Yoga Therapy for Self-Care ~ by Evon Stone Rubenstein

Do you ever wake up with a Stiff Neck or Suffer from Chronic Shoulder Pain?
If your neck is chronically tense and tight, and if the muscles in your upper back and shoulders often feel as hard as a rock, you’re not alone. We live in a high stress world filled with financial pressures, terror alerts and devastating natural disasters.  Add to this emotional tension, the postural stress of spending most of our days sitting in front of the computer or driving in traffic, that rounds our bodies forward resulting in neck and shoulder pain.

Rabbit Pose (Sasangasana)
Rabbit Pose lengthens your spine and stretches your back, arms, and shoulders while stimulating your immune and endocrine systems. It stimulates the inter-vertebral disks and helps to maintain the spongy nature of the disks which helps them absorb shock from daily movement to prevent back pain.

• From child’s pose, reach your hands back to grab onto your heels, if you can’t reach your heels, then start by resting the backs of your hands alongside your body. Take long slow exhales to release the muscles.
• Inhale and pick up your buttocks and lightly roll onto your forehead/crown of the head
• Stay grounded by firmly holding your heels and allowing the shoulders to relax with long slow exhales
• If you would like more challenge, instead of reaching for your feet, interlace the fingers together behind the back, roll the shoulder blades down away from the ears. As you pick up the buttocks, also lift the arms towards the sky with the palms turn down towards ground – they can be apart or pressing together.
• Hold for 5 – 10 breaths

Cow Face Pose (Gomukhasana)
Cow Face pose significantly increases range of motion in your shoulder joints.

• From a seated crossed leg position slide your knees to center and stack your right knee directly over your left
• Lift up your buttocks to help stack your knees and sit back in between your feet onto your sits bones
• If your knees do not stack sit in any comfortable seated position
• Inhale and reach your left arm up towards the sky, bend it at the elbow, and then bring your left hand down the center of the back
• Take your right arm out to the right side, and reach your right hand around for the left one. Grabbing on to finger tips or if the fingers tips don’t reach grab both hands onto a strap.
• Draw both elbows back slightly towards center and take long slow exhales to help release your muscles
• If you want more intensity, start to fold forward slightly, leading with the chest.
• Hold for 5 – 10 breaths and repeat on the other side

Eagle Pose (Garudasana)
Eagle pose opens shoulder joints, creating space between your shoulder blades. It also offers wonderful holistic benefits by stimulating the immune system, encouraging balance and aligning the chakras.
The image shown is for the full pose, which is a great pose to test your balance.  However just using your arms of the pose is specifically for the shoulders.

• From a standing mountain pose, bend your right arm at the elbow and bring it to the center of your chest
• Take your left elbow and place your outer right elbow on the inner left elbow
• Continue to take your left hand around to reach for your right thumb or palm
• Inhale and lift your arms towards the sky, exhale lower them back to chest center
• Take long slow exhales to release the muscles
• If you want more intensity, take a tiny backbend in your upper body on the inhale and arm lift and a tiny forward bend (emphasis on rounding your upper back and spreading out the area in between the shoulder blades) when you exhale
• If you would like to do the full pose, wrap one leg (match it to the arm that is over) over the other leg and tuck your foot behind
• Repeat for 10 – 15 breaths on each side

Thread the Needle (Parsva Balasana)
Thread the Needle pose stretches your shoulders, arms, upper back and neck, releasing tension and alleviating neck and shoulder pain.  Performed daily it also increases spinal mobility, relaxes the body and calms the mind.

• From a hands and knees position, bring your left hand on the floor underneath your face
• Inhale and take your right arm up towards the sky and back a bit, opening your heart into a twist
• Exhale and take your right arm under and through, threading the needle and settling into your right shoulder
• Resting the right side of your cheek and head on your mat
• Relax your right hand and arm onto the floor and take long slow exhales to release the muscles
• If you feel comfortable and stable, go one step further, inhale the left arm up, back and around to rest on the low back or reach for the right hip/thigh
• Hold for 5 – 10 breaths and repeat on the other side

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Evon will be offering weekly Yoga Therapy classes at Ignite, on Tuesdays at 4:30pm (May 1st - May 22nd). 
​Evon also offers private yoga therapy sessions.