“Stretching happens in the mind and in the breath, not as much in the actual muscle,” says yoga therapist Judi Bar of the Cleveland Clinic’s Lifestyle 180 Program. “That doesn’t mean stretching isn’t a physical activity: It certainly is. But that’s only half of it.”  Surprised? Lets start at the beginning: In its most basic sense, inflexibility is restriction. When you feel stiff and tight, you can’t move as well; you also don’t feel as well, breathe as deeply or stand as tall. You’re tense and probably even cranky — and you may not even recognize why. “Just like we numb our feelings through time, we also stop feeling our bodies and just keep going,” Bar says. Spending time working on your flexibility helps you get back in tune with your body, improve your overall outlook and feel younger and more open to life. Now that’s something worth stretching for!

The Breath Stops Here
It’s a testament to evolution that most of us do manage to function without much flexibility. The human body has been around the block a time or two: It knows how to evolve and adapt to make something happen. “Your body just tries to find ways to get done what you’re trying to do. But that doesn’t mean it’s the best way,” says yoga teacher and fitness coach Sage Rountree, author of The Athlete’s Guide to Yoga. So, for example, you tell your body that it needs to sit for eight hours at a desk every day. Your hips, lower back and shoulders get the message and they find a way to do it — but the result may very well be limited range of motion. And that’s when the problems start. 

Ideally, your breath — which is a powerful form of energy — flows through your body, carrying with it oxygenated blood, which energizes all of your cells. But when a joint loses range of motion, either because it’s not used very much or because the muscle is “bulking up” all around it, the energy can’t get through, Bar says. “Then you have less energy and are more tense and more sluggish,” she says. It becomes easier to plop yourself on the couch, watch bad television and lash out at the people around you when they do something to annoy you (because, let’s face it, they will). There’s a better way, however, and it starts with breathing.

Waiting to Exhale
The first rule of any flexibility training — whether you’re in a yoga class, at the gym or in your basement — is to breathe. Breathe deeply, fully and with purpose. It helps you start to release tension and relax — both mentally and physiologically. When you exhale, you get a wonderful feeling of letting go of all your worries and frustrations, from bills and stubborn spouses to missed deadlines and impossibly long to-do lists, Rountree says. That powerful exhale also activates your parasympathetic nervous system. Whereas your sympathetic nervous system activates the stress response — which is where the fight-or-flight instinct comes from — your parasympathetic nervous system activates the relaxation response (the opposite of the fight-or-flight response).

Your breath is also your guide to knowing how far to push your stretch. You’ll probably notice that when you get to the tough part of the stretch, when it starts to hurt, you hold your breath. “The breath helps you notice where to stop your stretch,” Rountree says. Don’t push it further than where you can comfortably keep breathing. She recommends getting your mind and body “calibrated” for stretching by doing some easy stretches first, like side to side neck rolls (gently drop your head and use your chin to trace the line of your collarbone to each side). You get a sense of what a stretch should feel like — a nice, easy tugging feeling, versus extreme anguish.

Open Your Heart