Tried chair yoga yet? It can help you beat work stress, lack of focus & post-lunch slump

Let’s begin by saying that the term ‘chair yoga’ may sound a little reductive but it literally means the yoga (or at least the yogic stretches) that you can do while sitting on a chair. We feel that it should be a legitimate form of yoga given that we all spend a considerable amount of our lives sitting on chairs (or sofas) as we work (from home or from office), mindlessly browse through social media and shopping sites, or ingest everything served by Netflix and Amazon Prime.

On most days we don’t even get the time to roll out our yoga mats or put on the overpriced athleisure gears that we had invested in, hoping to make yoga a regular habit. However, whether or not we can accommodate yoga in our lives, we know how useful this form of exercise can be to relieve stress, and get our focus back. So, here are a few chair yoga poses that you can try during your lunch break at work, or sneak in between meetings to alleviate your work-related anxiety or overcome the post-lunch productivity slump.

Mountain Pose
Your annoying class teacher may have had a point when she repeatedly asked you to sit straight during her sessions. A chair yoga version of mountain pose requires you to do just that. Just make sure your spine is erect, and disengage from work for 2 minutes.

Try to close your eyes, and deepen your breath; as you do so, with each breath focusing on any bodily irritation that you may feel. Check if you are holding stress in a certain part of your body which may feel like extra tightness in your muscles. Try to relax those muscles. After the two minutes of being in mountain pose, you will see that you will return to your task at hand with renewed energy. Don’t forget to breath deep though.

The Self Love Hug Pose
If your workplace is hectic, or worse toxic, then you will need all the self love you can get. Get away from your computer for a few minutes, sit up straight and synchronize your body with your breath. Once you have done that, extend your hands out and then try to grab your back with opposite hands. Repeat this once with the right hand above the left, and vice versa. As you inhale during the self hug try to lift up your elbows. It will not only give you relief from upper back pain, but will also make you feel loved and refreshed.

Bend Forward
Long meetings or endless zoom calls can be painful, quite literally. Sitting for long hours can not only make our spine weak but also leave us with a terrible lower back pain. If you are someone who faces that, you should try the forward bent pose.

Just sit straight and tall, raise both your hands and then slowly trying to bend forward and touch the floor. Your head will come between your knees, making blood circulation to increase in your brain, and if you breathe deeply you will feel truly relaxed and stress less.

Apart from these three poses also try the seated cat and cow positions if you have back pain and most importantly, if you ever feel overwhelmed try deep breathing. Just a long deep breath can alleviate stress to a great extent.