We all know the stiffness and pain that comes with sitting at a desk all day and night, slightly alleviated with a stretch or two. Cue: the standing work revolution and strange multitasking contraptions like treadmill desks. However, solutions to the inevitable stiffness that comes from focused work don’t need to be extreme (aka. you don’t need to build a jungle gym at work). As humans, we mostly need to move in a variety of ways throughout the day to counter this. What we need is an effective non-time-consuming antidote to stiffness that goes beyond standing up every 20 minutes or reflexive stretching. 

This is where we can develop a keen sense of our proprioception: or how the body moves (or doesn’t!) in space. Stiffness or aching is the body’s signal to move. When we remain fixed in our form, our stiffness eventually morphs into stagnancy or learned habituation. The continued effect of this goes far beyond some aches and pains, but literally losing our ability to change or adapt. Our desire to live fully, open to new potentialities around us, is then about continually ‘reshaping’ ourselves in a dynamic sense. Part of grasping this beyond a concept is to be physically aware of the various spirals that make up our bodies (and frankly, the world around us! Think sea shells, ferns, tree rings, whirl pools, galaxies. Nature doesn’t do straight lines!). Within our bodies are endless spirals that make up the intricate webs of our soft tissues, organs and even bones. Even our heart is actually a muscle shaped more like a rope spiralling in on itself than one single chunk of an organ. 

We are meant to fold, unfold, twist, and expand = the very motions that happened when we developed in the womb to create the series of pouches, pockets, and tubes that gave birth to the genius of our internal organs and structures. Though you may feel tense, tight and constricted — your natural way of being is soft, fluid and at ease. Applying our ability to settle and spiral promotes the movements that allows us more ease, connection, pleasure and freedom throughout life. So, we need a mini practice of “settling and spiralling” as an antidote to the impulses of stiffness throughout the day to keep us supple and energized.