Do you ever feel sluggish in the morning? Feel a little twinge in your back when you get up to start your day? That's not a surprise. The discs in your spine are normally about 80% water. As you walk around all day, your discs (and other cartilage-type joints like knees) compress and lose fluid. As you sleep, they resorb fluid and nutrients which makes them thicker - and you maybe a centimeter taller - by morning.

 

In this revitalized state, the spine, its discs and vertebrae, deserve a little waking up of their own. Consider how athletes always stretch before their game or run or event. Look at life as your athletic event. Prepare your body by stretching...and do it before you get out of bed in the morning! Think about your morning routine to just get out of bed: you sit upright, twist around to the side of the bed, drop your legs to the floor, bend to rise upright while pushing off the bed to stand. That is a lot of motion in many different directions!

So stretch before your event of life. Stretching before you get out of bed in the morning gets the circulation flowing and warms up the muscles. Before even sitting up to rise in the morning, ease your body and spine into motion with a couple of exercises designed to stretch them first: the Hamstring Stretch and the Knee/Chest. You will notice a difference in your spine!