Join the Pandiculation Revolution

Give this a try:

Reach your arms high above your head. Make fists and straighten your elbows so you’re stretching and contracting your arm muscles simultaneously. Push down with your feet, stretching your leg muscles and tightening them at the same time. Reach your hands as far away from your feet as you can, elongating your spine. Now opening your hands and stretching your fingers wide, see what it’s like to lean your spine to one side, exaggerating the stretch along one side of your body. Reverse this to feel your other side elongate.  Be aware of your breath coming in through your nose. As you reach back up to center it might feel good to make a sound when you exhale.  A little groaning can be very satisfying.

Still reaching your arms high, let your spine twist clockwise and counterclockwise. Find out what feels good and right to your body in this moment. You might want to scrunch up your face, your eyes, your nose.  Or maybe open your mouth and eyes super wide. 

Now let your arms relax and come down by your sides. Notice how your body feels. Walk around a bit. Tune into your uprightness and into the quality of your movement—are you taller? looser? more awake? more "Yourself"?

 What you just did is called pandiculation.  All animals do it, some of them as many as fifty times a day. This reflexive impulse primes the body's fascia for movement after periods of inactivity.  Yawning is a type of pandiculation.  As we all know, yawning is “contagious”. Maybe you yawned just now.

Hydrate Your Interstitium (Fascia)

Fascia Researcher Robert Schleip, PhD, reports that whole body stretches help keep your fascia hydrated and healthy.  When you pandiculate‑—stretching, twisting and squeezing your tissues and then relaxing—your fascia refills with fluid, like a sponge that has been wrung out. This process tunes both fascia and nervous system, so like a tiger, you’re ready for action.

Unlike our animal cousins, humans often stifle this natural impulse.  We yield to cultural or religious taboos because “The Body” has been a conflicted aspect of our being for so many centuries.  We avoid attracting attention, embarrassed to be attending to our bodies in public or to be seen taking pleasure in physical sensations.  So, we confine our full body stretching to the yoga studio.  But sedentary lifestyles make us need those full body stretches more often than once or twice a week.

What if we were to emancipate our collective body image?  What if we stopped worrying about what others think when we grant our bodies the movement they need? Try giving yourself a juicy moment of pandiculation the next time you get up from a theater seat, climb out of your car, or stand up from a long meeting. You might tempt someone else to emancipate this instinct.  Our fasciae—our interstitiums—need this.

Thank you for reading, and for sharing!

© 2017 Mary Bond, revised 2025.