Have you ever spent a day decluttering and woken up the next morning with all your muscles
stiff? I'm Rachel Papworth, from Green and Tidy, and I'm delighted today to be able to
welcome Dr Paula Moore, from PostureVideos.com. And Paula's going to give us her top tips
for avoiding just that situation. Welcome Paula! Thanks for coming in today. Thanks
so much Rachel, it's great to be here. So, Paula, yesterday I was working for six hours
with a client, decluttering, bending and stretching, carrying stuff up and down the stairs, and
I've woken up this morning and I'm really stiff. How could I have avoided that happening?
Well, decluttering really isn't any different to any other kind of exercise and I know,
probably with people that follow and watch you, maybe they're new to decluttering so
it's like going to the gym for the first time, or having a swim for the first time. And the
best way to approach it would be to have a bit of a warm-up. And it doesn't have to be
a full-on warm-up but maybe two or three minutes of brisk marching on the spot, actually just
enough to get the blood flowing so that your muscles are warm.
Wow! I never would hvae thought to have had a warm-up before I start decluttering. That's really interesting!
Would you also recommend people stretch at the end and do a cool-down?
Yup. Probably more important than stretching at the beginning. The new science is saying that stretching
afterwards is probably better in preventing injury so I would say, yes absolutely, a
nice cool-down. If they don't know a lot about stretching per se, they could just walk around
the block a few times until their heart rate slows down a little bit, a little bit of gentle
hamstring stretching, some nice spinal stretching. With a lot of bending down, and doing things
on the floor which, of course there is going to be, and lifting, that you're looking at
it the same as you would look at any exercise and you have to think about your back and
good lifting techniques, keeping things close to your body, not bending from your back but
using your hips and going right down, even if you have to push yourself back up again.
Every 20 minutes, give your spine and body a little break, and I'll show you a couple
of little exercises you can do, even for just a minute or two, and then you can go right back to it.
That would be great. Thank you very much.
So, the first exercise, Rachel, we're going to do is for the upper area because people, when they're decluttering, are going
to be looking down for long periods of time and really straining the neck and shoulders.
So, let's start off after that 20 minutes, we're taking the break, doing some nice shoulder
rolls. Up to the ears, back, down and around. And they feel great. Up, back, down, around.
About five times, just keep that circulation, four and five. And then the other area that's
going to get strained is the neck so some nice neck circles, starting as far as you
can one way, a gentle push, and back again, gentle push. Five, just like we did with the
shoulder rolls. And back again. This is a great, little stretch. Obviously, probably
not jeans but depends what you've been decluttering in. So, I'm going to show you as I'm dressed
today. Say we're stretching the right hamstring. Bring that leg straight out in front of you
and bend the other leg. That's going to take the other hamstring out of the equation. Reach
underneath the bent knee. Hold onto your thigh there. It's important to keep your posture
well aligned so nice and tall and long from the chest, and it's simply a bending in, a
leaning in. And you can also just hold here if you prefer but I like to anchor my hand,
and it's just a gentle leaning in. And you can pull up on your toes if you want to. That
will give a deeper stretch under this area. And it's a good long hold. A good minute.
If you feel you can, lean in a little farther. Hold. And continue that way. This'll give
you a great little stretch. And then the same again, swap sides. Nice little stretch, that
one. Actually, my hamstrings are a little tight! Well, thank you SO much for coming
in today, Paula. It's been fantastic to hear those hints and to see those exercises to
stop us being stiff after a decluttering session. I know I'm going to be using them and I'm
sure my subscribers will too. Thank you SO much for coming in.
Oh, thank you for having me. It's been a real pleasure. So thanks for watching. See you again soon. Bye.