Driving directions

For many, driving a car is a challenge to easeful and buoyant poise: the cabin design, seat ergonomics, driving controls and dynamic motion of cars oblige drivers to use the car seat’s backrest. Like any external support, we can collapse into it, brace against it, or find a way to use it to enhance our comfort and ease in driving.

Using the driver’s seat

Critical to driver comfort is the way the driver uses the seat. Collapsing into a seat may seem relaxing, but if support for the body relegated to the seat, the body’s active postural support may be deactivated. That support is critical to keeping the head poised against the moments of the car, keeping the arms buoyant on the steering wheel, and keeping the torso open for the movement of breath.

‘Sitting up straight’ or bracing oneself in the driver’s seat adds layers of tension beyond what is required for driving and may also become tiring. Whether or not a car seat is comfortable is partly determined by how one sits in it.

Poise

In Alexander Technique lessons, students learn to find the middle ground where one is neither too stiff, nor too loose. Learning to access this balance of muscle tone is traditionally done sitting unsupported. The amount of muscle work needed when sitting with a back rest is different, but the skill of engaging appropriate muscle tone is transferable.

Ergonomics

If aim we to use ourselves well and the seat helps us enliven the body’s postural support, then we can say it is a positive ergonomic. If the seat makes accessing a positive postural support difficult, this is a poor ergonomic. Often the more reclined and padded seats are the most challenging to manage.

Using the support

In sitting on a firm surface, the support from the seat is tangible through contact with the sit bones (base of the pelvis). This gives inspiration to the spine to spring into length. On a padded surface, the points of weight transfer may not be so obvious. Using a bit of imagination, though, one can still release weight thorough the pelvis to the seat, and invite the spine to lengthen up and away from there.

Using a backrest gives us another surface with which to engage. Alexander Technique students who have experienced Semi-Supine (lying on the floor with knees up and head on books) will be familiar with allowing the back to soften and rest into support, while the body expands and moves in response. In a car we want a similar release into the backrest, and an animated expansion through the torso and flow through the whole body.

If not used well, supports such as a back rest may contribute to lethargy since the torso needs to move to facilitate breathing. Slumping is not only a result of tiredness, but also a cause.

Adjustments

Any adjustment in seat setting which makes buoyant poise easier to access is a good thing. The particulars of each car, each body and each user are so varied that your own experiments in setting up your seat will be the most constructive. As a general note, a seat that is raked back will throw the driver into the backrest, and a backrest that is reclined will oblige the driver to use neck tension to support the head. Low seats may make leg movements less efficient and contribute to tightness in the hip joints.

The ‘head-rest’ is primarily for the prevention of whiplash; resting one’s head on it is unlikely to be constructive. We need the head to be mobile and supported by the spine. If your neck is tiring, then it is cause to reconsider how you may be able to engage the whole body’s support more effectively.

The C Curve

Without a backrest, the spine shapes a graceful ’S’ curve, providing the skull with a veritable spring to buoy it up. If we are going to release into a backrest, this shape may need to be modified to a ‘C’ curve. If your C is compressive or collapsed, it will have some negative effects, but if you keep an expansive orientation of head and an animation through the torso, you can maintain buoyancy.

Active limbs, dynamic breath

Appropriate support from both the body and the seat is so critical when we drive because four limbs are in action. A unsupportive torso means the neck will have to tighten to support arm movement, and the lower back or hips to support leg movement. When pressing pedals or turning the steering wheel, inviting expansion through the limb is a way to help the forces required to flow through the whole body. This may help prevent tightness and make driving feel less of an effort.

Speed bumps

The motion of the car transfers to the driver. A well-poised driver can accomodate the small perpetual movements as well as larger ones like sudden braking, sharp curves or speed bumps. The body needs to tone up to some degree to stabilise itself, but too much stiffening makes the body’s motion jerky and uncomfortable. Letting the motion go through the whole body and into the seat is a way to process these external forces without requiring too much muscle work in just one area.

The road to optimal wellbeing

If driving for an hour leaves you in pain, using the driving time as a mindful practice of Alexander Technique may help you arrive without pain. The ergonomics of the car and the motion can become a catalyst to an improved balance and ease in the body. Beyond avoiding pain, setting an intention to arrive at your destination with more ease than when you left facilitates a wonderful application of the Alexander Technique process.