Resources on posture and alignment

For convenience, I've included the Amazon or other link where I purchased if available - this is not necessarily the lowest price so shop around.  Used versions or e-versions are often quite a bit less expensive. 

Esther Gokhale is a posture guru based in San Diego.  Ignore the sensational title, this is really a book about posture.  It provides step-by-step instructions with photographs on how to put your body into supported rest positions. I recommend these positions a lot - particular sitting and lying - even spending a fraction of the day or night in a supported, aligned position can help the body relax and reset.  Gokhale also has interesting ideas on culture and posture and the book is full of beautiful pictures of people from around the world.  The only caution I give is that you can read this book and take away form it that you should adopt the "right" posture, which is not what I believe Gokhale intends at all.  Natural posture is dynamic and more about the feeling (feeling support, feeling length, feeling engagement with the world) than how it "looks" - if we try to outsmart the body by adopting a rigid posture it's rarely what we need and generally just creates more tension. 

Pain Free lays out the Egoscue Method of exercises for chronic tension and pain.  Pete Egoscue started developing these exercises rehabbing himself after a wartime injury, and then through helping friends and others.  The result was a whole-body system which is very accessible to people of different levels of fitness and ability.  The brilliance of the Egoscue Method is that it is completely empirical and based on what works for each person - if something doesn't work you don't do it.   The exercises are simple but often quite challenging since the positions prevent the body from compensating. Of course the book is not the same as seeing an Egoscue specialist - the alignment in Egoscue is very important, and what I've noticed is that it's hard for many people to get the alignment right without someone coaching them through it the first time, and the specialist also can explain the exercises, answer questions, and provide motivation.  However if you don't have access to a specialist  the book has most of the main exercises, and you can find videos of them online.  [If you are a very scientifically oriented person - the Egoscue theory of posture provides an easy to understand framework people can use to understand their bodies and rehab themselves.  It's not scientific.  Someone interested in the science of posture and pain would quibble with the theory presented - but it really works anyway].

There are two types of balls out there for rolling  - hard balls (lacrosse balls, tennis balls, even golf balls - ouch!, Mandala yoga massage balls) and soft balls like these.  I highly recommend the soft ones-  they work in a different way and activate different receptors.  Soft inflated rubber balls like these provide support for the body's structure and allow subtle rolling movement - they engage with the nervous system rather than trying to excavate some physical "tight spot" that isn't really there but hurts a lot .  You're not digging into the body with them, but resting on them.   They are excellent for rehab and pain issues.  There's a few kinds on the market that probably are all good - the Melt method uses rubber balls that are quite small, the Yamuna method uses a larger ball.  They're all going to work in similar ways.  I recommend the Miracle Balls because they're a good size - a little bigger than a softball - and the least expensive, around $15 (the othes are about $50 and up).  They come with a very small and simple booklet.