3 yoga techniques when your mobility is limited
When we feel under the weather it can really take a mental toll and doing yoga seems out of reach. We all experience situations in our lives where we are physically limited. It could be due to an ad-hoc injury, chronic back pain which concern 80% of people during their life, pregnancy preventing us to move as much as we would like to or simply a time where we feel very low energy.
While you may think Yoga is not an option, there are actually lots of things you can do to unwind physically and bring you to a sense of calm. One of my strong belief about yoga is that it is accessible to anyone having a body and a mind and willing to treat themselves. So basically all of us.
So here are my go-to practices when I feel physically crap (and it happens to us all don’t you feel lonely!).
1. Chair Yoga
Chair Yoga consists in stretching your upper body (head, neck, shoulders and back mainly, and you can also include your upper legs) while siting. Our sedentary way of living naturally builds tension into those areas, and if you add some stress due to a temporary lack of mobility, tension keeps accumulating. Stretching to create movement and space is key to unwind.
Finding a comfortable sited position, making sure that there is no tension in your legs if you are sitting on the floor (tips: support yourself with a block, a bolster or a book as high as you need to have your hips above your knees), in an attitude of relaxed alertness. Keeping your spine straight, with your hands resting on your laps. You can close your eyes or not.
Here are some exercises you can do to unwind:
- Draw circles with your head in one direction and the other
- Place your hands on your shoulders and draw circles with your elbows in one direction and the other
- Interlace your hands and extend your arms in front of you, inhale float your arms to the sky and exhale bring your hands in front of you (like if there was an imaginary wall you want to push against) and round the back (sited cat and cow basically)
- Put your right elbow on top of the left one, palm against palm if you can, lift your elbows at a 90 degrees angle with your torso, keeping your back straight and bow the head to deepen the stretch if you need. Change the cross of your elbows and repeat.
- Inhale arm float to the sky and exhale, twisting on the right using your left hand at the outside of your right leg and create a friction to help the twist. Make sure you lengthen the spine before twisting and use your exhale to deepen the twist. Your gaze is on your right shoulder but if too intense you can look to the side.
- Bring your right ankle on your left knee and forward fall, releasing your head neck and shoulders down. Change side.
- Open your hips wide, legs to the side, knee bent and fall forward releasing head neck and shoulders, placing your hands or fingertips on the floor (or try to reach for it!).
2. Breathing exercise
Breathing is something we never think about because it happens no matter what but it’s a very powerful tool to check-in with ourself, and calm our entire system.
When we connect to our breath, we instantly relax and go into our parasympathetic nervous state, our rest and digest state. This state allows the body to repair, regenerate, rejuvenate, digest, balance our hormones, etc. It also stimulates creative thinking, helps clear the mind and balance emotions. We spend most of our life in Fight or Flight – when our body is in response mode in order to protect itself for survival – and we cannot be in both states at the same time so it’s very important to find ways to trigger our rest and digest mode as well.
Breathing for 3 minutes can slow your entire system down and make you feel more focused and grounded
It can be as simple as closing your eyes (or keeping them opened) and observing your inhalation and exhalation cycle for 3 minutes. Another accessible technique is box breath. You match the count of inhale-hold-exhale-hold. For example, you inhale for a count of 1, 2, 3 and 4, hold for 1, 2, 3 and 4, exhale 1, 2, 3 and 4 and hold for 1, 2, 3 and 4.
The slow holding of breath allows CO2 to build up in the blood and stimulates your parasympathetic system. This produces a calm and relaxed feeling in the mind and body. It can also help treat insomnia by allowing you to calm your nervous system at night before bed.
3. Meditation
Meditation is often associated with Buddha, staying still for hours under a tree. But meditation starts by being mindful and present in what you do. Whether you eat, read, walk, watch a movie (how many times do you check your phone while being on Netflix? I know I do it a lot too), try to concentrate on what you do.
Meditation can also be with listening to a voice guiding you, listening to music, to nature surrounding you, fixing an object in front of you (I tried with a flame some time ago and this was pretty catchy for me, remember I have ADHD so meditating is clearly very hard for me) so whatever works for you to be absorbed by the present moment.
Next time you feel down, which practice will you pick to boost your mood and look after yourself?
