Welcome to Wednesday’s Wellness Clinic. I can promise you I am not a doctor, a psychotherapist or a preacher, just someone with a lot going on inside her head looking for a way to calm the storm and impart that wisdom to you.
Wow! Only just realised how much of an essay last week’s Wellness
entry was – 1 ½ pages in A4! I can promise this week won’t be quite as long
because today is all about the simple art of stretching. You see cats do it all
the time so I guess there must be a very good reason behind it – and there is:
it makes us feel better. More relaxed, more flexible, less achy and stiff.
The three times I find myself benefitting from stretching are:
- When I get out of bed: I’ve been laying still (or as close to still as a sleeping body gets) for perhaps more hours than I am when awake, which can lead to muscle cramps and stiffness. Stretching out my arms and legs, rolling back my shoulders and neck, and giving myself a gentle shakedown loosens up those muscles by supplying them with oxygen and increasing blood flow which also helps me to wake up. (Admittedly I haven’t been focusing on this kind of stretching as much I should, but I will definitely try to do so from tomorrow – it might make those first few minutes of switching off my alarm and making the bed that bit more bearable).
- After a brief morning’s exercise: I don’t do anything crazy of a morning, just enough to get my muscles aching a little and raise my heart rate (though my current decision to practise morning lunges has ended rather quickly as I tried too much too soon). After doing a couple minutes of my chosen activity, I focus on gently holding different stretches in the target area to allow my muscles to relax again. Don’t overdo these as you may hurt the muscles more, but do aim to hold each stretch for between 10 and 30 seconds.
- After sitting still – at work or at home: I have a timer set for every half hour after I get into work; this reminds me to drink water, get up and be active for a short period away from my screen. This tends to be more thorough when I’m less busy or when no one else is on my floor of the office, then I can lunge and stretch and run around as much as I want! This also helps my eyes by getting me away from gazing at my screen, giving them a chance to focus elsewhere – like out the window or across the office. Even closing my eyes while stretching can help.
And most importantly, don’t forget to breathe! This is how
you get the oxygen into your body in the first place so remember to take slow deep
breaths. And if it hurts – which stretching generally shouldn’t – then ease up
a little, pause a moment before resuming.
If you do stretches often enough, you start to find those
which you enjoy the most: I especially love what I call ‘The Hug’ which is just
wrapping your arms around yourself to straighten the muscles in your shoulders
and upper back. This is usually accompanied by a couple of satisfying clicks/pops
from my spine (that’s just the sound of the fluid between your bones, or so I’m
told). Overall, this has helped reduce the occurrence of back aches from my
work chair and gives me something small to look forward to every half hour.
Examples of some of the stretches I do daily can be found here:
https://www.healthline.com/health/deskercise
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