Toe yoga is the exercise you didn’t know you needed for foot cramps. You will also find tips for fighting back pain, torticollis and menstrual cramps.
Even those of us who eat right, exercise, and take many steps to stay healthy on a daily basis experience body aches from time to time. Factors such as stress and sitting too long can cause them.
If, for example, you find yourself more sedentary than usual, your body will begin to adapt to this behavior. All tissues that are responsible for the sitting position will adapt to the sitting position. The tissues surrounding the joint, for example, can shorten, which limits the mobility of the tissue and leads to pain.
The same phenomenon can occur in other parts of the body when you spend too much time in the same position. Staring at a screen for too long? Hello eye strain!
Luckily, you can get great relief with stretching and targeted movement throughout the day. Your body is made to move. Movement is the most powerful form of medicine there is.
9 quick fixes for everyday aches and pains
From neck pain to lower back pain to menstrual cramps, here are some handy remedies that will give you immediate relief.
1. Ease lower back pain with pelvic tilts
Lower back pain is one of the most common complaints. Which isn’t so surprising considering how much time most of us spend moving our backs, not a lot. If you’ve been sitting all day, perhaps hunched over, your back needs a little action. At your desk, do pelvic tilts, which activate your lower back and spine. Think of your pond as a bowl full of water. Try tipping the bowl forward, then backward. Your lower back should arch in the forward motion and flatten in the backward motion. Try to do 10 every 30 minutes.
2. Relax your hips with targeted stretches
Sitting in front of a computer in a fixed position tenses the hips. “In a seated position, you close the angle between your thigh bone and your abdomen and trunk. The key here is to move your body in the opposite direction. Pause briefly to actively stretch the hip flexors. Stand up, bring your heel towards your buttocks and grab your foot to stretch the quadriceps (quad) muscle. Introduce range of motion by moving your knee forward and back, which will activate the glute muscles and stretch the hip flexor. Repeat the exercise on the other side.
3. To ease shoulder stiffness, take deep breaths
If stress is pervasive in your day, chances are it’s causing tension and stiffness in your upper back, neck, and shoulders. Changing your breathing pattern is key to opening up these areas. The breathing of stressed people is more superficial. Instead of using your diaphragm to breathe, you use accessory muscles to breathe in and out, located in the upper rib cage and neck. The result: rapid breathing. Instead, focus on diaphragmatic breathing: slow, deep, longer “belly” breaths. You should be able to feel your belly come out as you inhale and come down as you exhale. »
4. Sit up straight to relieve neck tension
If you’re reading this article on a computer screen, take a minute to analyze your posture: Are you leaning forward? The most common problem with neck pain is that when people sit at a desk or computer for long periods of time, their head begins to tilt forward as they get closer to the screen. This posture overloads and strains the muscles at the back of the neck: It’s like trying to hold a 2 or 3 kg bowling ball 30 cm from your body. The fix: Bring your head toward the center of your body and sit with your head centered on your shoulders.
5. Regularly give your hands a break
Are you typing at full speed? You might be typing out your to-do list, but it can hurt your hands and wrists. When typing for long periods of time without pausing, muscles can become very tense and fatigued. As with any other muscle, when you’re tired lactic acid can build up and there can be cramping and stiffness which recommends giving your hands a break every 30 minutes. Try this easy stretch: Make a fist with each hand, hold it, then open your hand to spread your fingers apart. Repeat three times.
6. Stretch and roll sore feet
Spending most of the day in shoes robs feet of the sensory input they need to perform at their best. To get them working again, you can do two exercises. The first: toe yoga. In a standing position, try to lift your big toe off the ground on its own (the other four toes should stay firmly on the ground). Next, try lifting all four little toes off the ground while the big one stays in place. If you can’t quite figure it out yet, it’s a skill worth working on, as this type of mobility helps prevent foot dysfunction. Try keeping a tennis ball under your desk to reduce foot tenderness. Take off your shoes at your workstation and roll the ball over the bottom of your feet, which provides sensory cues to wake up the connection between your foot and your brain.
7. Look Across the Room Regularly to Relieve Eyestrain
Visual fatigue, or computer vision syndrome, is triggered by spending prolonged periods in front of a screen; symptoms include headaches, blurred vision, dry eyes, and neck and shoulder pain. It’s easy to get lost in your work, but to prevent and reduce eye strain, if you’re working on a computer, try practicing the 20-10-20 rule: take a 20-second break to look straight ahead. across the room (at a distance of 10 meters) every 20 minutes. If this rule is difficult to implement, set a timer, calendar reminder, or use an app to remind you to regularly stop and watch something else.
8. Ease a headache with self-massage
Headaches can have many triggers, but one common reason for the pain is muscle tension from sitting too long at a desk or computer. Again, you’ll need to pause (notice a theme?). If your headaches are related to digital eye strain, the 20-10-20 rule can help.
9. Relieve menstrual cramps with cat and dog
Menstrual pain is familiar to many women. In a study published in the Journal of Pain Research, 84% of more than 400 young women surveyed said they had suffered from it. Among them, a quarter said they had pain so intense that they needed medication or had to give up certain activities because of it. Specific yoga exercises, combined with breathing, helped relieve cramps, according to a study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health in July 2016. In this study, yoga poses such as the pose of the cat, child’s pose, and downward dog pose have all proven useful.
