How to Form a Stretching Habit
Welcome to WeStretch! If you’re here, then you’re probably looking how to form a stretching habit.
Now comes the challenge of making it a consistent habit, to make it a part of your daily routine, but that can be daunting. How do you even get this change started?
Well, one of the biggest steps is just to start. Don’t wait for next Saturday or until you feel that you have time to commit to it. Like Nike always says: “Just Do It.” It only takes twenty-one days to form a habit, after all!
Make an action plan for creating a new stretching habit.
What might help is determining why you want to start stretching. Think about this, talk about it, write it down- however you best process your thoughts. This easy goal-setting process only needs a few minutes.
Maybe you want to be able to touch your toes again or you don’t want to be in pain after playing with the kids in the yard. Maybe you want to do some form of exercise but running or the gym is just too daunting. Whatever the reason is, having a goal to look forward to will help keep you on track.
What excuses are holding you back?
The other side of that is to think of some of the excuses as to why you won’t stretch and dispel them. You don’t have enough time? You can find little pockets of thirty seconds. Don’t have a dedicated space for it?
People have done stretching exercises in kitchens, parks, and bathrooms- find your own little corner!
Do you feel fine without stretching right now? Awesome! But what about in five, ten, or fifty years? Plan for the future!
Visualize that you’ve already achieved your goal.
One of the biggest elements of achieving any goal is to mentally accomplish it. By determining why you want to stretch and squashing the excuses, you have started on your path to success. The next step is to start believing that you will succeed. Believe in yourself, that you can make a habit of stretching, and that you are looking forward to how wonderful your body will feel.
One of the best ways to do this is to focus your thoughts on this right before you go to sleep. By thinking of how you will do it, imagining your body going through the motions before you sleep will help the thought enter your subconscious and allow you to succeed with ease.
