Stretch to Relax

Most fitness experts agree that stretching prior to a workout is a necessary step to protect the body from strain, but it's also a great way to relax. In fact, if you like to use meditation on a regular and even daily basis, this is an action that you can perform just beforehand that will increase your ability to enter a very deep state.

Achieving complete physical calmness is the key to allowing your mind to likewise become calm as any tension in the body can hamper your efforts to enter the deep meditative state. This article looks at the benefits of performing a stretching exercise regime prior to attempting mental relaxation and why it is such an all-round physical and mental beneficial action.

Can You Achieve Relaxation by Stretching?

With all the many different ways and means of reducing tension in the body, it may seem a little too easy to simply stretch yourself into a state of physical calm. But it's true that simply doing some things that are advised or recommended by the many exercise gurus that have a very big voice today thanks to the rise in interest in physical fitness and the body beautiful.

But just because something is easy to do, it doesn't make it any less effective as a solution to your stress problems. The simple art of stretching for instance, is incredibly effective at doing this.

You can actually achieve muscular calm by stretching as part of your overall exercise routine on a daily basis. But what are the benefits of this kind of activity?

Benefits of Stretching

Well, the main reason why you should stretch especially before doing any strenuous exercise is to prime your muscles for the work load they will be undertaking to help prevent strains and over exertions from causing damage. The stretching itself also cause muscles to work and in doing so they need to use energy, which is taken from the body's glucose supplies, which have to be replenished.

This is a good start to any exercise routine, because it means you will need to replenish the lost glucose faster, which means that it has to come from the body's fat store sooner, meaning a longer workout will burn more fat when you start with a stretching session first!

Why You Should Do This Often

It may sound a little off the wall, but you actually boost your ability to gain complete relaxation by doing this simple and even enjoyable process. It even helps to cleanse the mind of clutter from a very cluttered world.

Of course many people may laugh when they hear what it is that you're doing, but ignore them because they probably simply don't understand.

Stretching is something that athletes do before any strenuous exercise but it is also something anyone can do and the bonus is that it can help as part of a meditative program. It's true that you can actually aid your transition into the meditative state by stretching prior to the deep breathing process, which in turn is an excellent method of building confidence and self esteem.

A Certain Way

Of course, it needs to be done in a certain way to be effective, but the fact remains that as long as you are working through the process systematically to enable muscles in every part of the body to de-tension then you can boost your efforts by doing some stretching exercises every day. All you need to remember is that the stretching exercises themselves should be done on legs, arms, back and torso and to get the maximum benefits you should spend a few minutes on each muscle group.

This will help your body burn more calories as a positive by-product as it gets used to firing up those muscles each day, which when coupled with a good diet will result in more effective reduction in body fat through an improved metabolism.

Exercising is the Way to Deep Meditation

If you were ever in any doubt as to the best and most effective way of attaining a very deep meditative state and then maintaining that state for longer each time, then getting plenty of daily exercise is definitely something you might want to consider taking up if you are not doing it already. In fact, you might be pleasantly surprised to hear this.

You need to do some good old fashioned exercise to improve physical fitness and as long as you keep up with your exercises regularly, you will increase your ability to learn to relax! There are plenty of reasons why this is, but most of it comes down to maintaining a good level of physical fitness which teaches your body's muscles to relax more deeply after working hard.

Better Metabolic Control

Of course there are the other side-benefits of exercise such as maintaining a more efficient metabolism and the way your body uses fuel and its ability to use more at an efficient rate. When you sit around all day and do nothing, your metabolism will slow right down to match.

This is because you really do not need to use much energy to just sit there. But get up and start forcing your body to do some work, as you would when you exercise, and then it will use a lot more fuel. To enable the body to get and use that fuel, your metabolism will speed up to match your activity levels.

It does that so that it can extract more sugar from the blood stream and when that is all used up, it will take more from your store of fat. With the fat going into negative volume as it is used up, you will be healthier and as a result less prone to being susceptible to illness, which can hamper your attempts to enter a state of deep relaxation.

When you remain healthy, you have that one major positive aspect in your favour. Keep this up over the long term and your ability to meditate will naturally improve and your body will thank you for it too.