Post-couch unwinding the spine
I am not a counter. I don’t count steps, reps, calories, miles, or how many times I eat fish in a week. It doesn’t work for my psyche to quantify everything. I don’t believe I should feel better or worse about myself depending on a number. I feel better or worse by sensing how I actually feel. That’s just me.
Even at the gym, which I do go to, I don’t count. I steadfastly refuse! I go until I’m tired, then I stop. I eat until I’m full, then I stop.
I listen to my body and do what feels right. I like feeling better rather than worse, so I note when I feel better and do that.
Yesterday, I went on a long hike. You know by now I didn’t measure how far I’d gone. When I got back, I was super exhausted so I did look at the map and saw I’d gone ten miles. Yikes! As I was so tired, I just flopped out on the couch.
That’s where the problem started.
I can do a long hike and feel muscle fatigue, that’s fine. However, I absolutely cannot flop out on a couch for hours without dire consequences for my back. Ugh!
I sure felt it when I got up in the morning. I was all stiff and creaky and achy from not moving. I did two lessons this morning, and another this afternoon in an attempt to un-do the couch effect.
I tell my clients it’s the ping-pong effect: we get into a good place, then something happens to ping us out of it. Luckily, with Feldenkrais, we can pong out of tension and back to easy movement.
Try this lesson to unwind the spine. It’s not neurologically complex, like that pelvic clock lesson two weeks ago. Just gentle turning and sensing.
I refuse to live with couch-spine!
More like this:
Download six lessons to do anytime: Free the upper back and shoulders, $39.
Treasury subscribers: Lessons for gentle shoulder release
“We must indulge the mind and from time to time allow it the leisure which is its food and strength.”