Headed on a Road Trip? How to Make Your Body Feel Better

If you’ve ever been in a car for an extended period of time, you know the toll all that cramped sitting takes on your body. The tight neck and hips, the slouched back, the numb butt… the list goes on and on.

That’s why we talked to yoga expert Chad Dennis, who’s gone on tour with Maroon 5 the last eight years, to find how yoga — and yoga-inspired breathing and stretching exercises — can combat the effects of road trips.

The seated position in the car “goes against our inherent blueprint and structure of our body,” Dennis tells Yahoo Health. For instance, our shoulders tend to rise up and roll forward, “which kind of disables your capacity to breathe at a deeper level and shallows your breath,” he explains. To combat this, he suggests checking his breath whenever gets into a car, with a kind of “seated mountain pose.”

“I sit in my car, say ‘Everything is going to be OK,’ and I just take a second to close my eyes and check in,” he says. “It’s not any crazy meditation thing, it’s just pausing before the journey begins to try to set a mental state that we hope will carry through that journey, whether it’s 15 minutes or five hours long.” 

If you’re taking a very long car ride, he suggests stopping the car for stretch breaks. He recommends doing a runner’s stretch, which stretches out the quadriceps. To do it, stand facing your car (about a foot-and-a-half away) and put your left hand on the door for balance. Then, slowly lift your right foot and draw it toward your buttocks, pulling your heel close to your butt.

Another stretch Dennis recommends is a gentle shoulder stretch. To do this, get out of the car and face the same direction that the front of your car is facing, with your body about a foot away from the driver-side door. Then, take your right hand and reach back so that your hand is on the car. Gently move your body forward so that your right arm is stretched.

For more stretches that can help after long periods spent in a car, watch the video above starring model Bar Refaeli, from Buick’s “24-Hours of Happiness Test Drive” content series.

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