Monday October 21st 6.30 - 7pm
Keeping mobile and maintaining our mobility is something we all want to do, however often it is not until it is lost that we realise how important it was to us.
What I want to do this week is give you some simple and practical tips to help you keep your mobility and stay supple for longer.
Our mobility can be affected by more than just physical changes and ailments. Our emotions, for example, can cause us to become tense. I am sure you can relate to ‘carrying your stress on your shoulders’, thus reducing neck mobility. But also, our food choices can restrict our mobility; a diet high in sugar can increase general body inflammation which can stiffen up joints and reduce their mobility while making them painful.
So, what can you do?
Here are my Top 6 Tips for making you more mobile and staying supple:
Physically:
1. Warm up each morning. It is simple I know but how often do we wake up to the alarm, hit the snooze, eventually get out of bed and stumble to the kettle to brew a caffeinated drink only to think to ourselves halfway through the boil that “gosh I feel stiff and achy today?”
Here is a simple way to start your day. When the alarm goes off, take your time to roll onto your side before sitting up slowly. This will put less stress onto the joints before you even get out of bed. Once upright, stop! Before you move on, take the time to simply march on the spot, opposite arm and opposite leg until you feel like your limbs are moving fluidly and with some ease. This is simple but marching on the spot in the morning can really set you up for the day right.
2. Stand Up. Again, another simple action but done consistently (according to NASA) could put 3 quality years onto your life! Yes, just standing up and sitting down every 20 minutes can make a big difference. You do not even need to walk anywhere.
As we sit for sustained periods of time, it compresses our joints, and impacts how they wear. Over a long time, this will reduce the mobility and flexibility of those joints.
Simply standing up and sitting back down, takes a lot of pressure off the joints, allowing them to resorb some fluid and stay mobile for longer.
Emotionally:
3. Be thankful. The biggest emotion that causes our body to tense up is anxiety. This stressful response will put the body into a fight or flight response that will cause muscles and joints to go tight.
Anxiety however, has a polar opposite emotion, one that can not exist at the same time. This is gratitude, the art of being thankful. Take just 5 minutes each day to sit in quiet and think of all the things you are grateful for. Doing this will allow your body to come out of the ‘fight or flight’ response and relax, therefore making us more supple.
4. Laughter. Laughter is an emotion and the act of laughing is simply an extended breath. This is movement that will relax the body and allow it to become supple.
I know, how on earth do we just laugh? Try watching this brilliant interview I did with Laughter Coach, Pete Cann here. Go on, give it a go!
Chemically:
5. Stop Sugar. Sugar as we all know is extremely toxic to the body. Little do we know just what an issue it can be. When we ingest sugar, it tells the body it is under attack. This will release inflammatory markers in all the cells of your body, priming you for that attack which can impact how we stand and move. This is due to the increase in inflammation, which can result in poor joint health, poor mobility, and pain.
Try to stop or significantly reduce your intake. Keep the fizzy pop, the sweets, and sugars for the weekend.
6. Magnesium. The best supplement for relaxing muscles and improving mobility is magnesium.
Take this supplement 30 minutes before bed time and that will allow your muscles to work at their best and relax. The added bonus here is it could well improve your sleep.
Ask the team next time you are in the centre for some magnesium to support your mobility.
We all want to keep mobile so please share this with anyone you know could benefit and together let’s stay mobile!
With love
Tom
