Great Yoga Poses to Do Next to Your Office Desk
Yoga is a culture of health and wellbeing, and when you start introducing it into your working lifestyle, the results are overwhelmingly positive. Participants experience improvements in their health, fitness, stress levels and cognitive functioning.
Weird though it may seem, exercise and yoga poses don’t aggravate aching joints, but can actually help to relieve joint pain. Practising yoga should really be a way of life, as it brings about balance and equilibrium, and studies show that people who do yoga require far less medical treatment than those who don’t do yoga and that it creates strength and flexibility of the spine. In fact, even Western doctors are now big believers in yoga.
We look at great yoga poses to do next to your office desk which will not only improve your posture but also relieve stress, in this article.
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Wrist and Finger Stretches
This is a super cool yoga exercise as you don’t even need to leave your desk. Constant pressure on your fingers and wrists as you work the computer mouse builds up tension in the muscles and tendons in these areas. Repetitive motions can create weakness, pain and stiffness and wrist and finger stretches bring much needed blood flow to the fingers, hands, and wrists.
This is a praying position stretch. Stand at your desk, put your palms together as if to pray, elbows touching each other and hands in front of face. While pressing palms together, spread your elbows slowly apart, lowering your hands till the reach waist height or even lower to your navel and hold the stretch for as long as 30 seconds and repeat.
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Sit and Stand Chair Pose
Seated for hours at a time may not reveal damage to your body immediately, but you’re slowly increasing your risk of heart disease, you’re losing 1% of bone mass each year and you’ll be experiencing weight gain which will refuse to budge even if you’re eating less.
While seated, your knees must be bent 90 degrees and your feet flat. Press down from your heels, all the while trying not to move your feet toward your chair, and raise yourself to a standing position. From standing go slowly back down into a seated position, without leaning forward and shifting the hips to one side or the other. You can repeat this exercise up to 10 times.
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Desk Plank Pose
With this yoga exercise you use your desk for supporting the spine- and hamstring-stretching pose. Place your hands shoulder-width distance at the desk edge, and step your feet back until they are directly under your hips. You’ll notice a pleasant sensation with traction in your spine. You can try to hold 5 breaths.
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Scale Pose
Sit at the edge of your chair and press your hands down on either side of the chair. Raise your butt and your hips clear off the chair, keeping the tops of your shoulders down. Hold for about 3 breaths and then lower yourself back into a seated position on your chair before repeating. You’ll feel how it works your abdominal muscles.
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Forward Fold
Bend forward and drop your arms to the floor so that your fingertips touch the ground. Turn your neck as though you’re nodding yes and no to release tension in the neck. Keep your weight even in the balls of your feet. You’ll feel the stretch in your hamstrings.
Conclusion
Our desk-bound jobs are putting more stress on our bodies and minds, with most people forgetting that movement and particularly yoga is a way to recharge. With yoga, the focus isn’t only on strengthening muscle and improving fitness, but on your whole system, and optimum health is made possible because all organs are functioning properly. For people with back and neck pain, yoga can be especially helpful in alleviating those pain points.
If you set aside just a few minutes during the day to stretch those tight muscles and take some deep breaths with these yoga poses, you won’t only ward off stress and pain, you’ll have the added bonus of finding peace and serenity.
References:
PlosOne. A yoga program for cognitive enhancement:
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0182366
Yoga Journal. Why More Western Doctors Are Now Prescribing Yoga Therapy:
https://www.yogajournal.com/lifestyle/western-doctors-prescribing-yoga-therapy
10 Beginner Friendly Yoga Poses to Relieve Back Pain and Strengthen Your Back:
http://ergonomictrends.com/beginner-yoga-poses-relieve-back-pain-strengthen-back/