Bad things that happen to us physically are equal to a lose in movement. Okay, a little bit of an abrupt start to blog but let’s elaborate on that for a second, most things that happen to our body that we view as negative, result in a reduction of our own ability to move. For example, if you get injured, it usually hurts to move, so you move less, you may find yourself limping, turning your upper body instead of your neck while driving or even shortening your golf swing. When you get sick, it often pains us to even stand upright, so we spend all day in bed, weakened and hunched on our side laying in the fetal position- a definite reduction of movement. Even during the aging process, which only the blessed of us get to experience, we get stiff joints and a reduced range of motion, what motion still remains is often slowed by poor reaction time, another lessening of our ability to move. In contrast, we feel great when we can move freely, this usually means we are pain free and as a result we feel energetic and unburdened and the world becomes our oyster. To sum it, more movement equals good things.
Although injury, sickness and aging may be inevitable to all of us sooner or later, we can certainly do things to combat and delay the reduction of our movement that is forever coming our way. But how can we get more movement for more of our lives?
We all work hard, some more than others ;). As a result we often end up with subtle motion or movement reductions, these may show up as a little ache, a stiff joint or maybe even just a muscle that feels tired or tight. Most of the time we don’t even pay attention to these subtleties, we just shrug them off, not even noticing how it affects our mood, energy or golf swing, maybe we put it down to we just had an off day. We may get used these aches and pains, but these subtle cues are bodies are sending us messages to tell us something worse is on the way, we push them aside and ignore them. Over time, left untreated they perpetuate, they begin to become more regular and/or more painful, eventually they snowball out of control until the achy days become more regular than the pain-free days. Somehow they can still go unnoticed. Maybe it’s because we train ourselves to ignore the signs from the start, so we become accustomed to the constant, subtle increases, and then one day wonder why we have a chronic shoulder problem, have added 10 swings to our golf game over the last 5 years and now find it difficult to put on clothes.
We’re here to tell you to address these issues, pay attention to those aches and pains and listen to your body talking to you. It’s never too late, but address them as early as you can to stop the perpetual snowball of reducing movement and increasing pain. The goal is to re-encourage your body's movement potential. Everybody is different, so do what works for you, stretch every night, do yoga, use a sauna, go for a walk, heck, strap yourself in to a medieval torture device if that works for you (please don’t), but do something that works for you, which encourages more motion, as early as possible.
If you think you might need some more direction, or would like to have your injury or painful site assessed, we are always happy to help. At Total Body Health Gisborne, our job is to identify your tension patterns and work with your body to restore movement and function, and decrease pain. We spend 60 minutes on your first appointment, and at least 30 minutes on consecutive treatments. Our goal is to help you move more freely again, so you can get out there and live your life to your maximum potential.
