Yoga Poses For Medical Professionals

By Sangeetha Saran and Dr. Paul Jerard, E-RYT 500, YACEP

Yoga poses for medical professionals are needed now more than ever. Hospitals, clinics, and doctor’s offices are busy and pressure packed. Unlike many jobs, there is no room for error. At this time, we have a worldwide epidemic that is filling medical facilities with record numbers. In fact, the medical field has been under siege worldwide for the past two years. Regardless, of your political position, a visit to a hospital is stressful for everyone due to the number of patients.

 

Stereotypes and Reality

Ordinarily, there has been dogma between standard medicine and Yoga. However, with time, these two systems are learning to peacefully coexist. As many of us know, you don’t have to be a gymnast to practice Yoga. These days, many forms of Yoga are user friendly and can be practiced at a desk or in a chair. In fact, scrub pants are as comfortable as any Yoga pants, no matter how much you pay for them. Granted, the marketing for Yoga clothing is much more competitive.  Therefore, practicing Yoga poses for medical professionals is really a matter of time, space, and motivation. Medical facilities provide breaks and office space that can be used for practice. In order to cope with a busy work environment, and the staff’s motivation is to maintain collective sanity.

 

Yoga Clothing or Scrubs

You could spend time changing into Yoga clothing or sports gear. At the same time, you could keep your scrubs on and use them during Yoga practice. Ultimately, the choice of clothing centers around comfort and loose-fitting. Yoga poses for medical professionals are easier in scrubs. Comparatively, many office workers cannot say the same for business casual or formal wear.

 

Breaktime Warm Ups

Sometimes, you don’t have enough time for a class. At the present time, breaks may be a luxury considering the volume of patients. Hence, the reason for practicing warm ups is they are good for your joints, while gently taking away excess stress and tension within your body. Sooner or later, you have time during the day for waist circles, arm swings, and overhead stretches. By the way, you can add twists to any over the head movement. As many of you know, the purpose of warm ups is to prevent injuries. These movements are commonly practiced before the actual Yoga pose (asana) practice. However. many similar warm up movements are commonly seen in martial arts during their warm ups at the beginning of class.

 

 

Value of Warm Ups

The ancient sages must have appreciated warm ups for a variety of reasons. The older we get, the more we appreciate the benefits of preventing injuries, releasing nervous energy, and the warming body from the inside out. Depending on time of day, temperature of the room, season, weather, health profile or the age of the practitioner, the warm up session can be longer or practiced more than one time per day.

 

 

Practical Standing Yoga Poses

As seen above, standing Yoga poses for medical professionals can be easily practiced anywhere. One point that must be remembered is that all of these poses can be modified with walls, stools, chairs, books, door frames, blocks and more. It is important to point out that the purpose of each movement to is work one’s range of motion without force or strain. Depending on how a pose feels, holing it for 20 seconds up to one minute will do just fine.

 

Practical Chair Yoga Poses

Usually, Chair Yoga is practiced by seniors. As can be seen in the video above, Yoga postures for medical staff can be easily practiced in a chair. In fact, the important part of all this is to practice when convenient. Comfort, convenience, and remembering to take care of one’s self are important reasons why Yoga poses for medical professionals make sense.

 

 

Cat and Cow in a Chair

It’s important for you to realize, that Cat and Cow poses are brought together to create balance in the spine and body. In effect, when you practice these two postures, you feel the polar opposites of your range of motion. Notably, these movements are performed in an all fours position, on your hands and knees. Yet, this posture’s objectives can be accomplished by using a chair.

 

Why Practice Cat and Cow?

For example: The the goal of manipulating the spine forward and back, the body’s position is seated, but the spinal movement is the same as the all fours variation. Additionally, the breathing is also the same. You inhale slowly as you go into a backbend (Cow) and you exhale as you round off in a forward crunch position (Cat). You don’t need force and the breath leads the movement. If, or when, you feel comfortable, you can extend your breath. That is to say, deeper breathing is not a requirement, but you might find it relaxing.

 

Seated Gate Pose

Gate Pose is easily practiced in a chair without arm rests. A point often overlooked is that not all chairs or wheelchairs are the same. In the video above, we chose a chair with arm rests because it presents problems and to make you aware of ways to work around the arm rests. Nevertheless, Gate Pose is a gentle posture for working one’s lateral range of motion. On the positive side, this is a posture that almost anyone can do.

 

Seated Eagle Pose

Uniquely, the version of Eagle pose in the video above is a seated variation. With attention to Eagle Pose, it is commonly seen as a balancing pose, which is often practiced on one leg. So, it is usually a balancing pose, but contains intricate twists. The legs and arms overlap. Thus, Eagle Pose stretches the shoulders and hip flexors at the same time. While practicing in a chair is easier than the balancing variation, the stretching of the shoulders and hip flexors can be quite intense.

 

 

© Copyright – Aura Wellness Center – Publications Division

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