5 Stretches In Bed That Will Totally Transform Your Morning
SHARE
Pixabay
What’s the first thing you do each morning after silencing your alarm? Give your snuggly pet friend a pat on the head? Hide under the covers and fall back asleep? Or worse, grab your phone and start scrolling? Regardless, if your answer has nothing to do with stretching, you’re missing quite possibly the best part of any morning.
Slowly bringing movement and energy back into your muscles and joints after a solid night’s rest has a magical way of helping you mindfully reconnect with yourself and centering both the mind and body. It makes even the dreariest of days pleasant ones, and it only takes a few minutes of your day. So if you want to add an amazing boost to your morning routine, give these five easy stretches a try before leaving the comfort of your bed.
1. Full Body Stretch
Start off strong with this stretch that immediately fills your body with energy and warmth. Simply reach your hands over your head and extend your fingers as far away from your torso as possible, and point your toes to reach your legs out long toward the foot of the bed. As you reach, take a nice, long, slow inhale. And as you exhale, relax every muscle and let your body fall right back into your mattress. Repeat at least three times.
2. Knees To Chest
Bring yourself a sense of emotional comfort by bending your knees and lifting them up toward the center of your chest. Keeping your feet close to the back of your legs, reach your arms around your knees and grab opposite elbows, forearms or hands — whichever is more accessible to you. As you breathe slowly, feel your spine stretch gently. Rock back and forth or side to side if that feels good to you. Release after 30 seconds.
3. Simple Spinal Twist
Bringing your knees back toward your chest, let them fall to the right side of your body as you exhale. Extend your arms out to your sides to create a T shape, and let the weight of your legs create a nice opening sensation in your left hip, left thigh and lower back. When you’re ready, bring your knees back to the center on an inhale and slowly drop them to the left side of your body with another exhale. Breathe into the stretch here before returning to the center again.
4. Cat And Cow
Gracefully roll over onto your stomach and lift onto your hands and knees to find tabletop position with a neutral spine. Be sure to keep the tops of your feet resting on the mattress surface. As you inhale slowly and deeply, arch your back and let your belly descend toward the mattress, finding cow pose. On the exhale, bring your belly up toward your spine and allow your spine to curve up toward the ceiling, letting go of all of the air in your lungs in cat pose. Repeat this sequence three more times before returning to your point of neutral spinal alignment.
5. Wide-Legged Child’s Pose
Last but certainly not least, from the tabletop position, widen your knees and bring your feet to touch so that you create a hip-opening sensation in the body. When you’re ready, slowly fold your upper body over your lower body, allowing your arms to extend forward on the mattress, stretching the shoulders, and reaching your hips down toward your heels. Take comfortable deep breaths here for 30 seconds, and then slowly lift up into a comfortable seated position.
Next on
