Do you wake up with stiff joints or tight muscles? Are you tired even after a full night of sleep? Do you need coffee or tea in the morning to get going? A few simple changes to your habits of breathing, moving, and even thinking, can energize your every morning, provide stress relief and get you ready to take on the world!

Thinking is Your Starting Point

Start your day off on the right foot by creating a strong mental intention. Here’s how it works: before going to sleep at night, visualize the next morning. Imagine yourself waking up feeling ready and alert, and put this feeling into a sentence you can silently repeat to yourself. This is your intention.

Creating an intention is a powerful and effective way of addressing unconscious habits and transforming them into conscious and beneficial actions. In order to wake up ready to go, choose Brand Cialis an intention that puts you right where you want to be each morning. For example:

-I launch into my day.

-I wake up feeling supple and energized.

-I create a great day with my first conscious breath.

Plant this intention like a seed in your mind before going to sleep, upon waking up, and during your breath and movement sequences. Use it as a meditation to relieve stress from your mind!

Breathing Gets You Going

Breath can equalize, calm, or stimulate the body depending on how it is used. When inhalations and exhalations are the same length and effort, the body’s systems and emotions are equalized. Making your exhales longer than your inhales calms the body and reduces tension. And making your inhales more active stimulates the body and mind.

Now that we know this, we can use a longer, fuller inhale to get us up and going in the morning. Experiment with longer, bigger, fuller inhalations, and imagine how those same breaths would set you up for success in the morning when you most need it. Breathing also has less calories than coffee, is free, and non-addictive!

Movement Prepares You for the Day

Moving requires your brain and muscle to work together and your blood circulation to increase. Since our goal is to prepare and wake body and mind for the day, I suggest you focus on the three biggest bang-for-your-buck regions of shoulders, hips and feet. Here are two simple exercises to get you going!

For the feet: 25% of your body’s bones are located in the feet and ankles, the home of all our balance and connection to the earth. So wake your feet up with simple ankle circles in both directions, and by pointing and flexing the feet to get circulation going through the entire body.

Hips & Shoulders: Major nerves and circulation pathways run through from your head and torso through your shoulders and hips to your hands and feet. Opening the physical pathways brings in more nourishment and wakes up your nervous system. A simple yoga exercise will reach both areas: lying on your back, draw your left leg across your body to the right, while drawing the left shoulder down towards the floor. Breathe deeply into the twist, and allow it to deepen after several seconds. Release back to the center, and repeat on the other side. You can do more yoga exercises at home with a yoga DVD targeted to your specific needs.

Waking up sluggish, tired and uncomfortable doesn’t have to be a life sentence, and with a few simple practices you can start your day with a spring in your step!

Author Bio: Alex Iglecia is a Certified Yoga Tune Up® Teacher. Experience yoga pain relief exercises that help you live better in your body!

Category: Wellness, Fitness and Diet
Keywords: breathing,meditation,stretch,yoga therapy,yoga exercise