Could your posture be better? Sure, I think we can call work on this. But how is your setup working from home? Many of us are now permanently working from home and our set-up isn’t quite ideal. We might be working from the kitchen table, your bed, or even sometimes from the floor. Whether you have the ideal setup (or not) posture is certainly something to pay attention to when typing away at the computer all day long. How would you rate your bad posture?
Maybe your shoulders are a little rounded or you’ve developed a bit of a slouch? We have just the right stretch for you. It is a stretch often seen in yoga—Puppy pose, or uttana shishosana in Sanskrit, and it is a deep backbend that allows you to open up the chest (and heart chakra). It literally targets all of the areas that affect your posture.
The Benefits of a Puppy Pose.
Simply speaking, Puppy Pose is a backbend and there are so many benefits to them. First and foremost you stretch the spine and open up the chest. The more the back arches, the more the front of the body can open up and the more your posture can improve.
On top of that, Puppy Pose is a slight inversion. An inversion is when your heart is higher than your head. A great benefit to an inversion is that it can leave you feeling generally more Zen, so if working at your computer is a bit stressful for the mind too, then this is a win-win for the body AND mind!
How to do Puppy Pose for Bad Posture.
- Begin in a tabletop position with your hands and knees on the ground.
- Bringing your knees together, walk your fingertips forward while dropping your chest onto the mat.
- Unlike child’s pose, you want to keep your hips high. Lift those hips high up toward the ceiling.
- Try to press your chest through your shoulders to the ground.
- Then hold for a couple minutes, if you can.
Modifications.
- Modify: If your knees aren’t confortable you can always put a pillow, blanket or something soft under them. If you can’t quite get your chest to lower without pain, then support your chest with a pillow or roll up a towel and place it under your forehead.
- Make it more challenging: Elevate your arms. For example you can get a deeper stretch by placing your elbows on something a few inches elevated like a step, rolled up towel, etc. Then press your chest through your shoulders and bring your hands to a prayer postion behind your head.
The bottom line is, there’s nothing like a good backbend to help improve your posture. Try working it into one of your work breaks… even if it is just a few tries to take your mind off of work.
