S5 E4: Ergonomics for Comfortable Crafting with Physical Therapist Andrea Lui

In this episode of The SweetGeorgia Show, Felicia Lo welcomes Andrea Lui for a thoughtful conversation about crafting and health. Together, they explore the importance of ergonomics while we craft and share preventive measures to help ensure many years of comfortable, joyful making. Andrea also speaks to the powerful role crafting can play in supporting our mental health.

Andrea shares her journey from casual crafter to physical therapist, now specializing in craft-related injuries, and emphasizes the importance of staying aware of how we move while we create. They touch on common concerns like carpal tunnel syndrome and offer practical tips to support a sustainable, daily crafting practice.

Whether you knit, spin, or weave, this episode is a gentle reminder that caring for your body is just as essential as the work you bring into the world.

Takeaways

• Crafting can transform your relationship with your craft.
• Knitting became a retreat from the busy world.
• It's important to connect with the crafting community.
• Many crafters experience pain but don't seek help.
• Preventative measures are key to avoiding crafting injuries.
• Posture and ergonomics significantly impact crafting comfort.
• Choosing the right tools can enhance crafting experience.
• Carpal tunnel syndrome is common among crafters.
• Mental health benefits are significant in crafting.
• Awareness of body mechanics is crucial for long-term crafting. 

Transcript

 Welcome to the Sweet Georgia Show, our podcast about the fiber arts. I am your host Felicia Lowe, the founder of Sweet Georgia Yarns. And today I am thrilled to welcome Andrea Louie to our conversation about something that affects every single one of us as crafters, the physical relationship between our bodies and our crafts. Now if you have ever experienced a twinge in your wrist after a marathon knitting session or found yourself hunched over your crochet projects until your neck hurts, this episode is especially for you. Andrea shares her personal journey from first learning how to crochet to becoming a knitter and a spinner while also offering her unique perspective on how these fiber arts have supported her mental well-being. We also dive deeper into the physical challenges that many crafters face and we explore practical strategies to keep your crafting practice sustainable and pain-free. Everything from ergonomic tool selection and proper lighting to the importance of posture and community support. This conversation is packed with lots of insights and hopefully might transform your relationship with your craft too.



 We also talk a lot about specific conditions like carpal tunnel syndrome and offer some resources for people who are looking for some help. But again, this is not a medical podcast and we are not giving out medical advice. As always, if you have any aches or pains that you're discovering with your own crafting, I encourage you to reach out to Andrea or to reach out to a medical health professional like your doctor or physiotherapist. And so with that, let's go to our conversation with Andrea.

 Thank you so much for being here today Andrea. I'm so so excited to chat with you. We have been having long conversations at the studio with our team and we're talking about who can we talk to about some of these things and your name has come up so many times and so I'm glad that we're finally getting a chance to sit down and connect. So thanks for being here Andrea.

 Thank you. Thank you for having me, Felicia. Um... I think I told you in my email that, like, I've been a fan for a long time. I learned how to spin through "School of Sweet Georgia". But you were one of the first, I think, indie dyers that I kind of followed. And definitely one of the first Asian female indie dyers I followed. And it was really, uh, inspiring to see that kind of representation, like, so early on in my journey as, like, a fiber artist.

 (Laughs) (Silence)

 Yeah. Uh, so, it's a little bit of a long story.

 (Laughs)

 And I'll try to kind of shorten it. Uh, but I learned how to crochet as a teenager for my mom. It didn't really stick very well. And I just kind of put it aside. But I'd always had this, um, drive in me to be creative, to make something with my hands. Um, I tried sewing first. I'm not very precise. So, sewing did not really work out well for me. Uh, in terms of cutting fabric and sewing a straight line and that kind of thing. But in college, I saw another, um, woman who was just knitting in the common room. And I was so fascinated. And I'm very shy. I don't really talk to people. I don't know, especially. But I just went up to her and I said, "Would you teach me how to knit?" Like, whatever you're doing, like, I'd love to learn. And she was like, "Yeah, definitely." Um, so she taught me how to knit. And that was where I got started. Uh, I say that I didn't become like a capital K knitter until I was studying for my graduate school board exams. And I was again, still trying to sew. Was reading a lot of blogs. That was when blogs were like the heyday of crafty social media. And this blogger I followed started knitting socks. And I was like, "Ah, I didn't know people still did that." And the only thing I'd seen knitting socks in was like little women where Joe hated knitting socks. And I told myself, "Okay, once you finish your board exams and you take your exams, you're looking for a job, you're going to learn how to knit socks. Like, that will be your reward. Like, you got to wait until then." So that was what he did. I took my board exams and knit nothing but socks for like a year. Um, and after that, I was just kind of like hooked on knitting. Like, it became something that I really enjoyed doing. Something I thought about more often. Um, but it wasn't until about two years later in 2016 after I had my first child, that I realized how important it was to me and how much it grounded me and gave me an identity outside of being a mom. Um, it became like a retreat, you know, from the busy world. And that was the first time I realized like really how important it felt to me. And that it was really important for my mental health to knit every day. Even if it was just like for a few minutes at a time.



