10-Minute Office Yoga at Your Desk
Do you spend a chunk of your day or the majority sitting at a desk? Whether it is working in an office or at a desk at home, there’s no doubt that you’ve felt the discomfort that comes up when you’ve been sitting for a long period of time. You know the slouchy feeling that comes from the hours spent sedentary and looking at a screen. Shoulders curled inwards, neck bent down, low back tight and painful, and tightness in your body overall. It has become more popularly known that sitting all or most of the day can be harmful to your health, but there are still ways of moving to benefit your being. Even at your desk.
Your body craves movement, it wants to use your muscles, move among your joints, and circulate blood flow throughout your body and brain. That is what we are meant to do – is move. But, it is quite common for workdays to be spent sitting down at a desk. I understand that in today’s day and age sometimes we don’t have much of a choice other than sitting at a desk and doing what needs to be done. There are some solutions to help the issue of sitting for long periods. You can have reminders to get up and walk around every 30 minutes, a standing level desk, or taking a few minutes to do some office yoga.
Do you ever have those moments when you are craving a stretch without even realizing it? Reaching your arms up and stretching like you just woke up or taking some neck rolls. Is it sometimes because you are feeling pain in certain areas? That could be due to tightness in certain areas and the long periods of sitting.
There is hope, though! Taking some time throughout your day, regularly, can help open up your body and decrease pain symptoms.
The curving forward that tightens and closes off the front side of your body also can make you sleepier than you’d like to be, not so alert, and even lowering of your mood. Some studies have even shown that increased screen time correlates with prevalence of depression, in part due to looking downward at a screen, which creates a posture of closing up. This is why taking even just a few minutes during your day to wake up your body, open up, clear and wake up your mind can be quite beneficial for you and your work day.
With an increase in popularity of workplace yoga classes, the many benefits of practicing yoga at work are apparent. These benefits include reducing stress, increasing focus, boost immunity, improving posture, increasing confidence, boost morale, improvement of digestion, increasing energy, improving breathing, and increasing flexibility. Workplace classes are awesome because a yoga teacher comes in and you are able to practice in a class type of setting at your actual place of work. The class setting is helpful for having someone that is guiding you and giving you cues for your practice. Whether it is a workplace class, an online guided sequence, or a short practice at your desk, like the following sequence in this article, the benefits are there.
This is a sequence that doesn’t have to take more than 10 minutes of your time. I have a feeling that just those 10 minutes will help your productivity level in the day. You can do it anywhere you’d be sitting in a chair for some time, even at the office. You cak absolutely get creative with these sequences, going in the order you wish, and experiementing with different movements. For timing purpose, you can set a timer for 10 minutes that you will spend doing the postures. If the timer feels too abrupt or restricitve on time, a more fun way coul dbe setting a playlist for about 10 minutes of music of your choosing, or finding a good instrumental for background music on youtube or any site you prefer.