Moving through digital media work with kinesiology #SMWBerlin

This post is one in the #smwreporter series from Social Media Week Berlin. Thank to Nokia for covering training and expenses and for providing a Lumia 1020, a 41 mp camera phone, to capture the experience. Disclosure: http://cmp.ly/6/RC5QuG

Hope you enjoy these notes from a session that got me thinking about how to move through my digital media work.

Presented by Lisa Wennekes, a kinesiology consultant and coach who blogs at http://lmwkinesiology.blogpot.com, this Master Class covered kinesiology: a stress release for body and mind.

Ever sat at your desk and had one of these two problems: You don’t see the big picture because you are focused on details or you have lots of ideas and you can’t get started?

This happens when the two sides of the brain don’t work together. The right is thinking up ideas. The left side gives details and ongoing communication.

What happens if we don’t move, is that communication doesn’t happen.

Movement forces our brain hemispheres to work together.

One simple way to get going is to stand up and touch the opposite hand to the opposite knee.

Lisa demonstrated other movements that help with the brain’s processing and alleviate the tension and reaction from what feels like to your brain death, fight or flight. Kind of scary, but that’s how your brain reacts.

When you work in front of the computer, there’s no cross movement at any time, That’s why we need to include small exercises in our every day work life.

Our body feels many senses through our ears, eyes, audio, muscle tension, feelings, and our balance system – the sense that allows us to stay upright against gravity.

These senses get stimulated in a very one-sided way when we focus on the screen in front of us. Our eyes are made to look at 10% in midfield and 90% in long distance. It’s no wonder that our eyes get tired looking at screens.

We have to support our eyes, by giving them some rest and relief by looking in the distance. Eyes move through 12 muscles, When they get tired, we start using our neck. That’s why it starts doing things it is actually not there for.

Any time you get a pain sensation, it’s your body telling you something has to change because pain always works. You pay attention. If your neck hurts, you notice.

Do you ever tune out and have problems listening?

What we take in with our ears, we don’t really pass on and we start to hear selectively. Your audio sense doesn’t physically process the way it should when it gets overwhelmed. To tune up your hearing, massage your ears to increase oxygen flow.

To help the eyes, massage your collarbone points and move your eyes in all directions. Look up and down and left and right and look into the far distance and the tip of your nose.

Did you know that your balance system is in your ear? It’s trained and developed through movement.

The consequence of sitting so long is that our balance system gets lazy and another system takes over – our eyes. In addition to doing all of our visual work, the eyes take over the balance system.

When you close your eyes, balancing can be really difficult. It is very important to train and stimulate the balance system. To do that, rub the points behind the ear to increase oxygen and blood flow to the brain.

Need more motivation to move?

Consider this: work performance deteriorates when people don’t move.

Small exercises can make a big impact.

On a personal note . . . when we got our shelter puppy, Holly Wood, in January, at first I was frustrated about having to take breaks to go on walks. Now, she seems to sense when we both need to move. Walking outside, changing perspectives – and if we’re both lucky, visiting with a neighbor or another dog, is refreshing. I’ll admit that even if I was annoyed at the outset, the break actually speeds up my progress when I get back.

How about you? How do you move throughout the day?