Wait an Hour, Save Your Back

You wake up at 6 am and wander out to living room, still sleepy eyed, to put in your favorite yoga or workout DVD. You are doing your body good, sticking to your commitment, right? 🧘🏻‍♀️⁣
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Or are you inviting damage to your back?⁣
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Wait, what? 🥺⁣
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When you wake up in the morning after (hopefully) 8 hours horizontal, the discs of your spine are fully hydrated and endure much higher stresses when they are bent. Exercise stresses the spine about 3 times more in the first hour out of bed.⁣
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Whether it is movement from doing a crunch or a yoga pose, or from pressure of force, like in a plank or shoveling the snow in the driveway, you are straining the layers of collagen in the spinal discs.⁣
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Your risk depends on the shape of your discs and the thickness of your spine, and more than likely you won’t feel when it is being damaged until too late.⁣
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Does that rule out morning exercise then?⁣
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Not at all. Within an hour of being upright, 90% of the extra fluid will have dissipated, making exercise much safer. So wait an hour to get started. Use that time to journal, mediate, get caught up of Facebook, get a little morning sun and fresh air, get your lunch packed – THEN do your workout.⁣