Hi, I'm Margaret at MelioGuide, and as promised, here is Part 2 of Boosting Your Balance.
The points that we talked about in Part 1 that we're going to cover in more detail today
are what you do with your feet, so the positioning of your feet; the surface that you're standing
on; what you're doing with your head and your eyes; and then lastly, what you're doing with
you arms through your balance work.
And so let's cover each of those points in detail so that you know simple ways, just
with the things that you have at home, that you can help yourself to boost your balance.
So first thing to keep in mind is whatever position you happen to choose is that you
want to be successful.
And when I say that, you want to feel like your balance-, you're holding a position that
you can successfully balance in that you don't feel like, "Oh my gosh, I keep having to grab
that chair.
I keep having to grab the wall."
You want to be able to hold a strong position, focusing on your breath, focusing on your
alignment and your posture.
But all the while, you're feeling, "Wow, you know this is working.
I could feel the little muscles in my feet and in my ankles, and I could feel my hip
muscles working to hold me, to help me keep that posture and that balancing."
All the while feeling just a little bit more challenged, not threatened, not like, "Oh
my goodness, my whole nervous system feels like I'm going to collapse and fall over,
and this is very threatening."
Pushing yourself just a little bit too hard and your body doesn't like that.
So be patient with yourself.
And with little adjustments to each of these positions, you'll be able to progressively
boost your balance.
So lets start with the first thing, the foot position.
So, your foot position, the ultimate challenge position will be standing on one foot.
But before that, you can start with your feet in a nice long, staggered step position.
So if you just took a step and held that, that would be a comfortable widest position
I'd encourage you to start in.
Then you would gradually start to bring your feet together so that then your feet are in
position, so that they're standing on a line.
And they would then come closer and closer together.
So ultimately, then you're then standing on one foot.
You may never, depending on arthritis or hip pathology or your strength, get to the single
leg stance.
But there's so much you can gain from still working with both feet on the ground.
So that's your foot position.
Second point is the surface you're standing on.
In your house, you'll have carpet surfaces.
You'll have hardwood.
You'll have linoleum.
Each one feels different under your feet.
And if your lucky enough to live somewhere where its nice and warm, you might be able
to you know go into the yard, work on grass, all of those types of things.
Next is what you're doing with your head and your eyes.
So, when you balance, you'll notice that fixating on one point really makes things so much easier.
But it doesn't encourage the other systems in your body to work harder.
And as we get older, we tend to focus too much with our eyes for balancing.
And therefore, our little joint and muscle receptors get lazy.
So, progressing from something you are comfortable with, focusing on one point to then gradually
turning your head to the right and left.
The faster you start to turn your head, the harder it's going to be.
The wider the angle that you turn your head or look up and down, the harder it's going
to be.
So these are all variables that you can tweak when working on your balance.
And lastly, the fourth point and we're going to wrap up with is your arm position.
So you'll notice tightrope walkers, they'll have their arms way out wide and with a stick
in it, because that's going to really help them to balance, especially if they're over
Niagara Falls or something.
But for you, in real life, you might be carrying groceries.
You might be going up to your car with car keys, those kind of things.
So you want to practice with a reduced arm support.
So with time, as you get comfortable in challenging yourself, you can start to bring your arms
in, off the height of the chairs, still in a safe position but maybe bringing your arms
to be crossed in front of you.
Or doing other things with your arms such as just tossing a little ball, a soft ball,
in front of you, those kind of things.
So hopefully, these tips will help you boost your balance, keep you safe.
So going forth, the four points are foot position, the surface you're standing on, what you're
doing with your head and your eyes, and what you are doing with your arms.
Combining all of those things will keep you challenged for quite a while.
Thanks for tuning in.
I'm Margaret from MelioGuide.