Some mornings I get out of bed and my body apparently needs a few minutes to review the terms of our agreement. 😂
A little stiff.
A little creaky.
Then I start moving.
And things change.
After all these years of working with bodies, that’s one of the simplest things I’ve learned:
Bodies like to move.
You’ve just spent six, seven, maybe eight hours mostly in one place.
Then you stand up and expect everything to immediately behave like it’s two o’clock in the afternoon.
Sometimes it doesn’t.
Stiff Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Broken
I think this matters, especially as we get older.
It’s easy to feel stiffness in the morning and immediately think:
Well, I guess this is aging.
Maybe.
Or maybe you’ve just been lying still all night.
There are plenty of reasons joints can hurt, and persistent or unexplained pain deserves proper attention.
But ordinary stiffness often responds beautifully to something incredibly complicated:
Moving.
That’s one reason I move every day.
Not heroically.
I move my shoulders.
My hips.
My spine.
My feet.
I stretch.
I contract muscles.
I breathe.
I give my body a chance to wake up before deciding how it’s doing.
Try Something Tonight
Before bed, spend five or ten minutes moving gently.
Nothing heroic.
Move the places that tend to feel stiff in the morning.
Circle your shoulders.
Move your hips.
Work your feet and ankles.
Do a little stretching if that feels good.
Then go to bed.
Tomorrow morning, pay attention.
Do you feel any different?
Maybe you will.
Maybe you won’t.
That’s the experiment.
Your body will tell you more than I can.
And if tonight doesn’t change anything, try a little gentle movement when you first wake up.
No protocol. No miracle cure.
Just move and see what happens.
Sometimes the body isn’t asking to be fixed.
It just wants to get moving again.