Chair yoga exercises for work / beginners & seniors

Chair yoga exercise at work or chair yoga poses!

Yoga is known for relieving stress whether it’s mental or physical. Today’s sedentary lifestyle because of our work causes a lot of mental and physical stress, it may or may not be possible to change this lifestyle however you can inculcate few habits that would help you keep yourself energized, rejuvenated and stress free.

Advertisement

As they say ‘a person is as young as his/her spinal cord’, it is important to take care of your back. We all know how much stress does our spinal cord take because of our jobs that require us to spend most of our time sitting on a chair.

Here are some yoga poses that you can practice at your desk that would help you keep your spine happy and would help you relieve physical as well as mental stress.

Advertisement

I would suggest you to make this a part of your routine and practice any of these yoga poses or mindful breathing after every one or two hours.

Chair yoga exercises

Mindful Breathing

  • Sit in a comfortable position
  • Hands preferably on your knees
  • Close your eyes
  • Focus on your breath
  • Your mind will wander, thoughts will distract you
  • Simply ignore them, do not entertain them and use this as an opportunity to remind yourself to focus on your breath
  • Use any distraction to remind yourself to focus on your breath
  • With each breath you take, feel it relaxing your mind
  • Slowly switch to longer inhalation and even longer exhalation
  • Relax and be at peace and when you are ready, blink your eyes to open

Seated Back-bend

Chair Yoga Poses You Can Do At Your Office - Yoga with Ankush
  • Straighten your back
  • Inhale and raise your arms up
  • Exhale and using your upper back bend backwards, hold for 5 natural breaths
  • Exhale and release your hands down slowly

Back-bend Arch

Chair yoga at Work / Chair yoga poses
  • Sit in the middle or the edge of the chair
  • Hold the bottom of the back rest of the chair
  • Inhale and inflate your chest out and slowly arch your back up till your shoulder bladed
  • Hold for 5-8 breaths
  • Exhale and release
Advertisement

Seated Side Stretch

Chair yoga at Work / Chair yoga poses
  • Hold left side of the chair with your left hand
  • With inhalation lift your right hand up
  • With exhalation bend towards your left hand side, do not lean forward or backwards
  • Stay for 5-8 breaths, inhale and release
  • Repeat on the other side

Seated Cross Side Stretch

Chair yoga at Work / Chair yoga poses
  • Hold right side of the chair with your left hand
  • With inhalation lift your right hand up
  • With exhalation bend towards your left hand side, do not lean forward or backwards
  • You can look up towards the ceiling or downwards
  • Stay for 5-8 breaths, inhale and release
  • Repeat on the other side

Desk Shoulder Opener

Chair yoga at Work / Chair yoga poses
  • Place your hands on your chair or desk
  • Bend down till your waist and drop your head down to give your shoulders a nice stretch
  • Hold for 5-8 breaths
  • Walk slowly towards chair or desk to come out of the pose

Seated Twist (My Favorite)

Chair yoga at Work / Chair yoga poses
  • Sit straight, exhale and twist (from your abdomen mostly) to your left hand side
  • Keep your legs in static position
  • Hold the backrest of your chair with left hand and armrest with the right hand and keep twisting comfortably, you can look towards your extreme left
  • Hold for 5-8 breaths
  • Exhale, release and repeat on the other side

Forward Fold

Chair yoga at Work / Chair yoga poses
  • Inhale and raise your arms up towards the sky
  • Keeping your back straight, with exhalation slowly bend down
  • Keep your hands on the ground / hold your shin or fold them to hold arms whatever is comfortable
  • It is okay to bend your knees a little if you are trying to touch the ground (bend your knees in case of knee pain).
  • Hold for 5-8 breaths
  • Keeping your back straight, slowly come back up with inhalation

Try these chair yoga poses at work in regular intervals to keep your back happy and healthy, if you have any questions or feedback, please do mention in the comment section.

Namaste!

Also Read:

Join Online Group Classes
12 Classes a Month
1500/-
Zoom video call (Max 15)
Timings
Morning Batch - 7:30 AM IST on Tue, Thu & Sat
Evening Batch - 7 PM IST on Mon, Wed & Fri
Book a Trial Class
Yoga with Ankush - Cover a.webp
Ankush Dhiman

I take each day as it comes. Love nature, good food, meditation, yoga, cycling and photography.

I am an Internationally certified Yoga Teacher (RYT 200) at Yoga with Ankush

Articles: 40

13 Comments

  1. Congratulations.. Yogansh..very much impressed..very useful for everyone.. Forward fold is impossible for me to do.. Rest are possible.. But holding for 5/6 natural breath in same position may be little difficult for me initially.. But slowly I’ll reach it. All the very best..

    • Thank you.

      Sure, one of the main teachings of Yoga is to ‘Listen to your body’, take time and let it adapt. Stay healthy and happy 🙂

  2. Excellent start for your Yoga profession. I am enticed to continue what my physical therapists suggested to me before… Yoga. Definitely, I will keep in touch with your website. Kudos to you!! With respect and appreciation- Mira, Philippines

    • Thank you Mira. Yeah please listen to your physical therapist 😉 Let me know if I can help you with anything. Love from India <3

  3. Thank you so much for putting up all this.. All these poses are going to help us get rid of various problems. Looking forward to some more stuff..

  4. Wow Ankush.. way to go mate!!
    Thank you for sharing your knowledge about yoga with us.. i so want to start performing these at home.. waiting for your next posts??

  5. I loved ur website n the way to explain it.Very simple yoga work out but very helpful for office going busy people who r least bother about their health, peace of mind.Thanks for such inspiration & sharing ur knowledge . Wish you good luck for this new journey.
    Keep Inspired Us & Make our life Happy & Healthy.?

  6. Like!! Really appreciate you sharing this blog post.Really thank you! Keep writing.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

The reCAPTCHA verification period has expired. Please reload the page.