Yoga Poses That Encourage Good Posture

For many of us in today’s world our working day consists of being slouched over a desk peering at a laptop, without a taking a break for hours. We’re so used to being in this position that we don’t even think twice about it but that’s exactly what we should be doing … thinking about our posture.

It was recently reported that one of the major and most frequent causes for people to be off work was back pain. While many companies are trying to address this issue through health and safety practices many of us still continue to suffer.

When poor posture is repeated every day, our body’s structure slowly changes and adapts to it, resulting in misalignment and pain.

Good posture requires us to be aware of our bodies and how we feel.

Maintaining good posture shouldn’t be difficult and there are a number of yoga poses that can help stretch the spine and ease neck and back pain. Although these are the areas mostly associated with bad posture it’s worthwhile to remember that our feet are just as important when it comes to posture and balance.

Mountain Pose (Tadasana) and Tree Pose (Vrksasana) encourage and promote good posture and help realign and balance the body as well as aid concentration.

We start in Tadasana (Mountain Pose)

• Stand with your feet together, firmly and evenly on the ground.
• Relax your shoulders and lengthen your neck. Let your arms hang by your sides, palms facing outwards and look straight ahead.
• Maintain straight upright posture, hold and breath normally.

From Mountain Pose bend your right knee and place the sole of your foot high up against the inner left thigh as we move into Tree Pose.

• Keeping your left leg straight breathe in and raise arms out by sides to shoulder level, palms facing up and breathe out.
• Stretch and extend your arms over your head and place the palms of your hands together. You should feel a nice stretch in your shoulder blades. Hold and breathe normally.
• Lower your arms down by your sides and bring your right foot to the floor.
• Repeat the posture on the other side.