Welcome to your workplace friendly desk yoga practice.
This practice is going to be about the spine.
So when we're sitting at our desk all day long,
Often our spine is in more or less the same position all day long.
The spine actually can move in six directions.
It can bend backwards,
Bend forwards,
Side bend right and left,
And we also have rotation to either side.
But when we're sitting at the desk,
It's just about always a bit of a forward bend and that's it.
Our spines are so important.
When something is wrong in our back,
We feel it.
We know the whole body is impacted.
So let's try out some movements to get the whole back moving and all of its ranges of motion.
So let's start by sitting up nice and tall.
Think about creating a bit of extra space between your lowest ribs and your hip bones,
Letting the crown of your head come up towards the ceiling.
The back of your neck is long and the base of the skull is soft.
Check in if you could feel gravity resting on your shoulders.
And then bring your hands onto your knees.
Take a nice breath in and reach your heart forward.
You could even pull on your legs a bit like you want to reach your chest between your arms.
As you breathe out,
Round your back,
Maybe still keeping your arms long,
Gently pulling on the knees.
Let's do that twice more.
So big breath in.
As you reach the heart forward,
You could lift your chin up to the ceiling and breathing out,
Rounding your back.
You could drop the head to look towards your legs or your belly button.
One more inhale.
Feel all that space in the front of the body.
And as you breathe out,
Rounding the back.
Come all the way up to that tall spine we had just a moment ago.
And you could,
If you wanted to,
Reach your left arm up.
Maybe it reaches to the ceiling,
Maybe it lands on your head.
And then start to get so tall that you tip on over to the right side.
Imagine like you could take a few breaths into the left side of the ribs,
The left side lung expanding a bit more.
Every exhale might allow you to bend just a little bit more to the right.
Inhale real slow.
Find your way back up to sitting tall.
Notice if right and left side feel a little different.
And then let's try that out on the other side.
So right arm could reach all the way up or you could bend at the elbow and hand could rest on the head.
The next time you breathe in,
Get so tall through the spine that just like a little bendy straw,
You can tip on over to the left side.
And then you can bend at the elbow and you can tip on over to the left.
This time breathing that space into the right side of the ribs,
Almost like an accordion here.
Breathing in,
Breathing out.
Next time you breathe in,
Come on up to center.
Breathe out.
Breathe out as you twist to the right side.
Maybe your hands land on your right leg or the arm or the back of the chair.
Breathe in for height.
Breathe out to twist a little more.
Inhale,
Come back to center.
And exhale,
Try out this twist on the left.
Come back to center.
Notice if you feel a little different.
And know that you might not even need to rely on this audio practice.
You know the six movements of your spine now.
See if you can keep incorporating them into your time at your desk.
I hope your spine is feeling fabulous and I will see you later.
Thanks for joining me.
