Never cruel or cowardly. Never give up...

there are things you should be doing now to prevent yourself from starting to look like 🥀

Why does it matter? Future you would like to avoid the pain, limited motion, and fall risk that goes along with worsening posture.

What’s the focus?

1. Keep the flexibility in your spine

2. Stretch the muscles in the front

3. Strengthen the muscle in the back

Here are some simple things you can do daily while sitting and when you get up to go into the bathroom or the kitchen

Keep the flexibility by doing these repeated movements: 10 repetitions several times a day

The goal is to give yourself a double or triple chin. Keep your nose pointing forward, don’t let it tip up or down

Thoracic extension- use a chair with a seat back that comes up to the level of your shoulder blades. Try to bend back over the top of the chair without arching away from the seat back and without extending your neck. If the pressure from the top of the chair is uncomfortable you can place a towel there

Stretch the muscles in the front by using a door frame. This one will feel good afterwards

If this isn’t enough of a stretch you can do one side at a time. If you have the right arm up step forward with the right foot and turn slightly to the left. Then do it on the other side.

Strengthen the muscles in the back by squeezing your shoulder blades together for a count of 10 and then repeating 10 times. You can do this several times a day Hint: Don’t lift your shoulder blades up

There are lots more exercises for strengthening your back muscles but this is a good starting point and easy to do. I like doing it while driving

Tips:

Do the best you can

If it hurts stop

“According to Simberg, the flowers represent people’s souls, the skeletons are aids to Death, and the Garden of Death is a purgatory of sorts for souls waiting for entrance into heaven. This artwork invites the viewer to consider the afterlife, to take comfort in his or her own passing, and to not fear what happens after the body fails to function.”

“It depicts Simberg’s thoughts on afterlife, which is not run by angels but skeletons who take care of the heavenly garden with a gentle hand, while waiting for more “gardeners” to arrive. It is derived from the medieval belief that the dead sleep in a blooming garden.”

Barry [Sandler’s character] has had his whole character defined by violent outbursts after being pushed too far. He’s repressed. The abuse he’s suffered has put him in direct conflict with his own emotions, where he has to invalidate them when questioned (his decision to bring in the harmonium from the street, the pudding purchases) and avoids opening himself to nice emotions in an effort to suppress the negative, harmful ones.

Finally, at the end of the film, his violence is justified. It’s satisfying to see him take the tire-iron in hand and decimate his foes. You want to cheer him on, to shed his meek, cowed demeanor and become an awkward John Wick, raining down retribution. 

It’s just like the end of Drive. The emotionally repressed, lonely, quiet guy in a fun jacket finally has moral permission to curb stomp all who would raise their hands against him or his love bobbed blonde haired love interest.

Except Punch Drunk Love has no elevator scene with the main character stomping in anyones head. Barry doesn’t have a scorpion on the back of his jacket. When he’s faced with the slimy boss of the whole operation, when he’s pushed past his limit, no one gets stabbed. Barry literally has the phone receiver (that we all want him to utilize as a blunt instrument) clenched in his hand. The predominant villain of his life is right there, within clobbering distance.