Spring Cleaning: Relieve These 3 Major Tensions!
With Spring comes Spring cleaning! Not only should we get rid of things in our house, but in our bodies as well! Our bodies hold a lot of tension through our lives. One thing we can do this year is prepare our bodies for the new season. In this blog post we will give your three places in your body that hold tension and how to release it. Read below and practice what we preach!
Jaw
Believe it or not but we hold A LOT of tension in our jaws. Some people may grind their teeth or clench their jaw a lot putting a lot of stress in that area. We talk and chew everyday so it’s not hard to see how your jaw can hold tension. In order to release it, you can do these tips. You can incorporate this into your everyday life, when you’re brushing your teeth or even working at your desk. Simply, make sure your tongue is in an optimal position. Let it rest on the roof of your mouth and the back of your front teeth. If you’re not sure of the positioning, make a humming noise and your tongue will fall into place. It’s that simple! Do this multiple times throughout the day to make your jaw release tension. You’ll be surprised at the difference it makes.
Diaphragm
Here is where we tend to hold a lot of tension that is “emotional”. We breathe thousands of times a day so HOW you’re breathing really matters. It’s important to stay conscious about how you’re breathing since this can actually help regulate our emotions. Think about it, in high stress situations, our diaphragm can become very restricted and tense up. It's important to fix this so the rest of our body can fall into place. Many may think that tension is coming from their neck but it’s really the diaphragm. When you need to free up this tension take three diaphragmatic breaths every hour. To do this, breath in through your nose, let your belly (not your chest) expand and exhale slowly. The longer you exhale the better! Just make sure your chest is not expanding, but your belly is. Do what feels comfortable but try to pause in between your breaths as long as you can. This can bring a sudden calmness to your body and you’ll feel more included to doing this whenever you feel tense.
Pelvic Floor
Some don’t even realize how much unconscious tension there is in our pelvic floor. We also hold emotion here - just like dogs (think about tail wagging and tucking when they feel different emotions). If you commonly feel hip pain and lower back pain, tension is an underlying issue. To fix this, get onto all fours. You’ll be rocking on your forearms. Put your elbows outside of your shoulders and knees outside of your hip! Inhale and rock back and exhale as your rock forward. Try to keep your spine straight and focus on your breathing as well. You can also lie on your back, grab your feet or shins if you can reach and inhale to relax and rock back and forth. Repeat if necessary! You should feel your body start to feel less tense.
There you have three places that tension is likely to build up over time. You can also hand massage these areas for relief but practicing these tips each day can help open up your body. Feel free to browse our website for body massagers if you have any areas outside of these that you need to target in a different way. Click here to browse our collection!