It’s simple, if you stress, you have to stretch
Tensegrity is a structural principle that refers to the fact that all of the muscles are connected throughout your body (tensional integrity) and one tight muscle can change the structural integrity of the whole body. Consequently disrupting the free and proper functional movement in the body called dysfunction.
If all of your muscles are healthy and loose, then they can hold you together and allow you to enjoy pain-free functional mobility and an active lifestyle. If your muscles are unhealthy and tight in this case they are working together to pull your skeletal structure out of alignment which causes pain and can debilitate your life.
Yoga, Pilates, stretching, running, walking and many other forms of exercise counters the stress and anxiety we experience in our daily routines. Learning the best movements for each of your body parts is critical. Proper stretching can relax the muscles of the body while also reducing the “white noise” in the mind.
Causes and Symptoms of Stress
Starting a new job, school or marriage, raising a family, being promoted or simply dealing with health issues as you age, can all cause fear, stress and worry. Each of these can damage and diminish the proper functioning of your postural alignment, functional mobility and emotional state.
Symptoms include headaches and muscle aches, back pain, heartburn, upset stomach, shortness of breath, high blood pressure, difficulty sleeping and chronic fatigue. You may also experience an unexpected weight loss or weight gain and a change in appetite and behavioral or emotional patterns.
Many of the health problems in our society today stem from overindulgent and hectic lifestyles where people are not addressing the stress in their lives. Alternatively they may simply escape through pills, drugs, alcohol and destructive behavioral patterns which have devastating consequences and perpetuates the problems even more!
Biobehavioral DNA Response to Stress
In addition to long standing perspectives on our natural response of “fight or flight” to environmental stressors, a California Surgeon General’s Report, Roadmap to Resilience, reports;
“advances in functional neuroimaging, developmental neurobiology, genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics have begun to decode the complex mechanisms by which early adversity can become biologically embedded and influence life-course health and even the health of the next generation.” This document delves into the topic of toxic stress and how it can pass from one generation to the next from life experiences.
California Surgeon General’s Report
Fear, anxiety and stress are hard-wired in the human brain to bypass our prefrontal cortex, so we are not actually aware of the fact that our body is already dealing with it. So our awareness of this phenomenon is key to understanding how managing stress take on greater importance.
There are so many different things in todays society that can trigger our stress and anxiety that it becomes more important to figure out how to manage your body’s response to stress in general.
Managing Biobehavioral Response to Stress
Physical and emotional flexibility enables you to handle stress better. Improving the flexibility of your joints, muscles, tendons, bones is one of the best ways to reduce the negative impact that stress has on your body.
The more emotionally relaxed, open and calm your mind is, then you will feel happier and more confident within yourself. Getting and keeping your mind in a happy state gives an emotional boost to your confidence.
Improving your emotional flexibility has been clinically proven beneficial to your overall health. If you add healthy habits into your life, you can counter your own biobehavioral DNA response to stress:
Steps you can take to help you control stress in your life
- Exercise for at least 30 minutes at 3-5 times a week.
- Stretch for 5-15 minutes daily or at least 4 or 5 times every week.
- Hydrate. Drink plenty of water, most of us aren’t drinking enough water.
- Pamper yourself. Treating yourself to a really nice lunch or having a therapeutic massage will change your focus.
- Develop methods for relaxation; for example, talk with supportive people, take up a hobby, listen to music, watch movies, take walks.
- Simplify your life and don’t try to do too much, also set realistic goals you can achieve. Learn to say “no.”
- Get adequate, regular amounts of rest and sleep (6 to 10 hours a night).
- Try not to “self-medicate” with food, alcohol, or over-the-counter medicines. Covering up a problem can make the stress even worse.
- Learn to use relaxation techniques, such as mental imaging, diaphragmatic breathing, and progressive muscle relaxation.
- Recognize the things that upset you and try to develop a positive attitude toward those you cannot avoid.
- Eat a healthy diet and drink less coffee and alcohol.
- Use positive thoughts and humor to overcome negative thoughts, also you can watch a funny movie, and laugh your stressors away
Stretching On Demand
Our On Demand Video Library has hundreds of stretches for every part of your body. There are 5, 10 and 15 minute stretches, full body routines, sport specific and injury focused stretches. Our Stretch Education section teaches you about your body and the benefits stretching has to fight stress and anxiety.