‘Why do i feel stiff?’
We often come to yoga practice or mobility work because we feel stiff in our bodies, have tightness or pain and would like to be able to move with better moblity.
But why do we feel stiff and what can we do about it?
There are many factors to why we have stiffness in the body and i will outline the most common reasons to give you a better unerstanding of this process and how the body works. When we have more awareness around what causes this to happen it is easier for us to make the necessary changes.
Let’s start by looking at fascia
Here we see the muscle fibres surrouned by the web like fascial system of the body.
The fascial system interpenetrates and surrounds all organs, muscles, bones and nerve fibres, endowing the body with a functional structure.
When we sleep our body is dormant and we do not move so much. Over night the facial system that surrounds our body becomes slightly more dense, less fluid and more taught. This is one of the reasons we feel more stiff when we first wake up.
Having regular, uninterrupted sleept is essential for our bodies recovery.
When we move, stretch and get some heat into our body and mucle fibres the fascia ‘loosens up’ and glides with more ease between the muscle fibres, organs etc.
When we start to move less, stretch less, sit more and become more sedentary, the fascia becomes more dense, thicker and the muscles and organs move with more friction and less ease. Now imagine this build up of more and dense fascia over years.
To take it to another level, imagine if we have had an injury to one area of the body and we stop moving that joint / area completely. This is one factor that leads to chronic pain.
Since fascia is made up of 70% water, it is crucial to keep your body hydrated.
Movement heals
Sunshine, movement, full breathing and thinking less.
When we move our bodies in various ways we promote healing. When we do activities such as yoga and mobility work we are moving blood and oxygen around our bodies into different areas of the tissue, bones, fascia etc to enable cell regeneration, reapir nerves, flush toxins and generally aid the various systems in our body to do thier jobs properly.
In my opinon, working with people over the years is that a lack of movement and a regular mobility practice is what leads to more pain, stiffness and generally a sub par immune system. Again, movement heals.
What we want is a strong body, strong bones, with soft long muscles that move well and that we are able to breathe fully. Our bodies were desgined to be used, and varying our movements and cultivating enough stress on our system that it makes us stronger, will lead to better mobility and a body that repairs itself.
We are just giving our body the necessary platform so it can do what it was designed to do. The body is an amazingly intuitive organism that can heal almost anything on it’s own as long as we provide it with the right environment.
Some stress is good. Our bodies become stronger when it is stressed. Usually in short amouts that can be intense at times but is not for extened periods. Too much for too long has a detremental effect on the body and mind which in turns creates more tension.
In Yoga we often say ‘too much thinking.’
Moern day life in the world can be a lot at times. Many of us have lots of responabilites with people that rely on us for various things and with the introduction of smart phones and social media for example, we are in our heads / minds more often that i would say we should be. We can be thinking too much about things out of our control which leads to more stress and tension.
The mind and body are not seperate. They are one in the same which is why it is as important to take care of our mental health as it is our physical. Taking time for ourselves to move and breathe without distractions in imperative, especially in the modern world which is why i will always advocate some kind of movement / breathing practice to balance out out lives.
If you are interesed in starting a yoga / mobility practice check out my Better Moblity Guide below.
