Blog post #4

Welcome back! Have you stretched today? If not, here are some of the stretches I’ve being doing daily. This is a 10 minute yoga challenge! Remember to take deeps breathes and really allow your body to dig deep into the stretches. This week I’ve been stepping up my stretching game a bit, and this is for my own fun and pleasure. Achieving my goals make me feel even better! I can kind of do the scorpion pose. I just have a balance issue and can only hold it for 5 seconds. That’s okay; I know I’m no cheerleader. My body has remembered how to do the splits, and I’m actually using my yoga blocks to deepen that stretch.

My stress levels have gone down a significant amount, and I think this is because my body feels better. Do you ever feel cranky when you’re sore? Having tense muscles makes me soooo uncomfortable, and it adds to my stress. Think about it, you’re already stressed about god knows what, and then you get up and ouch! Your body is stiff, now you’re stressing about your body hurting... adding more stress on yourself? I think so. Anyways, let’s get back on track. If I still haven’t convinced you to getting up and giving stretching a go, here are more reasons why you should try it.

• reduces stress (duh, that’s what I’ve been looking into!)
• increases your energy
• improves posture
• reduces muscle and joint pain
• increases your range of motion and flexibility
• injury prevention
• and of course, improves your sports performance. Yes! Even football players stretch.

I think that all of these point match up to mental health. My explanation of this is because in order to have good mental health you need to have energy. Energy will increase your sports performance and sports balance your mental health. Being awake and alert makes you aware of your posture. You will make an effort to sculpt out good posture, and if you have good posture, this will reduce your back pain.

Metal health is crucial for all people but especially youth. Students definitely get stressed. School is usually the main cause of stress. Children should be carefree and have a stress free childhood. Thinking about my future classroom I definitely want to incorporate so stretching as a mental break from class work.

Thanks for reading!
Namaste

https://www.stretchlab.com/benefits

https://shcs.ucdavis.edu/blog/archive/healthy-habits/why-stretching-extremely-important

https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/in-depth/stretching/art-20047931?pg=2&reDate=03102020