Move With Us Through Relaxation
Welcome back to our Move With Us series! There’s a lot of stress around at the moment and most of us are feeling the load of everything going on. This week we wanted to give you guys a series that you can use to relax and destress.
You can use this to start your day off well, through out the day to take a break or at the end of the day to unwind and switch your mind off. Whatever time of the day you chose to join us, lets take 5 minutes to refresh and reset our bodies and our minds.
Deep Breathing
We’re going to start with breathing, super simple but super important!
Sitting cross legged or in another position if more comfortable
Place your hands on your rib cage, feeling your ribs expand as you take a deep breathe through your nose
Feel your ribs collapse back down as you exhale through your mouth
Feeling your ribs encourages us to take deep breaths all the way into our lower rib cage and fill our diaphragm
Take 5 deep breaths or more if needed, you can also close your eyes to help relax
Neck Circles
Drop your head down to your left side
Then slowly rotate your head forwards and around to the right shoulder in a nice semi circle
Stopping in line with your right shoulder, not moving into extension
Slowly roll from side to side, keeping your shoulders relaxed and continuing your deep breathing
Repeat 4 times or more if needed
Childs Pose with Side Stretch
Sitting back into your childs pose, allowing yourself to relax fully with your head on the mat
Take three deep breaths in this position
Now slowly walk both hands over to the left and push your right hip down to your right heels
Take three deep breaths here before walking your hands over to the right
Take three deep breaths here and relax your muscles
Cat/Cow into Childs Pose
From Childs Pose, reach your arms forward and come into a four point kneel cat cow stretch
In the same movement, extend through your back and push your chest forwards
As you flex and curl through the spine, return to a childs pose
Continue to move through childs pose and cat/cow, moving through flexion and extension of the spine
Repeat 4 times with deep breathing, or more if needed
Supine Knee Rocks
Coming and laying on your back with your knees bent and your feet and knees together
Place your arms out to the side like a cactus
Slowly drop both knees to one side, only going as far as is comfortable making sure you don’t have to strain to return through the centre
Slowly drop your knees from side to side, mobilising through your low back
Repeat 4-6 times with your deep breathing, or more if needed
We hope you found this helpful! Feel free to repeat this series multiple times through out the week and keep Moving With Us. If you have any questions or need any advice on any of these exercises, please don't hesitate to reach out and chat to us.
Remember that you shouldn’t feel pain during any of these exercises. If they are painful for you, consider avoiding that exercise or decreasing the intensity. We are always here to help if needed.
If you’re after some more advice or are in need of some hands on help, we’d love to see you at Collective Motion! Collective Motion offers Osteopathy, Myotherapy, Dietetics and Pilates and is conveniently located to service our Bentleigh community as well as its surrounding suburbs including Bentleigh East, McKinnon, Ormond, Glenhuntly, Murrumbeena, Carnegie, Oakleigh, Gardenvale, Brighton East and Hampton East. Click below to book an appointment and let us help you get moving again.
