Reach Well

Body: Dancers, yogis, martial artists and Pilates students regularly perform exercises for flexibility—stretching muscles and loosening joints is part of their practice. For many others, experienced athletes and non-exercisers alike, the benefits of gaining and maintaining optimum flexibility are often overlooked. So let’s look at a list of desirable effects:

• Injury prevention. So many everyday and sports injuries are directly related to stuck muscles and stiff joints. Take a big step with cold hamstrings, you could be in pain for weeks. Pick up a heavy grandbaby, out goes that back.
• Reduced risk of injury. Ever see a small child fall and practically bounce, then muse on how if you had done the same, you’d be in serious trouble?
• Improved recovery. If you do suffer an injury such as a broken bone, or acute symptoms such as frozen shoulder, bet that your therapy will include stretching and range of motion exercises. (Might hurt a little, but it’s for your own good.)
• Disease management. Diseases of the joints like arthritis and bursitis benefit from flexibility exercises which can slow symptoms dramatically. Fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, and degenerative disk disease patients have all been shown in research studies to benefit, too.
• Improved performance. Rock hard muscles and tight connective tissues pull on bones and other muscles to impede motion, agility, and more. Golfers: you know it's good when you can swing free, right? You too, all you sporty ball throwers, hitters and kickers.
• The look. Long lines, lovely posture and graceful movements through space are part of the flexibility package.
• Physical comfort. A long ride in a car, a day at the computer, or hours on the sewing machine will usually be enough to demonstrate how lousy your body starts to feel when it doesn’t stretch enough. In fact, scan it right now...

Get up and stretch, gently, thoroughly, often. Everyday will not be too much! Don’t cause yourself pain or distress, though. Stretching should feel like, “Ohhh,” not like “Uh Ohhhh….” and never like “OUCH!”. I tell my students to find a tolerable level of noticeable pull, like softening taffy, then stretch it slowly so as not to snap it.

Mind: It’s interesting to note that the first list mentioned above, those who regular perform flexibility exercises physically, are also all considered part of the mind~body group of exercisers. So what about a flexible mind? YES.

Although you are likely to have values you know as your own truths, and guiding principals from which you won’t stray, it is also important to know how to bend and adapt in your thinking in this life, as your truths really only apply to you.

Perhaps Buddhists express it most simply with practice of non-judgment. If you decide not to put events, people or ideas in “good or bad” categories, but instead only notice them for what they are, you will be cultivating the most flexible kind of mind there is. One that is not stuck in bias, pre-conditioned inner dialogue, or others’ opinions. Again, there are benefits to be had:

You will prevent and reduce injury. If you notice someone in pain or in need, your reaction can be strong to offer aid, because the desire to help is one of your own truths. And you will feel naturally balanced in that action… free to give.

You can improve recovery when something painful happens in your own life. Stretch your thoughts to release judgments that hold you back from changing your mind. You can reach a new conclusion about the opportunity for growth, healing, or connection that is present in every initially painful experience.

Diseases are proven to respond to positive mental changes. Cancer patients may feel they want to cry out in pain, but in the end it is their joy and release of fear that strengthens them.

A flexible mind can also adapt naturally and quickly in unstable situations, just like a flexible body can. In sum, it is a very good tool to possess. So keep your mind open, and deliberately increase its range of motion, just as you should your muscles and your joints.

A mind that is willing to reach for non-judging, nourishing thoughts will have a wonderfully positive impact on the body, heart and lifestyle to which it is attached. Think well of things.