Yoga for Sandia Heights Dental Care

Together

I will teach you a good foundation and help some of your discomforts.

• Feet
  How you feel your feet shapes your posture and how you move. We begin with a simple version of yoga exercises for our feet (pada bandha).
• Gaze
  Where we look and how we look also strongly shape our posture and how we move. We will begin to learn how yoga uses gaze (drishti).
• Stand
  This pose centers us and helps us notice how we feel. We will use the gentle wuji from tai chi rather than the more rigid mountain pose (tadasana) of modern yoga.
• Hands & shoulders
  We start with the simple and gentle anjali mudra to feel our hands and move our shoulders. Then do dhyana mudra to relax our hands and shoulders.
• Neck
  Please do not just roll your neck around as that can lead to injury. I will teach you a specific way of turning our necks that manipulates our scm muscles.
• Back & shoulders
  Modern yoga has the great downward dog pose, but it may not fit your range of motion, and it is awkward to do at work. So I rotate it up 45° and teach it with a counter or chair instead of putting our hands on the floor.

Daily

I teach you these poses to do at home each morning and as needed at work.

• Stand – wuji
• Reach – the up downward dog

Plan

Week 1

see above

Week 2

We will review and build on our foundation and add a few things to progress.

• Stand + mudra
• Stand + shift
  As we sit stability muscles around the pelvis get less use which contributes to discomfort. I teach you ways of moving to activate these muscles.
• Sit well
  You sit a lot. Do this pose once a day for part of a minute. It will change how you feel yourself sit which will reliably improve your posture.
• Seated warrior 1
  You sit a lot which tightens your hip flexor muscles and leads to discomfort. The modern yoga pose warrior 1 (virabhadrasana) focuses specifically on hip flexors. We take it off the floor and put it on a chair to better focus and better fit in the office.

Week 3

• Stand + mudra
• Stand + shift to pillar
  We start to become good at using our stability muscles which will help us move well all day.
• Sit
• Seated warrior 1
• Seated outward spiral
  Please do not just twist your back as doing so will likely tweak a muscle. I take a yoga floor pose, put it on a chair, and fit it to your ability and workplace for a specific way to unwind your back.

Why

You spend a lot of time looking forward and working forward with patients and keyboards. Your necks and shoulders get less range of motion with your eyes fixed on your tasks. The muscles in front of your shoulders get tighter and the muscles behind your shoulders become uncomfortable.

You also sit a lot which tightens your hip flexor muscles and leads to discomfort and posture problems. And some of you lean into your work and may unintentionally arch your backs.

We will ease discomforts. And we will change how you move and feel yourself move. Training your feel and control will reliably improve your posture and how you move. We will use yoga to prepare for work with less discomfort. As we progress we move from correcting discomfort to preventing discomfort.

“Ergonomics and posture guidelines for oral health professionals” from FDI World Dental Federation

Future

Each week we review and add to build a customized routine for your needs.

• Supported standing forward fold (ardha uttanasana)
• Namaskarasana
  We can firm the hand and shoulder work of anjali mudra into part of namaskarasana and activate the muscles of our upper backs to improve posture.
• 5 ways
  We will use specific arm movements with coordinated breathing (from yoga breathing pranayama) to show your shoulders how to move with less tension. When you hold tension it changes your breathing and that makes the tension worse.
• Sphinx or cobra at a table
  Some of you lean into your work and may arch your backs which becomes an unaware habit. I will adapt the yoga floor poses of sphinx and cobra for your workplace so you can do them standing up at a table or counter and change the habit of your backs.
• Meditating
  You are already doing it when you focus on a task with your hands and eyes without words in your mind. We’re going to do it away from work so that your mental muscles can do it with less effort and fatigue.