In this final episode of a series focused on hip health, we delve into the intricate relationship between our breath, posture, movement, and our nervous system. Our posture, breath, and daily movements tell a story. If your back aches, your breathing feels shallow, or your body moves like it’s bracing, it might be time to listen a little closer.
This week, we’re exploring the incredible link between structure and state.
Here are 3 ways this video might help you:
✅ Discover how our posture mirrors the patterns of our nervous system.
✅ Understand how hip tension affects your breath and gait.
- How stress-induced postural habits can lead to chronic issues such as lower back pain and reduced hip mobility.
- And supporting our diaphragm and psoas muscles can unlock movement and calm.
✅ Gain insights from experts like Dr. Bessel Van Der Kock and Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen to understand the importance of listening to your body’s cues to foster healing and change long-standing behavioral patterns.
Plus 2 gentle, practical tools for posture resets and breath work that can reduce pain, reboot your nervous system, and raise your energy, in just 30 seconds.
If you’ve been trying to “fix your posture” without results, this approach may be exactly what you’ve been missing. Following these insights may help reduce your pain, increase your mobility, and improve your overall body comfort, ultimately enhancing the quality of your life.
Rather read the transcript?
here it is…
Is your lower back tight? Is your breathing really shallow? Do your shoulders creep up by midday? It’s not just stress, it’s your body trying to whisper something, or maybe even scream.
We can think of our body as a symphony orchestra, just like the different sections: the strings, woodwinds, percussion, et cetera, they all work together. When our breath, posture, and movement are in sync, the music flows smoothly. But if even one section falls out of tune or loses tempo, the whole performance starts to wobble.
Our hips and nervous system are like the conductor, guiding the rhythm of our entire body. They don’t just move us, they inform us, moment by moment, about our safety, alignment, and vitality.
Hello and welcome. I’m Sarah Gowans, massage and craniosacral therapist, as well as emotional integration facilitator at BlossomingMe and the Healthy Learning Lounge. Here we’re a sanctuary for you to tap into and nurture your journey to health, wellbeing, and a positive mindset. We focus on helping you to clear stresses, tensions, and blocks that can hold you back from living your most fulfilling life.
In this final week of this series around hips, we’ll explore how everyday things like sitting, walking, and breathing affect and reflect the health of our vagus nerve (cranial nerve 10), posture, and movement systems. You’ll also learn why our spinal accessory nerve (cranial nerve 11), plays a surprising role, and how small shifts in awareness can lead to big releases in our lower back, hips and beyond.
Posture, nervous system – Reading the body’s signals, stress, and signals
Slouching isn’t just a bad habit; it’s a nervous system adaptation that our body is using. When we’re stuck in dorsal vagal or sympathetic dominance, often our posture collapses, or we prop ourselves up to brace ourselves.
Rounded shoulders, tucked pelvis, clenched jaw, these are all signs that our body is guarding or disengaging. Over time, this locked posture can affect the quality of our breathing, digestion, and even our movement.
Breath and the vagus nerve. The fastest way to reset
Want a nervous system reboot in 30 seconds?
It starts with your breath…
The diaphragm sits right beneath the vagus nerve and is essential for vagal stimulation. Shallow chest breathing, very common when we’re stressed, limits this interaction. Deep, slow, diaphragmatic breathing promotes vagal tone. It can calm our mind, reduce muscle tension in our hips, and our lower back
Walking and the cranial and nerve 11 – How movement reflects our nervous system state
Our walk says more about us than you might think.
The spinal accessory nerve, (cranial nerve #11), innervates our trapezius muscle and sternocleidomastoid muscles. They stabilize our neck and shoulders when we move. When we’re stressed, these muscles tighten, restricting our natural flowing gait and posture. A smooth, coordinated walk reflects ventral vagal activation then, whilst a stiff, braced walk, often may signal patterns of protection or trauma.
Hip pain and holding patterns where tension takes root
Why does it feel like everything ends up in our hips?