 And so I just really only knit for all those years. Um, and it wasn't until 2020 during the pandemic that I started becoming, uh, connected with a community of knitters online. I'd always been a solo knitter, kind of knitting by myself. I had one friend who knit, but I'd moved away. We didn't see each other often. But then when I found Instagram, I found the knitting community on Instagram.



 It was to me was so eye opening because I saw such a diversity of knitters in age, in demographic, um, around the world. And it was really inspiring. But at the same time, I also saw people complaining about pain.



 And I actually, people find this shocking when I say this, but I have very rarely encountered crafters in my business side of what I do as a physical therapist. Like I rarely get anyone who comes in and says like, I've got pain and says it impacts any kind of crafting they do. Um, so it never occurred to me that the two worlds could come together until I started seeing these posts on Instagram where people were saying, I have pain and what do I do? And people were giving really bad advice. And that was kind of killing me a little. Um, and so I was just like, if I have the knowledge, like, why don't I try to help people? So I just, you know, throughout a real online about how to stretch your wrist and things just kind of took off from there. And, um,



 it turned into just this separate business for me where I just get to travel around and teach people how to take care of their bodies. And it's the dream. Um, I also spin and I now weave and the spinning. I always thought that I was, I was like, knitting's my jam. I don't want to do anything else. Um,



 and I used to get people when I started sharing my information online who say like, can you share something for spinners? And I was like, well, I don't really know how to spin. And I thought, well, like, maybe I'll watch some videos of people spinning and try to put something together that way. And I think one day, um, I just thought, you know what, let's just try it. I had found the, the eel electrical wheels and they're very cost affordable. And I thought, okay, if this does not gel with me the way sewing does not, then at least it's like, I haven't sung that much money in. Yeah. Um, but it did. It took me a little bit. And that was when I turned to school at sweet Jordan, because I was just like, oh, I cannot figure out how to do this. And, but once I got over the hump of learning how to spin, it's just kind of like, it's become part of my life too. In that way, I found spinning to be a different kind of retreat where it's, uh, even less, not less thinking, but it's just, it's just a different part of my brain that needs to be itched. Um, and I find a soothing in a very different way than knitting does. Um, and then I learned how to weave a month ago because from there was like, what do I do with all my skeins of hands, button, yarn? I just have one skein of.



 Yeah. Yeah.



 Yeah.



 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I see a lot of, um, it kind of differs from craft to craft a little bit, but overall, one of the main complaints I see is like neck pain and I think that's kind of universal because we all have to kind of look down at some point at our craft. And depending on how we hold our heads that can really impact how we feel a lot of us hold a lot of tension in our shoulders like not just when we're crafting but like day, daily world things. And so there's a lot of tension that lives up there and everything's connected with the shoulders and the neck. Um, so I talk a lot of my classes. I tell a lot of people I'm not a purist when it comes to posture. I'm not someone who goes around and says like, you shouldn't be something like that. And that's not how you should craft. I'm kind of the person who's like, well, you know, if it doesn't bother you, like, why are we going to fix it? But with the head, that is the one thing I'm a purist on where it's like you you've got to tuck your chin a little bit. You've got to make sure you're holding your head in the correct position and not letting it fall out in front of you because that really can impact, you know, how your entire body feels because there's so many things that are important back there. A lot of nerves, arteries, not to mention your spinal cord, everything going up there. So that's very important. What I've discovered too is that weaving, as you said, is highly physical, way more physical than the other three fiber crafts. I guess you could say the three out of the four. And I found that out myself when I learned how to weave. And I wasn't even using floor loom. I'm just using a rigid heddle right now. But doing that and, you know, setting up the warp and threading the loom, I was like, wow, like, this is this is really hard on your body.



