How to sit in your car without strain. My top five tips to driving with less effort
Do you ever find that driving drives you round the bend?*
Let’s face it driving can be stressful.
Busy roads, road works, traffic queues, other drivers and where I live, tractors who pull out on you and force you to drive very, very slowly down narrow country lanes where overtaking is impossible.
And if that weren’t enough, we’re also having to deal with the ever present threat of accident and mayhem if we miss something or don’t react quickly enough. It can all very easily lead to the fear response, shortened neck, head thrown back, tension in shoulders and back and so on.
The problem with driving is that we have to deal with lots going on at once. Imagine juggling a couple of beanbags, whilst balancing on one leg, and reciting the eight times table (ok so probably not that tricky).
To cope, our brain loves to make as much of our behaviour automatic as possible. So when we drive we’re able to shove the basics of driving into the automatic category (ever driven through three lanes of traffic, negotiated several tricky junctions all whilst thinking about last weekend’s activities or today’s tea?)
But, and here’s the big but, this means that our posture may have become automatic too and not necessarily in a good way.
The next time you’re sat in a traffic queue have a sneaky look at the drivers around you. I’ve got no doubt that you’ll be able to see some delightful examples of people hanging their head forward, slumping their upper backs, gripping onto the steering wheel or showing some signs of stress and tension.
In short, driving can by its routine nature, make us zone out, but leave us physically stressed. And how likely is that to lead to wonderful, poised posture?
So in this post, I’ll share my top five tips on how to become more aware of what you’re physically doing when you drive so that you can use your car with less physical and mental strain.
1. Where are you sitting?
Can you reach the pedals and steering wheel comfortably? Are you sat right back in the seat with your lower back against the seat back?
2. Get comfy in your seat
It’s one of the fundamental laws of great posture that it’s impossible to sit poised if you’re uncomfortable - the strain’s going to show in your body in some way or other. So you need to make sure that your seat is comfortable before you drive off.
What’s the perfect seat for driving?
The most comfortable seat I ever sat in for driving was one with a fairly straight seat and flat back. Maybe it’s a personal thing but the more a seat is engineered, in other words the more it’s been fiddled with and curves and lumps and bumps added, the more difficult I find to sit in it.
Whatever your preference, generally seats that slope backwards so that our hips are lower than our knees are not great for our posture. Our lower back is then forced to slope backwards whilst the upper back slopes forwards creating an unnatural bend in the middle. Result, tension and pain.
What we need is a seat that keeps our pelvis under our bodies without rolling it underneath us and ideally so that our hips are higher than our knees. This way, our back can stay straighter.
If this is a problem in your car, you can always use a wedge shaped cushion. This then provides more support for the pelvis and the back can maintain a healthier, natural shape.
3. Positioning the headrest
Make sure your headrest is in the correct position and aim to keep it in contact with the back of your head. This means that you’ll avoid drooping forward and curving your upper back, rather your head will be balanced over your back and your neck muscles will be able to relax.
4.Holding the steering wheel.
You may have been taught to hold the steering wheel at an angle of ten to two o’clock but this can make us lift our shoulders and arms resulting in tension in the neck and shoulders. Very slightly adjust this grip so that you’re holding the wheel a touch lower – quarter past nine (or quarter to three). This way there’s less strain on the shoulders and the arms can hang vertically which is far more comfortable for longer.
Another way of reducing tension is to have a firm grip on the steering wheel but not feel that you’ve got to grip onto it for dear life – again another surefire way of creating lots of lovely tension in the neck and shoulder.
Hold onto the wheel and then make a conscious decision to let go of any unnecessary tension in the arms and shoulder. You can also think of the arms being supported all the way into the back muscles, all the way down your legs into your feet.
5. Getting out of a car gracefully
So we’ve sat beautifully and driven with poise but what happens when we get to the end of our journey? It’s so sad for it all to fall apart with a posture-related nightmare the minute we try to heave and shove ourselves out of a car.
Well, here’s the easy, graceful way of getting out and should you ever need to attend a glittering function watched by dozens of paparatzi, trust me this will ensure you look your best without the danger of flashing your underwear (unless that’s what you intend).
So let go of the steering wheel (if you’re being chauffeur driven in the Rolls and you’re in the back you can simply skip to the next part). Keep your knees together and swivel on your seat so that you’re facing out of the door. Then lean forward from the hip joints and tip yourself forward and up to standing. If you need a little extra help, use the back of your arm again the back of the seat to provide a little more leverage. And there you have getting out of a car with no exit-related fights.
So there you have my top five tips for driving with more ease and less physical and mental effort. A relaxed body is a relaxed mind and this enables us to drive more safely when we’re more able to focus softly on the road and other drivers and react more quickly when we need to.
The art of living gently isn’t just about being this way when we’re surrounded by quiet, beautiful countryside and a relaxing cup of tea. It’s a way of being that we take wherever we go.