There's something about a good bed stretch, it's the most satisfying feeling. Reaching and straining, it's like your body knows just what it needs. After a long time of inactivity, the body needs to be revived a bit, it needs to wake up, and bed stretching is the ticket.
Every animal seems to do this kind of stretching. They get up from a nap and stretch as hard as possible, dogs are a great example. Dogs sometimes tightly pack themselves into little balls of sleep, getting as cozy and crunched up as possible. Then when they wake up they hit all the stretches, first the back legs, then moving into some downward dog, then shaking everything out. And just like that, about 30 seconds of stretching, and they are ready to go.
We see these things in most every animal, the need to stretch out sleepy muscles, to wake up the body, yet how many of us actually do that when we wake up? How many of us are going for morning runs, taking cold showers, doing yoga, or simply laying in bed for 15 minutes stretching against ourselves?
Most days I wake up and have to get moving or I'll be late, I have to get dressed, get the baby ready, feed the baby, brush my teeth, maybe write on steemit. I prioritize everything except waking my body up. Part of my problem is that I go to sleep too late and wake up too late. Today for example, I was going to get up at 6, but didn't get up until 7 because I was laying around in bed stretching and napping. #noregrets
My point is we are disconnected from our bodies, we rarely prioritize them when we have other responsibilities. At first this isn't a big deal, we still operate well and get everything we need done, we still have a lot of energy. But over time this neglect of the body and its needs builds up, we start to be more tired, we start being foggier at work, we start to feel worse which makes us not want to be active. It's a vicious cycle where the only way to break out is to start at where you're at, start with baby steps.
Maybe a year ago you were lifting heavy weights and running everyday. Now you have to do bodyweight exercise and walking and yoga. Those months of inactivity wear on us, the tightness we build up in our bodies prevents good bloodflow to keep our muscles from weakening and from being limber.
It's not always easy to exercise everyday, but we can all take 15 minutes to do some bed stretching, to do a mini workout at our desk, to do some physical work out in the yard, or to play with our kids or pets. There's no reason to get so caught up in life and responsibility that we forget to take care of ourselves, it's counterproductive and can make us bitter, so take that extra bit of effort and put it towards feeling better.
Get some bed stretching in your life, it feels great.