 You know, it's a lot of strain on your shoulders, on your arms. I can definitely see how someone would say, like, you need to work out to be able to maintain the level of fitness to do those things with less pain. And then, you know, when it comes to knitting and crocheting, spinning, there's a lot of wrist pain that goes on. A common theme I see a lot is that people complain about elbow pain. But the one thing that a lot of people don't know is that elbow pain mostly means your wrist position because all the muscles that are up here by the base of our elbow actually are going to be a little bit more pain. And they're going to be based on our elbow actually connect to our wrist and they control our wrist. And so when a lot of people tell me that elbow pain, I tell them, you've got to look at what your wrist is doing or what it's not doing. And that's a really important point that I always want everyone to understand because it can really impact how you understand the way you're crafting and how you can understand your body and what you do.



 ( Silence )



 So the first thing is to keep a relatively active lifestyle. And that doesn't mean like that you have to go to a CrossFit or anything. It just means that you've got to move around more and kind of add more movement throughout your day. We're really sedentary now, especially a lot of us work on computers. We drive everywhere for the most part. And so it just looks like adding just, you know, a few steps here and there. In my classes, I always tell people try to get up once an hour from whatever you're doing to just take a quick trip to the bathroom, get a glass of water or stand up, roll out your shoulders or something.



 You know, people get really, I think, hesitant when they hear get up every hour because it sounds like a big task. But all we're looking for is for people to break up whatever posture they've been sitting in, right? So instead of like sitting for hours in this kind of like they call it a lot of people like to call it shrimping, shrimping posture where you're all curled up. But that every hour you get to be undo the shrimping and you kind of unfurl yourself. That can really help your body just feel better in the long run and prevent any chronic pain from taking over. So that's one preventative measure. Another one is to also take care of your body after you're done doing whatever you're doing. So that means like, you know, after you're done knitting for the night or weaving to just take some time to really care for your body, like do a few stretches or roll your shoulders around or roll your neck around. Does anything to get rid of any aches or stiffness that you might be feeling?



 The third thing is to just listen to your body, too. I think a lot of us power through pain, especially women. I think we have a tendency to power through pain, especially if it's in service for someone else or something else. But I always try to tell people, you know, the minute you feel anything uncomfortable, I want you to tune into your body and see what it's telling you,



 especially when it comes to our crafting where we're doing the same repetitive motions over and over again. It's especially important to listen to that. And so I'll usually tell people like, you know, I'll illustrate for them what I do in my life. It's like I'll sit and I'll spin and then maybe after half an hour, my hands start to get a little tired. I'll switch. I'll either go do something else or I'll go grab my knitting and do that instead. If I'm knitting and this project is really hurting my hands, I'll take a break from that, pick up a different project. So it's just, you know, we don't have to give up our crafting, but it's just kind of switching gears, listening to what your body's telling you, not ignoring it.



 One thing to note, usually, that I tell my patients is that however long you've had this chronic pain for, it can take just as long for us to work together to get rid of it. So the sooner you tackle a problem, the faster you should see results instead of letting it fester for a long time.



 Mm-hmm.

 And yeah, I have to remind myself that too. I have the same problem. Like I take words very literally. So like for me, the problem I get into with spinning is I do, I think, overpinch. I use my fingers a little too much. I'm still working on it to try to learn to relax a little. And it does mean that I have to tell myself like, hey, I know you're enjoying spreading this fiber right now, but you got to stop.



 ( Silence ) ( Laughter )



 ( Silence )

 Yeah. I tell people put more light on than you think you need.



 It was a good point. Someone brought up this past class I just taught. They said, well, now we have LED lights. So they're even more energy efficient because I think a lot of this, especially now, are part of that generation where we were told like, save energy. Turn off all the lights that you don't need. And so we're used to like sitting in very dim lighting. We're used to turning off things that we think we don't need. But I always tell people put on more light because, you know, what we're working with is usually very small, very intricate. Inevitably, we start to look very closely at it, especially when we're starting out and learning something new. And so I tell people turn on all the lights, even if you think you don't need them, because the better you can see your work, the less you're going to hopefully end up close down. Like this in front of it.



