Elongate, Stretching is Good For You

Theraputic Yoga

return to the Bodydoctor Nutrition and Fitness Archive

The desire to stretch is a natural impulse - you stretch to relieve tiredness or stiffness after being in one position too long. As a form of exercise stretching is easy, enjoyable and safe, the perfect antidote to physical and mental tension. Stretch is good for your entire body, above all for the spine. It releases tightness in the muscles. It improves circulation and relieves stress, leaving you fresh and relaxed. By practising regularly you will not only undo recent muscle tension but, gradually, long-standing ones as well, so that slowly your posture and your whole range of movement will improve. Stretch is, however, far more than the undoing of tension. It is the dynamic extension of the muscles, while you focus your attention on the movement of your entire body, rather than just working on a particular group of muscles or a particular joint. This concentration brings insight and awareness of the way your body moves, and you will find your physical, mental and emotional energy reviving.

Breathing deeply is part of stretching. When you stretch to relieve fatigue, you tend to yawn at her same time, taking a deep breath in followed by an out-breath at her end of the stretch. This link between the movement of your body and your breath is developed when you stretch regularly. Take care not to hold your breath and to breathe out slowly and evenly. After a while breathing as you stretch will come naturally.

Therapeutic yoga

There is a growing movement toward developing methods of healing using subtle energy. While scientific research is still in its infancy with energetic healing. I feel strongly that these methods have much to offer us. Chronic conditions from old injuries and acute sports injuries can be helped enormously by physic healing. You may wish to use these practitioners to augment your conventional treatment.

The Bodydoctor Fitness Programme is based on having a fully, flexible, usable body including yoga exercises order the programme: