Most folks rely on coffee, sugar or other stimulants to help them get their day started.
I would highly suggest you wake up and STRETCH your body instead.
Animals do this naturally.
They wake and stretch their entire body. Watch your cat or dog (or gerbil) tomorrow morning and you’ll see what I mean.
When they wake up they stretch their arms, legs, neck, back and basically their whole body.
Stretching both relaxes the physical body and opens the channels of energy to get everything flowing.
For humans specifically, we’ve got an energy system called meridians that was mapped out thousands of years ago.
If you’ve ever seen the human body on an acupuncture chart, it’s filled with long lines and dots: those lines are called meridians and those dots are specific acupuncture points.
Meridians are the energy pathways in your body that support a healthy flow of vital Qi (pronounced chi or chee) throughout your entire system. Qi is universal energy.
For years, modern medicine denounced the existence of meridians because they could not see them on an x-ray. But Traditional Chinese medicine has known that these energy pathways certainly do exist, and they have a very important function.
Modern science has finally caught up with this ancient knowledge and machines can now detect specific points that have a denser structure on the human body. “Using a new combination of imaging techniques and CT scans (computerized tomography), researchers have observed concentrated points of microvascular structures that clearly correspond to the map of acupuncture points created by Chinese energy doctors nearly 2000 years ago.”[1]
When meridians channels are flowing and clear, Qi (energy) is unblocked and can move freely throughout the body. The effect is improved health and immunity, higher energy levels and enhanced mental clarity and functioning.
If you wake up and do just 10 little tiny minutes of daily stretching, it can enhance the flow of energy and support all of your internal organs and bodily systems for your entire day!
Yep, energy flow for the entire day in as little as 10 minutes. You can’t get that in a cup of coffee.
Here are 5 simple meridian stretches from Shiatsu Practitioner, Diego Sanchez, that you can use to start to your day in a more energized and healthful way:
Hold each of the poses for as little as 30 seconds or for as long as you like.
I hold each pose for at least 30 seconds, and I do 3 rounds.
It takes less than 10 minutes.
Try it.
In the beginning your body may hurt like heck because it’s not used to being stretched awake.
Give it time and be patient with the results.
It may be one of the best habits you can incorporate into your daily life.
[1] http://themindunleashed.org/2014/03/science-finally-confirmed-existence-acupuncture-points-validating-chinese-medicine.html
Andrea Beaman is an internationally renowned Holistic Health Coach, Natural Foods Chef, Speaker, Herbalist and best-selling author. Named one of the top 100 Most Influential Health and Fitness Experts, she is also a recipient of the Natural Gourmet Institute’s Award for Excellence in Health-Supportive Education and a Health Leadership award from The Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Since 1999, Andrea has been teaching people how to harness the body’s own preventative and healing powers using food, herbal remedies and alternative medicine.
Some recipes and articles on this site may contain affiliate links to products we trust and love. The money received helps keep this website and all of its healthful and delicious content FREE to the public.