 Yeah. And I think it's also don't quote me on this because I'm not an eye doctor or anything. But from my personal experience, my eyes get really dry if I just stare at one spot for too long. So I've noticed this, especially with my spinning lately, is if I'm spinning and I'm not really like taking a moment to look somewhere else and I'm just staring at my spinning, I start to my vision starts to go bad. My eyes get dry. And then before I know I'm like hunched over because I think that I can't see anything when really all I need to do was maybe just like stop for a moment, blink my eyes and look a little further away and then come back to it. Yeah.



 Yeah.



 It can also I need and crochet exactly the same way you do, like I don't hold it like a pencil I don't hold it like a lever ergonomically when we're talking about how the wrist is put together, it is if you can hold it like this where your arm is straight versus over here like this. But I will say that I'm not a proponent of I'm not someone who says you there is a right way or a wrong way to knit. But I think what's more important is just kind of how your body feels and the movement behind it. So for example, like, you know, for a while the big push was continental because you can get faster. Some people said was more ergonomic. But honestly, like for me continental does not work like my I can control my fingers tensioning and yarn my finger ends up all the way out here. My hands end up really stiff. So I know English style I throw and that's what works for me. That's what is less painful and every person's different every person's body is different and how they respond to different kinds of stressors is different. So I always tell people like don't stress about higher knitting. I'm not going to make you change it unless it's like super super detrimental at the same time you could hold your wrist in perfect posture. But if you're holding it very stiffly or a lot of tension, even though straight that can also still be detrimental to the health of your joint too. So what we are looking more so is a amount of fluidity in motion. So I always tell people, you know, if you're even if you're kind of, you know, pulling your knitting like this, it's still healthier if you're still having some rhythm and some movement to it and this kind of back and forth where your muscles can stretch and expand and the joints moving rather than if you hold it stiffly in one position. And kind of all that energy resides in there has nowhere to go.



 It sounds scary.



 I think it a lot of it depends on how you hold your needles. What I found that usually is that people like longer needle tips because we tend to a lot of us tend to I should have had a needle here with me. A lot of us tend to rest our fingers on that needle length when we're knitting, especially with the hand that's just holding our project and not tensioning yarn. And when there's not a solid needle there for us to hold on to what our fingers tend to do instead is to curl around the cord. And there's a little bit more of an actual act of curling when that happens versus when it's just resting on the needle tip. So,



 like it's written very popular recently to knit on small circumference needles like nine inches for socks or sleeves. And what I'll tell people with that is when you're trying to get a smaller circumference. And if you can't use the longer needle tips, what you can try to do is have one longer tip and one shorter tip have the longer tip be on the side where your hand rests and then use a shorter tip for the side that is actively kind of moving with the yarn that you're tensioning. So for the most part, I found that longer needle tips tend to work better for people.



 And that's how I kind of encourage people to kind of play with their interchangeable sets if they can to figure out something that can work for them.



 I take it all into consideration and then I take it in consideration with the combination of yarn I'm using. So if it's a more slippery yarn, something that has a lot of silk content or like, yeah, usually silk content for me or like superwash. I'll usually go with something that has a little bit more grit with. I don't really like bamboo ball then I'll go for like wood or something like that. And then if it's something a yarn where it's stickier. So for example, like right now on here I've got like a hand spun thin, and it's a lot stickier or if you've got something where you're holding yarn double, you know, mohair and something else. I'll tell people go for metal, especially if you feel like you're expending a lot of energy moving your stitches on the needle.



 And then in terms of shapes, I've been playing around with a few of the different ones like there's those the square ones like that. I think they're Addy squared and then like prim has the triangular ones. I've been playing around with both kinds.



 I do feel like I like the square ones a little better. It might be also user dependent. It could also be because the square ones are metal I tend to historically like metal better than anything else in the triangle prim ones are plastic and plastic still, you know, has more of a grip to it than metal does. But the purpose of those triangular or square shaped ones is to reduce any tension that your fingers might feel from holding the actual needles.



 And for each person can kind of differ some people hold on tighter when they feel like everything's heavier, but then some people hold on tighter when they feel like everything's too light. So it kind of depends on what kind of person you are and what kind of what what you discover is your personal preference for how you approach things to



 Yes, yes, and I think people don't like that answer because it's all it depends which as a PT inside joke, that's what they used to teach us in PT school all the time.



 Yeah, so the first step. Yes, I'm any the first step is really to get some help, like some especially in person physical therapists hand therapists occupational therapist to get some help for the carpal tunnel or really whatever you're having trouble with.



