In the midst of our busy-ness, it's amazing how much more we have on our plates and at the same time how much less we move our bodies. The human body has an amazing design -- one that is made for motion. We are naturally off balance (picture our round joint surfaces versus square ones) and build to move in multiple 

directions to run, jump, climb, crawl, walk, and just about anything we can imagine. It's when our busy-ness plants us in one place (e.g. the computer, car, TV, etc.) for hours upon days that the body moves less and starts to complain about it. These "complaints" come in the form of aches, pains, syndromes and such that require us to get moving again.

As the days get shorter and outdoor activities are less available, be sure to keep up your motion-filled activities that keep your body happy and healthy. Overcome inertia to get your body in motion and it will thank you.

Awareness of the horizon, then, lets us know what's up and down, right and left, front and back. This reference point is fixed by three semicircular canals in 

If the body has lost bilateral weight distribution, the inner ears read it as constantly tipping to one side. The eyes, in this case, take over the role of balance.

the inner ear that together function like a carpenter's level, using tiny hair cells set in a gelatinous substance known as the otolithic membrane. As we move and our head changes position in relation to the horizon, the force exerted on the hairs by the surrounding membrane changes; they perceive more pressure on one side than the other. The canals project in three different directions at right angles and can therefore detect movement in three dimensions.

When the body is dysfunctional, however, and the head no longer rides level with the horizon, the inner ear canals don't know it. If the head is forward, they assume the body is going downhill, because that's what the pressure shift in the inner ear canals is reporting. Likewise, if the body has lost bilateral weight distribution, they read it as constantly tipping to the right or left. The eyes, meanwhile, know better; they see the horizon and override the inner ears' signals to the brain. The eyes, in this case, are paramount and take over.   

It's hard because the inner ear is telling the brain that you are traversing a steep slope that falls off to the left. You can do it, though, because the eye overrules the inner ear in a conflict. Yet, without the inner ear's help, the eye cannot level the head or the rest of the body. Under these circumstances, balance can be difficult to maintain.

Bouts of dizziness occur when the body starts to fatigue from attempting to process the conflicting signals it is getting from the eyes and ears, and from the sheer extra burden of fighting a losing struggle against gravity in a state of misalignment. Reading the terrain becomes increasingly difficult and chancy. Falls are a major health hazard to the elderly and to younger people as well. We blame them on a slippery pavement or on tripping over an obstacle, but often what should have been an embarrassing stumble turns into a a harmful sprawl because our ability to stay upright has been corrupted. Is it any wonder? Our eyes tell us that we are level and upright, while at the same time the inner ears are saying, "No, look out, you're about to fall over!"