Aging "Awesomely" After Menopause 🧡🥩💪🏼
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? 🧘🏻♀️
Or are you inviting damage to your back?
Wait, what? 🥺
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.
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.
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.
Does that rule out morning exercise then?
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.