 From our from the allied healthcare perspective where he's trying to avoid surgery, if we can. And so that's where you know hand therapy physical therapy occupational therapy comes in very helpful. And I would say also that because our hands are so important to us as crafters that it is more important in these cases to seek a certified hand therapist. If you have one available to you. So certified hand therapist, at least in the United States, I think it's the same in Canada, they can be either a PT or an OT, but the separate certification. Because, to be honest, we really don't go very deeply into hands in general physical therapy school like we get a few days of electron it, and that's really it. And they say if you want to learn more, you're going to take more courses after you graduate and be certified in that. Because there, you know, there's a lot of nuance and intricacy to it. So especially if you're dealing with carpal tunnel you really want to make sure you're getting the best help possible. The other thing I will say too is that carpal tunnel can sometimes be misdiagnosed from neck pain, because our neck has all the nerves exiting, which then travel down into the hand. One of the differentiating diagnoses that we often are trying to figure out is whether the pain is actually coming from the carpal tunnel, or if it's coming from the neck and it's just radiating down there or presenting down there. So that's the other thing I would make sure that whoever you see rules you out for as well.



 And then after that it's really just a lot of consistency and hard work of doing whatever exercises your therapist gives you, whatever modalities that they do with you sometimes there's a lot of kind of like wax baths that to do with hands and other things. But when it comes to therapy, consistency is really what's important, and it's going to be, unfortunately, a longer journey than most people like to think it will be.



 Physiotherapy is never an instant solution. It requires a lot of work.



 I usually tell my patients, you know, we know from research it takes 68 weeks for your muscles to actually get stronger and to actually build more muscle fibers in them. So it's going to take at least, you know, a month and a half for you to see true results or true beginnings of results. And so, you know, we're in a very fast paced society and a lot of what's the word, quick. We want a quick solution now. But with therapy, it's really important that you've got to stay the course, you've got to be consistent with doing your exercises daily or however much your therapist tells you. And then even after you get better, you have to maintain that too. Because unfortunately with our bodies, whatever strength we gain, we can lose really quickly. They found the research that even being on bed rest for as much as two days can lead to deterioration of your muscles and everything. And unfortunately, the more fit you are, the faster it happens too, which seems kind of unfair to put in all the hard work and then be more susceptible to losing that strength faster than someone who maybe doesn't. But that's the thing. It's an ongoing process. It's one that you'll have to maintain probably for the rest of your life as long as you're crafting.



 But if it's important to you, then you've got to put in the work for it.

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 I do. I think that's everyone's biggest fear is that they're going to be told like, put it away.



 And I don't necessarily believe that you have to put it away, unless like a surgeon tells you you have to put it away. But the type of or not type, but the physical therapist I am is I believe that I will get a patient to listen to me more if they see that I'm trying to work within. I'm not just trying to restrict them. And this applies to pretty much any activity that any patients tell me. But my general rule of thumb is, all right, do your activity until you start to feel pain. And that's when you got to stop. And then we got to pivot and we got to do exercises. We figure out something else you do, but I very rarely will tell someone you've got to stop doing that cold turkey. You got to stop doing that now because who wants to be told that, right? And sometimes you hear someone tell you that you're going to be like, I don't want to listen to you. You don't understand how important this is to me. Right. And crafting is super important to many of us. So even when I do my virtual ergonomic consults, sometimes people ask me, do you think I need to stop knitting and just really rest? And I'll tell them, no, I don't think you necessarily do. If you really want to, you're welcome to. But, you know, I think you could do it. If you tell me that after half an hour, you really start to get pain, then I'll say do it for 20 minutes. Like stop before you hit that pain threshold and then, you know, take a break for the rest of the day. But that way you're still getting to to touch your yarn, to do what you love a little bit without creating more stress and more inflammation in your body.



 So I do them all over Zoom. So you just sign up on my website. They're about half an hour. I recently opened up worldwide for a while. I wasn't sure if it was, I don't know, ethically responsible, but it falls underneath wellness because it's not a actual like physical therapy console or anything like that. And so, yeah, usually people sign up. I have you tell me in the intake form kind of what crafts you're wanting me to look at. And then, you know, you book your time. And then during that time, I just really watch you do whatever it is you're doing. I'll usually get like a quick history of like, oh, like tell me about are you having active pain? What exactly are you looking for in the session? What would you like me to dress? And then I'll just have them position their cameras so I can watch them knit or crochet or spin. I've had people do it for sewing before.



