third phase is to notice when you're holding your jaw, the jaw and the pelvis, are, very much interconnected.

Tightness in the jaw, often reflected in the actual pelvis. So you want to be a relaxed from the core outwards, no point in relaxing the outside of your body. Relaxation comes from the core self. And even now I've been doing this, I can feel, Oh, that was a nice breath because my body was listening to the invitation to relax its core.

So again, the three areas are when my pelvic floor, relaxes, my diaphragm drops down and my jaw relaxes. And now I'm being supported by gravity. If we don't do that, Heather what's happening, we spend a whole day holding ourselves up from gravity. Imagine that holding ourselves up, how exhausting that would be. When the body is aligned

and it has this beautiful core type of connection, the body is supported by gravity, so it doesn't utilize the energy and we're left with a lot more, uh, energetic resources. How does that resonate with you? When are you practicing that? As I'm speaking to you? 

Heather Frederick: [00:21:03] Yeah. I'm zenned out right now, I just want to take Shavasana, you know, what was so interesting?

I love doing these episodes because I learn something new all the time and you and I have had a lot of conversations. But as you were talking, I was realizing when I do breath work exercises with people, I will often cue: "are your teeth touching each other?, drop your jaw, relax your tongue". I didn't realize the connection to the pelvic floor until you were pointing that out.

Moylan Ryan: [00:21:33] Definitely I've seen clients come to me and their pelvis is very much restricted. And instead of staying at the pelvis, trying to force it to open or to enforce change in it, if you go to the jaw and the mouth and to get that to relax, then you'll go back into the pelvis and it has a lot more range of motion.

Heather Frederick: [00:21:49] Okay. So balance, alignment, and then is motion, just the act of that relaxed breath that you talked about, or is motion also moving your body throughout the day? 

Moylan Ryan: [00:22:03] And it's very interesting because it can be broad or it should be more narrow. And I will say this much, the more relaxed you are, the more function, the greater function, you have capacity because energy needs to flow through your body.

If we're contracted, we block that energy and we become exhausted. So when we pick things up or we hold our computer softly, like someone handed you a baby, you would hold a baby softly, but with effectiveness and efficiency. So when I raise my hand, I move my head. I'm not doing them, uh, with effort I'm doing it effortlessly.

So when I get up from my seat, there's a sense of ease and expansion in my body, but most people will move with contraction and effort because they're caught in tension. You see a pretty interesting wordplay here, Heather, is that, am I choosing to live in tension or am I living intentionally? And that's a whole other aspect of the relationship of posture, body, and the efficiency of our mind to live with intention.

One has to be in flow. And a body that's contracted is either going to be caught up in fight, flight, or freeze. So it's our choice, but we have to become mindful and not leave the body to be some mechanism to bring our head to class, for example. Or to bring it to work environments. Our body is a beautiful vehicle.

It's exquisite. It's just so well put together. And I believe that we get more from it when we honor it and we appreciate it and we love it. And we tell our body how much we care for it. And we show it by our nutrition, our practices, our mindfulness, and just how we treat ourselves. 

Heather Frederick: [00:23:53] You talked about being intentional.

Do you intentionally make sure you get up so many minutes when you're working at your desk? I know you mentioned earlier, you have a standing desk, so that might alleviate some of the need to walk around, but I know for myself, I feel like I actually have more energy if I make sure every half hour or so, I stand up, even if it's just to fill my water bottle, for example.

Moylan Ryan: [00:24:20] I believe that, you know, we'd have to be again, as I said to you in the flow, the body needs to move. If you look at the systems in the body,  11 systems, everything is flowing, but when we don't move, we become atrophied. And you'll see that in a body, we kind of grow old from the feet up because as we grow older,  two things we don't do is that we don't hydrate

and we don't look after our feet because we can't bend down. So it's very, very important that we move regularly because we want to use our muscles to pump, for example, lymph through your body. So you have a good immune system. So you will feel good. But if a body is static for long periods of time you can be sure that it will begin to atrophy.

So to answer your question, yes. I think a standing desk is a great choice because I can speak for myself here. I'm much more likely to step away from it. Even just walk around the room a little bit, whatever it is and come back. But if I'm sitting, I seem to go into a mindset or be encapsulated and drawn into what I'm doing and hours could pass.

So the option I have for me is that I'm much more likely to move when I keep that doorway of opportunity open to me by standing rather than sitting. 

Heather Frederick: [00:25:37] So you've given the listeners so many things to think about, but also practice. May is posture month but hopefully if you're listening to this whatever month you're listening in, you'll realize

every day should be posture day because our posture is so critically important to our health, to our happiness, to our wellbeing. So there were a couple of opportunities there, Moylan where you opened the door to discuss the vagus nerve. And I intentionally did not go there because I know that's a whole other podcast episode.

So listeners stay tuned for that. But I want to thank you so much for being on the episode today. I always ask my guests. Do you have either some words of wisdom or a favorite quote that you would like to share? 

Moylan Ryan: [00:26:22] I think it's 

very, very important to that we take responsibility for our lives. Most people that are in this tension, torsion, and compression are caught up in a web of reactivity.

So we tend to react. Old scripts that have been given to us by others. When we're responsive, it means that I'm centered and grounded. I'm in charge of how I wish to appear in the world. I'm in charge of my emotional state. And when I am responsive, it's only then that I can begin to take responsibility for my success. Viktor Frankl, Heather.

And I know that you enjoy Victor Frankl's work. He said between stimulus and response, there is a space. In our space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom. So I would say that that space is the breath. So you have a trigger, you're triggered and no space gives you a reaction.

So you keep reacting the cycle of life. But if you have space, you have the trigger, you have the space, and then you have response responsibility and this space gives you present moment awareness, which empowers you to make a better 

choice. 

Heather Frederick: [00:27:38] That is such a powerful quote. And I want to acknowledge that you were the one that introduced me to that because I use it all the time, especially when I'm teaching residencies, because I will say to doctoral students, you are going to be triggered and it's a downhill slope.

It is like this dominoes of getting knocked over that go to not a good place if you react rather than respond. So I would love for you to just say that quote one more time. So all the listeners can really breathe it in. 

Moylan Ryan: [00:28:11] Yes, yes. Between stimulus and response, there is a space in that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.

Heather Frederick: [00:28:21] And so I'm going to invite you to find that space with a lot of nice, deep breathing. Moylan walked you through how you can do that at your desk. And I , will have in the show notes, all of Moylan's contact information, his website, his YouTube channel Posture IQ. So there's ways for you to connect with him and get more tips, tricks, and techniques.

So thank you so much for being on today's show. And I can't wait to have you back to talk about the vagus nerve. 

Moylan Ryan: [00:28:51] Okay. And thank you so much, Heather. I feel very blessed to share something that I'm deeply passionate about. Thank you so much. 

Heather Frederick: [00:28:58] Thanks so much for listening and I'm looking forward to connecting with you on the next episode.

In the meantime, you're definitely going to want to check out the notes for this show. You can contact Moylan Ryan through his website, moylan-ryan.com and Moylan is spelled M O Y L A N. You will absolutely want to subscribe to his YouTube channel Posture IQ. And if you're looking for transformative bodywork and you happen to be near the Phoenix area or able to travel there, you can schedule time to work with him one-on-one by visiting his website. The Happy Doc Student Podcast is brought to you by expand your Happy dot com and you can learn more there. Hey, one more thing, just a quick reminder that the information opinions and recommendations presented in this podcast are for general information only.