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(Return to
Mindfulness off the Mat list)
In yoga class, we stretch and exercise the muscles with finely tuned
attention and care. This, as we all know, can do wonders with preventing
injury and improving our overall health—physically and mentally.
Unfortunately, life outside of class rarely works with such stellar
precision. Without even realizing it, we perform many activities throughout
our day that can undermine our bodies’ integrity. And while yoga and other
forms of exercise can help offset these risks, we’re still vulnerable to the
influences of repetitive stress. Part of the goal of mindfulness is that it
helps us increase our awareness of how we move throughout the day, at which
point we can hopefully initiate changes to reduce the risk of repetitive
stress injuries.
Take, for example, the way you sit at the computer. How is your posture?
Ideally, you should be able to position yourself in neutral spinal position,
with feet hip-distance, knees and hips flexed at 90° angles each, feet flat
on the floor (or a foot stool), head and neck in neutral posture, elbows
near your sides, bent at around 90° also. Sounds a bit like a yoga posture,
doesn’t it? And as with our yoga technique, without key postural elements in
place, you can put your muscles and joints at risk. Knowing this, see if you
can further attune (if you haven’t already; most people become much more
alert to these things once they learn them in class) yourself to these
rather mundane activities. How do you stand in line at the grocery store?
How do you sit watching TV? In what positions do you sleep? As you set out
to make corrections where possible, here is a suggestion to make the process
more enjoyable: each time you realize the need to alter your position,
whether it is sit up “straight” or rising up from a chair using the other
leg for a change, reinforce the modification by taking four abdominal
breaths, with an option to stretch your arms overhead à la Full Body
Stretch. You will have sealed the correction with a momentary relaxation,
thus negating the stress of altering a source of repetitive…..well, stress!
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