 And then as you're doing it, I'll just take note. I usually do a lot of chitchat because people feel really awkward. Someone's just staring at them through a camera.



 And once they're more comfortable, then, you know, they slip into whatever happens they're doing. And I'll show them, you know, this is kind of what I'm seeing here. Let's try some things to correct it right now to see if you feel any better, especially if they're having like a lot of active pain. So I'll say like, let's try putting a pillow here, putting a pillow there. Let's try moving this way instead of that way. And then usually if I'm able to all kind of educate them a little bit about what's going on, because I'm not going to be able to do that. Because I really want people to understand what's going on with their bodies, you know? Why listen to someone if you don't know why you're doing it? So I'll explain, you know, this is what I'm seeing. This is how it's contributing to whatever discomfort you're feeling. And then I always follow up with some kind of exercises. And I will send it all an email with a compilation of what we talked about, like any tips that I gave, any reminders. And I'll send them like a little program of here's a few exercises I want you to do. Here's how often I want you to do it. Because I have a lot of video resources at this point that I've compiled. And we take it from there. And again, like exercise wise, I try to not give more than five because again, the more you give people, the less they'll do.



 Yeah. And then that's usually how it works. And I always tell everyone, if you have questions or you're not sure about something, just email me back. And we can dialogue back and forth. If I think you need another session, I'll let you know. But I think I've really had a repeat session.



 I'm sorry whatanks I was going. Yeah.lee Sorry if I didn't say shouldn't. well, but I've discovered that I think it works better even than if I were to see someone in person in office because if it's virtual I'm watching you in your home in your usual environment wherever you usually sit or every usually have your setup and I think that's really invaluable too because then we can make adjustments to your actual setup too as opposed to like being in office where everything's already kind of foreign and you might not be sitting in your usual posture either.



 Probably two main places one is my website it's www.ptandrea.com. I have a blog there and that's also where my shop is where you can purchase on-demand videos where you can make the console appointments. I sell a wrist and hand care kit now too that I curated to help knitters and well really any fiber artists strengthen and stretch their hands and wrists and then the other part will probably be Instagram it's where I update more frequently with videos and that's where a lot of my free content lives.

 did remember to bring one here with me but what it comes with is there's these it comes with two different sizes of massage balls and they're very firm so here I'm like pushing on them and they're not really moving at all so they're super firm they're just made out of silicone and you can use it to massage between the little bones in your hands along your forearm or wrists or anywhere and there's two sizes because we all are different and so you might want one size over the other it usually comes in just one of the two colors not in both together and then it also comes with Therapuddy which if anyone's ever been in hand therapy they can be familiar with but it's a silicone putty that kind of looks like play-doh but is not and so it's got this whoop it popped it's got this resistance to it and so what you do is you squeeze it you can play with it you can pinch it there's different exercises you can do with it but the kit comes with two different resistance levels too so there's the softer resistance and a firmer resistance so you can kind of like upgrade or depending how your hands are feeling that day you can pick or choose one and it's just it's got you really got to use some of your strength to really squeeze it and so it's a great tool for strengthening our hands especially for knitters I would say crocheters we tend to not really have a lot of hand shrink because we hold everything very still and sometimes that's what leads to hand pain is when our hands are not strong enough and it seems kind of oxymoronic that as hand crafters or hands that might not be strong but I found that to be the case a lot and so this is just a great tool for strengthening

 yes exactly



 no no no no no it's not it's not



 I think the main advice I would give is to take note of how your body's feeling we don't have a lot of self-awareness this these days on how our body's feeling but the more you can be aware of what your body is doing like what you were saying that sometimes you're knitting and suddenly you realize you're all hunched over the more we can have those moments where we realize those things the more we can help ourselves to kind of fix it like and you know it can be as simple as you know you try to notice how you feel or you set a timer on your watch to go off so that you can be like oh what do I look like now or you set up a video camera to record yourself right so that you can look back at it later and see how you look but without doing these kinds of things we're not going to learn about ourselves and we're not going to better ourselves either so I was encouraging one to just try to assess your body try to build that into part of your your routine whatever you're doing so that the more awareness you build the more you can correct yourself too



 (Silence)

 Mm-hmm yep absolutely



 (Silence)



 Thank you for having me