Feeling stiff all over and with stiff shoulders and neck? Lie down and do the "spider walk" to relax your body and mind

Why do some people often have tense bodies and stiff shoulders and necks? It turns out that it was the sympathetic nervous system that was causing the problem. If you want to relax, you must stimulate the activity of the parasympathetic nervous system. In particular, by adjusting the postures of standing, sitting, lying, and prone in daily life, you can completely regulate your body and relax your body and mind.

What is the difference between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems? Dr. Yang Dingyi once mentioned in "True Origin Medicine" and "Meditation" that the sympathetic nervous system is a major part of the autonomic nervous system. Its general function is to make the body tense, muscles tight, metabolism faster, heart rate faster, and breathing faster; while the function of the parasympathetic nervous system is just the opposite, which is to bring about a relaxing response.

Whole body relaxation: Stimulates parasympathetic nervous system activity

Almost everyone today lives in a state of overstimulation of the sympathetic nervous system, and few people can achieve a balance between the effects of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. Almost everyone suffers from stress caused by sympathetic overactivation and suffers unpleasant side effects. If you know how to stimulate the activity of the parasympathetic nervous system, you can achieve the effect of complete relaxation. He provides a very simple "tongue against palate" exercise that can activate the parasympathetic nervous system.

In addition, Dr. Yang Dingyi also proposed in his new book "Posture Structural Adjustment through Exercise and Therapeutic Effects" that through simple emotion management exercises, body stretching, breathing and other meditation methods, the parasympathetic nervous system can be activated and the whole body can be relaxed. It is recommended to perform simple spiral power, starting from the three principles of reversal, stay and resonance, and adjust yourself through simple spiral stretching exercises and therapeutic postures without asking for help from others.

How to solve stiff neck and shoulder? By stimulating the activity of the parasympathetic nervous system, you can achieve the effect of overall relaxation.

Adjust standing, sitting and lying postures to strengthen the body's support

Standing, sitting, lying and other postures are the postures we use in our daily lives. Through these postures, we make structural adjustments and let our daily postures become tools for adjustment at any time. First, learning to maintain stability in each posture will naturally strengthen the body's supporting ability, and through symmetrical structural adjustment movements, balance will naturally be restored.

◎Standing posture: We look at computer screens too much, not only does our head shrink forward, but our hands also twist toward the central axis. Through structural adjustment exercises in standing posture, you can open the front and sides of the body. You can also open the fixed angles of the shoulders, pelvis and arms through the movements of the limbs. When we usually stand or walk, we are fixed on the forward plane. Through these movements, in addition to maintaining this plane, it is also extended through stretching and reversal, allowing this plane to relax.

◎Sitting posture: For some friends, due to work or health restrictions, the most convenient way is to achieve reversal through structural adjustment of sitting posture. Simply put, each of our movements naturally tend to move toward the center, and this becomes especially noticeable after sitting for a long period of time. For this reason, through structural adjustment exercises in sitting posture, we can make the most thorough reversal of our habits. Let's reposition our body and create a new circuit.

Picture/taken from the book "Exercise and Therapeutic Posture Structural Adjustment" by Tianxia Life.

◎ Lying position: The structural adjustment exercise while lying down is equivalent to reducing the distribution of body weight from three-dimensional space to a two-dimensional plane, concentrating all weight on one plane. Therefore, any movement will generate greater torque, which can open certain parts more thoroughly and achieve the highest efficiency of structural adjustment.

In our normal posture, the spine is straight and upright. Lying flat can effortlessly maintain the stability of the main axis of the spine, while extending movements of different angles through other joints to achieve a complete relaxation.

◎ Prone position: We usually use our legs and spine to support the weight of our body. If you lie down and do the "spider walk," the familiar crawling motion, your point of support will naturally change. If the floor is not flat, even the shoulders and hands have to play a supporting role. This in itself is an intense challenge to the body. It is not only an efficient fitness, but also allows the elbow and shoulder joints to get a different twist, which will be very helpful for friends who suffer from frozen shoulder.

Picture/taken from the book "Exercise and Therapeutic Posture Structural Adjustment" by Tianxia Life.