The Breath: Posture & Back Pain Medicine

Did you know that your posture impacts your breath & your breath impacts your posture? In this practice I invite you to try some simple movements, that can be done seated, that will allow you to open up your body, improve your posture & enable a deeper, more fulfilling breath. Following some gentle movements we'll embark on a short breath practice that can help to reduce back pain! This practice is taken from day 6 of my course here on Insight Timer 'The Breath - Your Inner Pharmacy'

Transcript

In this practice,

We'll be looking at some simple movements to help you to open up the body to experience a deeper,

Fuller,

More expansive breath,

Followed by a breathing exercise to help you open the back of your body in order to reduce back pain and improve your posture.

Start by sitting on the edge of your chair or on the floor and for a moment just notice your breathing.

Just notice the breath as it comes in,

Fills the lungs,

Expands your body.

Notice as the breath pours out,

Your body softens and just simply be the observer of your breath.

So for our first movement,

We're going to do a seated version of Cat-Cow.

So for those of you who are familiar with yoga,

You might have done Cat-Cow where we're on all fours and we're moving our spine.

We're going to do a seated version of that.

So sitting on the edge of your chair or on the floor,

Place your hands on your knees and as you breathe in,

Pull forwards on your knees,

Open your chest,

Arch the spine and lift your chin towards the sky.

And as you exhale,

Round through the back,

Allow your arms to straighten,

Pull back on your knees and tuck your chin in.

And repeat this a few times,

Moving as smoothly and as slowly as you can with the breath.

So the inhale pulls you forward,

It opens your chest,

It lifts your chin to the sky.

And the exhale rounds the spine,

Tucking the chin in towards the chest.

Just continue this nice and slowly.

Let's go through two more rounds.

Pause.

Now,

Take your arms and put them in a cactus position.

So your elbows are in line with your shoulders out to the sides.

Your elbows are bent and your fingers are pointing towards the sky like a cactus shape.

Now keep the arms where they are,

Twist to the right and inhale.

Now twist to the left and exhale.

And just keep repeating this,

Moving to the right as you inhale,

Moving to the left as you exhale.

So twisting and moving from the hips.

So you're rotating through the body,

Keeping your arms up,

Keeping your shoulders in line with your elbows,

Your fingers pointed to the sky and gently twisting from left to right as you breathe.

Keeping your spine tall,

Your shoulders open.

Let's do two more rounds on each side and then releasing,

Release the arms,

Come back to centre and just pause and notice.

And now place your right hand behind your bum and your left hand on your right knee.

Inhale to lengthen and exhale to move in a twist to the right.

And this time we'll hold the twist.

So stay in that position for 10 seconds and just breathe.

Take a couple of nice full deep breaths in and out as you remain in this twist.

Take another deep breath in,

Exhale,

Come back to centre.

And then we'll do the same on the other side.

So place your left hand now behind your bum,

Your right hand on your left knee,

Inhale to lengthen,

Exhale as you twist to the left.

We'll stay here for about 10 seconds,

Take a couple of nice full deep breaths as you stay in this twist.

Deep breath in,

Deep breath out,

One more round of breath and then release and just pause for a moment.

Just notice the body,

Notice the breath.

Now place your right hand out to the side.

If you're sat on the floor,

This will be a little easier.

Walk your hand out to the side as far as you can reach whilst keeping both sit bones planted firmly on the floor.

So don't let your bum lift off the floor.

If you're sitting on a chair,

You'll need to let your right arm slide down the edge of the chair towards the floor.

Again,

Don't let your bum come off the chair or the floor,

Only go as far as you can reaching to the side before that happens.

Now lift your left arm up and over your head.

So you should feel a nice stretch through the left side of your body.

And breathe here.

So really breathe into the side of the body,

Breathe into the left side of the body,

Into the left ribs.

Notice as you inhale how the ribs slightly expand and separate.

And when you exhale,

They slowly come back together.

So take another couple of full deep breaths in this extended side stretch.

And then inhale,

Lift yourself back up,

Release both arms back onto your thighs and just notice for a moment.

And now place your left hand out to the side.

Again,

If you're sat on the floor,

Just walk your left hand out away from you.

Coming into a side stretch,

Making sure your bum is staying on the floor so that both sit bones are staying on the floor.

If you're on a chair,

Just slide your left arm down the edge of the chair towards the floor.

Again,

Allow both sit bones to stay connected to the chair.

