If you’re not very active but you really want to improve your health and release some tension exercising at home could be a good starting point for you. It really doesn’t matter if you haven’t exercised for a while, trying some gentle exercise could lift your mood and make a difference to not just your physical health but your mental health too.
Stressed Muscles
We all go through stressful times. Right now, lots of us are highly stressed which means it’s likely our muscles are tight, tense muscles.
By learning to relax your muscles, you will be able to use your body to dissipate stress. This is exactly what we aim to achieve during our FLexercise classes. We take time to think about our posture, our joints and muscles, and how we move.
So where should we start? Try to relax your muscles by just sitting or laying down in a quiet space. We call this ‘Whole Body Relaxation’.
Start from the top and work your way down the body. Start with your face and tense every muscle and then very slowly relax. Try doing this from head to toe, it takes some practice, and remember to take some nice even breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth. The more often you do this the more you are going to feel the benefits. It can help you to develop a sense of well-being, lower blood pressure, decrease muscle tension, reduce anxiety, and decrease fatigue. Over time you will begin to be more aware when you are tensing your muscles in day to day life, and you’ll find it easier to release and let go.
Movement without tension
Do you notice tension when you are just standing, walking or exercising? Relaxation in movement can relieve unnecessary muscle tension, nervous tension and tiredness. Awareness of unnecessary tension and achievement of relaxation in movement are important features of our Bagot Stack system.
Movement without tension is of great value for lots of health conditions including stress. Also, the right balance of relaxation and tone will aid your co-ordination.
It should not be confused with whole-body relaxation that we talked about above. Perhaps have a think about where you hold your tension. A common area is in the shoulders, be aware that your shoulders aren’t creeping up to your ears. Think about how the whole body is connected. If your shoulders are tense, it affects the whole of your upper body and how you move. To be in tune with your body think about your breathing which will help to ease any tension but at the same time keeping your posture in check. Body awareness is the key to movement without tension.