Being sensitive to how I feel

29th Jan 2012
75.2kg

I try to understand what is happening to me and work out why.
Stress is a big problem. When I am stressed I don't feel like doing anything, I get head aches and my hips and shoulders get tight.
I had already read in my yoga magazine that tight hips reduce circulation to the legs and I have a great hip stretching routine that I do once or twice a week. The last few months I have cut back to once a week and have even missed a week.
Yesterday I noticed that my ankles were a bit puffier than usual. I didn't really know why at the time but I have done a few things to reduce my stress (making lists so I know everything will get done for my US trip) and today my ankles are a bit better. Why I think? Probably because stress tightens my hips and less stress relaxes them a bit and my circulation improves. So this morning I did some hip stretching and shoulder stretching. On Monday I will go and have a massage. A massage is the only way to loosen up the muscles I have I found.

My yoga is very important to me. I have a basic workout on PDF made up of poses I like.
You can download it from my GoogleDocs.


Also I have my hip stretching routine on PDF. Some of these poses I could only manage with my hands on the floor for support and my hips not even touching the floor and also bending forward just didn't happen. But now I can get into the right positions quite easily since my hips are much more flexible. It took about three weeks at twice a week to make some progress. Boy my hips were tight. You have to be careful trying to stretch the hip muscles because they are really strong and you don't want to tear anything so go slow.
You can download the hip exercises from my GoogleDocs

Cheers,
Val