And then take your right arm up and over your head.

So you should feel a nice stretch through the right side of your body.

And breathe here.

Breathe into the side of your body.

And again,

Notice as you breathe in how the ribs expand and just very slightly move away from each other and open up.

And as you exhale,

They move back together.

So take a couple more full deep breaths in this extended side stretch.

And then slowly release,

Come back to center.

And just notice.

Notice now how the body feels.

Notice now how the breath feels.

Now,

If it's available for you,

Stand up.

If not,

You can remain seated and reach up into the air as high as you can.

Extend all the way through your fingertips.

And if you're standing,

Come onto your tiptoes and keep reaching and keep reaching.

And remember to breathe.

So stay up on your tiptoes.

Keep the arms up in the air.

Reach as high as you can through your fingertips.

If you wobble,

That's totally okay.

Take two more full deep breaths in this position.

And now release the arms down.

Take a couple of moments now just to shake the body in any way.

Just move the body in any way.

Shake your arms.

Shake your legs.

Shake your head.

And then pause.

Sit yourself down if you're not already there.

And just notice how your breathing feels now.

Has it opened up?

Does it feel more free?

And we'll finish with a short practice to open up the back of the body.

Listen carefully to my instructions here as I'll be asking you to bring focus to some quite specific parts of your breath and body.

The invitation during this practice is that your in and out breath are both very slow and tempered.

And I'll talk you through this whole practice.

So sit comfortably and allow your spine to be tall.

And take three deep cleansing breaths.

On your next inhale,

Send your breath towards your tailbone.

And as you continue to breathe in,

Feel the energy and air now travel up the back of your rib cage to lift the ribs off your hips.

As you exhale,

Pull your lower abs up towards your bottom back ribs.

And as you finish exhaling,

Allow your shoulder blades to move down your back,

Lengthening your upper back.

We'll do this a few more times.

Remember,

Really slow,

Very tempered inhales and exhales.

So on your next inhale,

Send your breath towards your tailbone.

As you continue to breathe in,

Feel the air travel up the back of your rib cage to lift the ribs off your hips.

On your exhale,

Pull your lower abs up towards your bottom back ribs.

And as you finish exhaling,

Allow your shoulder blades to move down your back,

Lengthening your upper back.

Next,

Inhale your breath towards your tailbone.

Allow that energy to travel up the back of the ribs,

Lifting the ribs off the hips.

On your exhale,

Pull your lower abs up towards your bottom back ribs.

And as you finish exhaling,

Allow your shoulder blades to move down your back,

Lengthening your upper back.

We'll do this two more times.

On your next inhale,

Send your breath towards your tailbone.

As you continue breathing,

Feel the air travel up the back of your rib cage to lift the ribs off your hips.

On your exhale,

Pull your lower abs up towards your bottom back ribs.

And as you finish exhaling,

Allow your shoulder blades to move down your back,

Lengthening your upper back.

One more time.

On your inhale,

Send your breath towards your tailbone.

As you continue to breathe in,

Feel the air travel up the back of your rib cage to lift the ribs off your hips.

On your exhale,

Pull your lower abs up towards your bottom back ribs.

And as you finish exhaling,

Allow your shoulder blades to move down your back,

Lengthening your upper back.

Beautiful.

So releasing this breath,

And just notice how you feel.

How does your body feel now?

How does your whole breathing process feel?

Reviews

This was great.🤩 I especially love how specific Rachael's instructions are – you're always confident you're doing it correctly, which is so important when it comes to the back. Thank you so so much for this practice, Rachel🙏💚

Liked subtle movements. Could feel my ribs expanding and felt good. Thank you.

Hello beautiful 🎀🌸🎀🌸🎀Thank You so much for the amazing breathing session ☮️☯️I’m feeling like floating in a balloon 🎈🎈🎈have a blessed day 🕉️ Namaste

Rachel, I ABSOLUTELY LOVED THIS!!!! 😁 Your directions were very clear and easy to follow. Each practice felt so good!!! 💜 I admit I was a little weary to try this because of my chronic pain and having had a lower back injury. I was pleased I could do all it without any modifications. I felt really loose and relaxed by the end, yet eager to do it again! This one is a keeper, for sure! 🏆✨️🎉👍🏻🤩

Surprisingly I feel much better. Thank you for the stretching and breath work. I will return to this meditation to help with my back pain🙏