Desk Chair Blues: Try These Physiyoga Posture Pointers

Feeling like you are glued to your chair in a slumpy mess of posture? Here are some very simple physiyoga rules to gently abide to get you feeling straight once and for all: 

• When you are in a chair, sit back, so that you can lean against the backrest.

• Make sure your hips are just higher than your thighs, with feet on the ground.

• Place whatever you are looking at eye level, without looking down or up too much.

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  Stand up every 30 minutes. Why not make it a water bottle or bathroom break while you’re at it?

• Place both feet flat on the ground in front of you. No excuses. Crossing ankles, legs, or sitting on your feet is cool in yoga class, but not when you are sitting for long periods of time.

• Find your “sit bones.” Place your hands on your hips, and roll your pelvis back, so you are slumping. Then roll it forward, arching it, so you are sitting up very straight. Make your way back through these two extremes until you feel those bony bones in your butt and sit on the front edges of them. Then make sure you are evenly weighted through the left and the right sit bones.

  

• Lean back so that your upper back is supported by the chair. If there’s no back to your chair, stay as you are.

• Press your tongue to the roof of your mouth and imagine growing taller through that space, as if your spine is opening like a slinky or there is a string attached to the top of your head, and someone or something is pulling it straight upward.

Study with YogaUOnline and Judith Hanson Lasater – Taking Refuge: Coming Home to Ourselves.

Reprinted with permission from Threes Physiyoga Method.

Diana Zotos Florio is a physical therapist, yoga teacher, and mother.   Diana received her bachelor’s degree in Biology from American University and spent the subsequent two years in a molecular biology research lab at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.  She then decided to pursue her Masters in Physical Therapy at Hunter College. 

In 2006 Diana began her 7-year career at Hospital for Special Surgery in NYC, spending those years treating anyone from inpatient joint replacement patients to professional marathon runners.  She completed her yoga teacher training at OM Yoga in 2010. Diana is also co-founder and co-director of Threes Physiyoga Method™  (TPM).  TPM is dedicated to teaching yoga teachers applied anatomy and kinesiology, and bridging the gap through advanced teacher training between yoga teachers and the healthcare industry.  TPM also educates physical therapists and other medical professionals on the benefits and integration of yoga practices into traditional western medicine.

Diana has been featured on Oprah.com, Runner’s World, Health.com, Yoga International, US News & World Report, & The New York Daily News.