Is Your Life In Balance?
Will Yoga make me taller? This question is posed by many beginning students, thanks to urban legend and the long, lean look of many yoga students. Even though we get letters at Yoga.com asking about this, yoga does not make you grow or "stretch your spine", but it does improve your posture, which gives the same effect. Many of us have an unhealthy posture. Slouched when we walk, hunched over our keyboard at work, or lazy leaning in the car while we sit in traffic; we could all use some strengthening to improve posture, and yoga is a great way to get that strength. Many poses help us boost our vital core strength, and some are even targeted at our back and abdominal muscles - the key components of great posture. Awareness of the body and alignment is the most essential thing that is offered by yoga that helps one improve their posture. If you know how your body is out of alignment, you can learn how to stand and sit straighter and more effortlessly.
Starting yoga can be very challenging with bad posture. We have to reacquaint ourselves with our own body, bringing our focus to the alignment of every part of our body as we move through the Asanas. It truly teaches us that we are interconnected, and our mental body is equally a part of that equation.
Stress is a major cause of back pain and poor posture. Our emotions create poor posture. If we are sad, we might slouch, if we are elated, we may over-curve ourselves by puffing our chest out. Yoga helps us achieve total balance, and is a holistic workout that can heals our bad posture from both sides by strengthening and stretching our muscles for healthy posture, and helping us wash away tension, to work our way towards a healthy, strong posture, and a pain-free back. Here are some great Yoga techniques for improving your posture:
Mountain Pose. This pose, called Tadasana, may look like you are just standing, but it brings your full attention into creating a total alignment within your body - from your feet to your shoulders. Getting mentally engaged in creating your posture will raise your overall awareness of the way you carry yourself. Have your teacher show you how you are standing, and where the misalignments are and how to correct them. Look at yourself in a mirror. Is one shoulder leaning? Is one shoulder higher? What about the line of your body from top to bottom? If you stand with your side at the mirror, notice where your ear is in relation to your shoulder and the center of your hip and your knees. Your ear should be directly over the shoulder, hip, and knees in a plumb line. Many people will notice that their ear is forward from their shoulder if you look from the side especially as you get older. Lifting the sternum (breastbone) upwards helps you bring it into alignment. A yoga teacher can lead you through all of the adjustments in Mountain Pose (Tadasana) and you can learn more at Yoga.com and see a photo in this article on how to align the body.
Seated Posture: Bring these same ideas about lining up the body into your seated posture, whether seated in a chair or in meditation posture with your legs crossed. Think line of the ear over the shoulder over the hip as you sit. Use a pillow, folded blanket or block to sit on if your hips are at all tight when you sit cross legged. You should feel like an invisible string is pulling you up to the sky from the top of your head. Bring the back of your head backwards. It may at first feel like you are falling backwards, but that is normal. Press down through your sit bones as you extend your spine long, with the top of your head going toward the sky. Now lift the sternum. Open the shoulders wide and bring shoulder blades back but don't push them together. Next, focus just below the ribs. Bring your core muscles in by bringing the kidney area inward to your center. At the same time bring your front belly solar plexus area inward toward your kidneys. Feel your firm support of the core muscles as you sit.
Your breathing should be easier when you are in an optimal position for sitting or standing upright. Notice how your skeleton can support you instead of using the strength of your muscles. By stacking each body part over one another, there is much less effort in keeping yourself upright.
Boat Pose. The Boat Pose (called Paripurna Navasana in Sanskrit) builds abdominal and core strength, which will naturally aid in posture improvement. A lot of us focus on building back muscles to ease back pain and improve posture, but often, we need to do the opposite. Poor core strength is a leading cause of poor posture and back problems. This is a balancing pose on your buttocks, with your feet lifted in the air, the body shaped in a "V" formation. Learn how to do the pose and see a photo.
We give thanks to Yoga.com for the use of this article
Glen Wood – The Yoga Teacher. Glen is a yoga expert whom loves to teach you how to lose your neck, shoulder and back pain with yoga.
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