Day 13

Relax!

The Advent Cal(m)endar contains habits to increase clarity, focus and calmness. Every second day, I open a door and post about my experiences.

Hi readers! Can you guess where I am writing this? Probably you can – I am sitting at my desk (having a nice cup of Christmas tea while I marvel at a very gloomy day)! I also mostly sit at a desk for my day job, analysing data or participating in meetings; and I mostly sit at my desk for my volunteering activities in an environmental organisation. My friends are all over the world these days, so to meet them online, I… sit at my desk.

I consider myself a relatively active person, as I spend time outdoors most days and exercise several times a week, but when I am not outside or exercising, the vast majority of my time is spent sitting. I guess I’m not the only one.

And we have all heard that that isn’t good for us. Like many people, I struggle with back and neck pain and a bad posture. But even as a small child I already experienced an unusually tense body, with people commenting on how stiffly I moved. I did not have the easiest childhood, and part of my tension might be my body’s way of dealing with trauma – a topic discussed more and more frequently these days.

Reducing sitting and doing stretching exercises does help for me. I can usually (luckily!) fix my back pain within a few days by standing up frequently, stretching briefly multiple times a day and doing a proper stretching session in the evening. I also do core exercises regularly again (see here!) and can tell that they make me more aware of my posture (I hope I’ll stick to them after Christmas…).

However, I wanted to add a habit that specifically focuses on relaxing the muscles (but that does not require the high water usage of a daily bubble bath!). That’s why today’s habit is

Progressive muscle relaxation is a method where you first tense up and then relax each muscle group. This increases awareness of the contrast between tension and relaxation. I practice this method from time to time and have noticed that it makes me realise more quickly when I am sitting in a terrible cramped posture again. I hope that, over time, I will learn what relaxation truly feels like and approach that state more easily in everyday life. There are many guiding videos on YouTube – I like this one, for example.

I hope you are having a relaxing day! Do you do anything specifically to relax your muscles?

Hannah