go ahead and yawn!

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Caregiving can be exhausting. If we don’t watch it, expending our physical, mental and emotional energy to care for someone else can leave us depleted. But a simple practice that you do instinctively every morning can give you a quick, satisfying reset.

There’s a word for that full-body “yawn” you do when you get out of bed. It’s called “pandiculation,” and it gives your body a chance to get your muscles—which have been at rest—to come back on line.

In addiiton to juicing up your connective tissue, pandiculation wakes up your nervous system. The biiiiig sloooow streeeetch provides information back to the brain in a feedback loop, so muscles can contract and then relax, leaving us with a sense of physical and emotional contentment. It’s a necessary instinctive reset—if you have companion animals, you’ve seen them do this, too. And you can nudge it along by voluntarily pandiculating when you change positions or need to shift mental gears during your day.

Go ahead—pandiculate your bad self right now.

Did you notice a lengthening, contraction and maybe even a vocalization? It’s like a supersized yawn, which releases built-up tension (that’s why dogs yawn when they’re nervous). Keep going, and be sure to notice how you involve the center of your body, too, when you pandiculate. That’s one of the differences between a “stretch” and pandiculation—pandiculation is not just about local muscles.

Add an actual yawn, and you’ll provide even more benefit to your system. That yawn may have been forced, but if you do it enough times you’re bound to conjure up a real one. Looking at others yawn—or even reading words like this and thinking about yawning—can coax one along. You know you’ve hit the jackpot when your eyes begin to water. Think of all the tissues involved in making that feel-good movement getting hydrated right now!

While you may want to cover your yawn when you’re in some places, you should feel free to yawn and pandiculate during your movement classes, and several times during your day. In addiiton to the physical benefits, yawning shows empathy. What a gratifying way to connect with other students and your teacher—as well as yourself.

Head over to my YouTube channel to try some guided pandiculation—and subscribe to get notified when I share more ways you can nurture yourself while you’re caring for others.