Our hips are a point where major nerves, blood vessels, and emotional storage all converge. Chronic tension from habitually holding ourselves in bracing patterns of protection, stress, or trauma can restrict our hip mobility and lead to lower back pain, pelvic floor dysfunction, and even fatigue.
According to Dr. Bessel Vandereck, you may know him as the author of “The Body Keeps the Score”, says that “posture isn’t just physical, it’s our emotional armor.” And Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, researcher, educator, and therapist, agrees and adds, “How we move through space, reflects how we move through life.”
As the 2020 study in Frontiers of Psychology showed, walking, posture, and gait can predict our mood states and mental health status, and a University of Auckland study also found that upright posture actually increased energy and reduced a negative mood in people with mild to moderate depression. Whilst research from Stanford Neuroscience goes on to show that simple breath work can decrease anxiety by up to 20 to 30%, in just minutes!
As James Nestor talks about in his book, in his book “Breath“, “when you change the way you breathe, you can change your state of being.”
So here are a couple of practical tips that you might like to try:
Posture resets:
You can do these a few times each day.
- Simply stand up, lengthen your spine.
- Let your shoulders drop and take deep breaths.
It’s a pattern interrupt that signals safety to our body and vagus nerve.
Physiological sighs, for fast relaxation:
- Two quick inhales and one slow exhale…
- Again, … Two sips of breath in and one long one out…
In conclusion, pain, posture, breath, and movement
These aren’t just physical habits; they’re expressions of our nervous system. The good news is, when we start listening to our body’s cues and shifting with intention, real change can happen. We create space for healing, energy, and flow.
This final piece of the puzzle reminds us that we are not broken. We’re simply patterned, and patterns can be changed and rewired.
So this wraps up our four-week journey, but it’s just the beginning of your body’s conversation with you. So keep moving, keep breathing, and keep tuning in and listening.
I hope you found value in today’s video, too, and if you did, please like and share it. And join us next week as we explore more ideas to help nurture your health, wellbeing, and positive mindset so you can live your most fulfilling life.
From my heart to yours,
Namaste.
Sarah xx
At Blossoming Me, we’ve worked with so many people who feel stuck in cycles of pain and frustration. But the key to lasting relief often starts with understanding your body, not just where you hurt, but why.
Book your appointment here:
(Step #1 Location: Turramurra; #2 Type: Remedial Massage / Cranio-Sacral Therapy; select Sarah as practitioner, then #3 select: Initial or Follow Up Treatment)
Interested in further reading?
Unlocking Gut Health: Eastern Meets Western Wisdom
Relaxation Revolution: The Secret to Alleviating Lower Back Pain and Enhancing Your Well-being
Are Tight Hip Flexors Causing Your Lower Back Pain?
Beyond the Ache: The Amazing Link Between Fascia, Pain, and Emotional Well-being
Back to Balance: Clearing Lower Back Pain by Balancing Your Kidney Meridian
About Blossoming Me
BlossomingMe offers a fully integrated approach to your wellbeing. Located on Sydney’s Upper North Shore. Sarah is our Cranio-sacral and Remedial Massage Therapist and health and lifestyle coach. She can help relieve those problematic knots, tightness and other specific ailments to promote a healthy recovery. These complementary massage therapies can be combined to suit your needs, and include: craniosacral therapy, shiatsu, acupressure, reiki, remedial, swedish, and body-mind-massage.
Our qualified Osteopath, Alexis, offers a drug free, minimally invasive, “hands on” treatment focusing on the musculoskeletal system with its associated muscles, tendons, ligaments, membranes, bones and joints. Alexis takes a functional approach. This means that she focuses on the way a component (body part, tissue or group of tissues) performs its role, as well as the way the body works, performs and integrates as a whole. Our team can support you to improve your posture and therefore your overall health.
ional advice or care. Please seek the advice of a qualified health professional before you make any changes to your health regime, before dealing with new symptoms, and, if something you have read here has raised any questions or concerns regarding your situation.