Focused Stretch for Better Sleep | SilverSneakers

To help you fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer, longer holds of gentle stretching combined with focused breathing may help you to relax your mind and body and improve your overall quality of sleep. Before we get started, I want to tell you about Silver Sneakers Live. Silver Sneakers Live features classes created for you with a variety of strength, cardio, mind-body classes and more to help you achieve your fitness goals, all led by certified instructors. And this comes at no additional cost to you. Click on the link in the description box below to check your eligibility. I have four mobility stretches to prepare us for our longer hold gentle stretches. Let's begin by opening our legs so that the corner of the chair is between our thighs. Toes are towards the corner of the room. Reach your arms up, palms are forward, shoulders are relaxed and down. Draw your elbows down to the tops of your hips as you lift your heels up. And then we'll stretch to the corners of the room as we press the heels down. Inhale and draw together. Exhale, press and stretch. One more time. Keep your heels anchored to the floor, draw your elbows down, relax your shoulders and then roll your shoulders forward, up, back and down. Connect with your breathing and do that one more time. Pause. Inhale, lengthen your spine. Reach up towards the ceiling and on the exhale, rotate your heart to the right. Come back to center and rotate to the left. Think about what would be your maximum range of motion and then back off to working about 70% of that range of motion. Pause in the center, float your arms down and bring your knees back together. Sitting forward in the chair, hands on your thighs, our last stretch will mobilize through the spine. So lengthening through the spine, we'll hinge forward from the hips just about halfway. And then we'll stretch our hands down the front of our knees as we round our spine, drawing our chin towards our chest. Then lift your heart, lengthen your spine, hinging halfway, push through your feet, lift your chest up nice and tall. Two more times, connect with your breathing. And again, think about what is your maximum range of motion and then back off and see how you feel working at about 70%. Beautiful. All right, so get your second chair so that it's right in front of you. And our first exercise is called a seated cliffhanger. Now I'm going to use a pillow to put between my thighs and my belly to help support me as I come into this forward position. I want gravity to do its job without pulling me beyond that 70% where I might feel comfortable through my spine. So I'm going to fold mine up. I even have a blanket on the seat in front of me just to lift myself up a little bit. You might play with that, find what's best for you. So we'll start by putting our forearms on the chair in front, just kind of seeing how we feel as we settle in. And then stretch your arm out in front. Now depending on the chair that you're using, you might stretch to the seat of the chair or maybe to the top of the chair. That's quite a stretch right there. Find what's going to work for you. And then as you let gravity just draw you down, let your chin float towards your chest. Let your spine just kind of relax and settle in. Notice where you might be holding a little bit of tension. Sometimes I feel this in my hips if I'm not consciously aware of just kind of letting that go. You might imagine maybe a principle of being like a wet noodle. And a noodle would just relax and just kind of fold down, float down, ease into the position, letting gravity just draw it down. And then connect with your breathing. Inhale maybe to a count of four and exhale to a count of four. Finish with one more breath. And on your exhale, I'm going to push into my forearm, lift my chest, walk my hands back. And then I'm going to roll my shoulders back and down and get a little stretch for my chest. And then we'll repeat on the other side. Folding forward on your forearms, opposite hand stretches to the back of the chair. And then use your breath just to help you settle into the stretch. Not forcing anything. Allowing your shoulder to relax, your hips, your neck. Reconnect to your breath. In on a count of four and out on a count of four. And then let's lift our chest. Take your hand off the back of the chair. Walk up and then roll your shoulders back. All right, I'm going to take my pillow and put it down. Our next exercise is for our hamstring. So the leg that's closest to me, you can lift it up on the chair and you can position your chair a little closer to you, a little farther away. Depends on the length of your leg. We'll lift up nice and tall. You might want to have the pillow between your belly and your thigh because we're going to fold our heart forward again, letting our chest come towards our thigh. And I want to relax through my spine. I want to relax through my hip and my hamstring. Again, that principle of like being a wet noodle helps us to learn to relax through our muscles and our joints. We just want to find that 70, even 60 percent of what would be maybe your maximum range of motion. There's actually some nice research says that you get better mobility and flexibility if you're backing off and maybe working to a lesser degree of what would be your maximum range of motion in the stretch. Connecting with your breath, just kind of settling in. And then we'll lift up here, rotate your heart to that long leg and then come back to center. And let's do the other side. So I'm going to take this off, other leg on. Whoops, sometimes you get stuck there. And then decide what you might need for tools. Maybe the pillow underneath your foot elevates you too much. So finding what works for you and then settling in. We'll inhale here and on the exhale, we'll walk back up, lengthening our spine and then rotate your heart to the direction of that longer leg. Come back to center. We'll take this foot off and put it back down. And then gentle fists as if you're holding something delicate. Put them on the backs of your hips, maybe even on the sides of your hips if coming all the way back isn't right for you. And then lift your heart and stretch back. Get a nice stretch through your chest. I feel this a little bit in the front of my rib cage, along the front of my shoulders. Now, sometimes there is a little bit of tension as you're kind of easing into the stretch. But I want to think about my feet being heavy into the ground. I want to relax through my shoulders, let my shoulder blades kind of melt down towards the floor. And then again, finding just that 70% of what might be my maximum range of motion as I let my shoulders relax, just kind of back and down. Let's take one more deep breath in and out. Lift your chest, release your arms, roll your shoulders back and down. That was amazing. I love taking the time to settle into a stretch and just give myself permission to breathe and sink and feel. I hope you feel more relaxed, mind and body, and ready for a great night's sleep. And I'll see you in the morning for another great workout.