Yoga in the Office

For those of us with office-based jobs and more sedentary lifestyles, we can easily spend up to 12 of our 16 waking hours sitting. Whilst the human body is designed for sitting, the way we sit causes tightness and misalignments in our bodies.

These postural problems are a big cause of musculo-skeletal disorders (MSDs) which includes neck pain, back pain, sciatica, frozen shoulder etc).

Common postural problems caused by sitting at desk or PC:

• The head hangs forward off the neck, and the neck loses its curve
• Rounded or sloped shoulders, stooped posture
• Eye and jaw muscles tighten up
• Sitting on the sacrum and loss of lordosis (curve) in lower back (rounding of the back)
• Breathing becomes more rapid and shallow
• Hands/wrists held in one fixed posture (performing repetitive keyboard operations)

If they are not corrected, these postural problems can result in neck pain, back pain, headaches, tiredness, wrist pain and carpel tunnel syndrome, poor circulation, digestive problems, increased anxiety, stiffness in hips shoulders etc.

Yoga can help you self-correct and catch these misalignments before they cause you long-term harm. Yoga postures can be modified into a set of exercises that you can do at your desk.

Watch a 10 min video of Office Yoga Exercises.

By practicing yoga regularly, and doing these exercises for 10 mins everyday at your desk, you will reduce your risk of coronary heart disease and MSDs and significantly increase your overall health and wellbeing.

For more information on yoga and yoga classes/personal tuition visit: http://myyoga.org.uk/index.htm

Antar Mouna: essential preparation for meditation

Whilst it is important for us to have a meditation 'technique'. Technique (and effort of any kind) can only take us so far. Meditation is a process of 'allowing'. It is one way we can stop the incessant struggle that is living, stop fighting with ourselves and stop categorising our world into good or bad, this and that.

A perfect practice uses 'what is', the stuff of our lives to develop our meditative expertise. And the practice of Antar Mouna does this particularly well.

Antar Mouna, or inner silence, focuses on the 'everyday stuff' of life as the object of attention. By allowing the senses to be - to notice the kids playing, the drill hammering, the TV in the other room, the smell of drains! - we allow them to withdraw from the external and be more and more internalised.

In the practice of Antar Mouna, which should be guided by a good teacher, a preliminary process of settling, preparation and stilling is followed by a process of 'noticing'. You notice how your body is: sensations, feelings, taking awareness carefully and mindfully around the body.

Increasingly in this simple practice, the miracle is when the witness consciousness begins to develop: that part of us that simply observes, without judgement or attachment.

Then whatever is 'out there' this day, is noticed: sounds that come to the ears; listening from all directions, moving from sound to sound. Tastes are noticed. Lingering tastes inside the mouth. Then smell. Then even colours behind the closed eyelids.

The practice is done either seated or lying and with closed eyes.

By allowing sensations and the senses, they eventually become unimportant, they cease to be the focus and the senses are drawn inward for the most important work to begin!

Antar Mouna is an essential preparation for any meditative practice.

Find out more about meditation on MyYoga website.