Reset Your Body for a Fresh Start

Three self-care moves will leave you energized and ready for a new beginning.

You’ve made up your mind to start a new chapter in 2017, but if you’re carrying the mental and physical burdens of 2016, it’s going to be slow going. The good news is that you can use simple movement-based techniques to help release the literal or metaphorical load and restore a measure of flexibility and equilibrium. Here are a self-care technique and two body-release exercises from Jill Miller, self-care expert and creator of “Treat While You Train,” that are designed to help you press the reset button and feel ready for anything.

To get started, you’ll need one Coregeous Ball.

Lumbar Lift

Equipment: Coregeous Ball

Your lower back is where all your core support muscles interconnect, and it’s an area that’s often long-suffering. Refueling this area gives your lumbar region a lift that benefits the rest of your body. Consider this move as a way to erase the slump from last year and put a jet pack on your back — so you can leave the grind behind you and move forward into the future!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LytBKP3isg

Whole-Body Drum

Equipment: None

Tapotement is a massage therapy technique that involves light drumming or tapping. For this exercise, you’ll hold your breath to transform your core into a tubular percussion instrument. Holding your breath and releasing it helps the Golgi tendon organs that connect to your breathing muscles induce deep relaxation throughout those same muscles. You will look silly (I wish I were doing this in a closet, too), but you’ll feel great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETM2AH35dAY

Roll Up, Roll Down

Equipment: None

Susan Klein, founder of the Susan Klein School of Movement and Dance, taught this slow-motion technique to me when I was a modern dancer 20 years ago. Each bone in your spine moves independently. As you slowly articulate the entire front and back of your body, you let go of tension and feel restored. It’s a gradual release that should take a full five minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OI3nZ_b5qc

Photography: Todd Domenic Cribari, InspiroStudio.com

Hair and make-up: Mariah Nicole Buian, MariahNicole.com