Today’s HOME Spun Wisdom - July 7, 2006 Stuck at a desk all day? These 10 quick and easy stretches will help you avoid eyestrain and repetitive stress injuries.
RISMEDIA, July 7, 2006—Ideally, you should take a break every hour of work. You should get up, walk around and stretch. Most likely you'll be running off to another task. So here is a set of 10 essential stretches that you can do during your elevator ride, on the way to the parking lot, or any time you can find two minutes.
Relieving eyestrain—Relaxing the eyes can be done in a number of ways. The key is to focus on things at different distances. You can follow your finger if nothing else will do. Focus near, then far, near, then far. Do this a couple of times. Then take a couple of long blinks.
Neck, side to side—Lay your head to the side, pivoting at the base of the neck. Hold it for a few seconds then lay it to the other side. Repeat a couple of times. This will loosen your neck and shoulder muscles. If you can do this with your eyes closed it will help them relax as well.
Neck, front to back—Lay your head back and hold for a few seconds. Then move your head forward a place your chin on your chest. Repeat a couple of times. This will continue to loosen your neck and shoulder muscles. Once those are relaxed you can begin to loosen up your trunk.
Touch your toes—Bend forward at the waist and let your arms hang towards the floor. Roll your back and your shoulders. This elongates your spine and loosens your back from the shoulders to the trunk all the way to the hips.
Back stretch—Place your palms on the back of your pelvis and lean back from the waist. If you have poor balance, then spread your feet and take a wider stance. This opens up your chest cavity and hips and stretches the spine along the natural "S" curve.
Trunk twist—Isolate the trunk and twist at the hip. Take on arm and reach across your chest. Twist in that direction. Drop your other hand and use it to reach behind your back. Twist to the other side. Repeat a few times. Now you are really working the trunk and loosening up the spine.
Upper torso stretch—Hold your arms at a 90-degree angle with your hands, elbows and shoulders all at the same height. Make fists with your hands. Pull your arms back, staying in the same plane, squeezing your shoulder blades together and tightening your fists. Push your hands forward until your arms are straight out of front of you. Roll your shoulders forward and stretch out your upper back. Open your hands with your wrists flexing up and spreading your fingers as you push forward. Repeat a couple of times.
If you really work the muscles (squeezing and releasing) you can loosen up the area between the shoulder blades. It also stretches the arms from finger tip to shoulder blade with an extra good stretch of the wrist.
Shoulder stretch—Reach your arm across your chest with your upper arm close to your collar bone. Take your other hand and grab the crossed arm's elbow. Pull your arm closer to your body and stretch your shoulder. Now do the other shoulder. Repeat a couple of times. This stretches the back side of the shoulder from the shoulder blade around to the upper arm.
Arm stretch—Place the palms of your hands flat together in front of your chest. Flex the wrists at 90 degrees. Keeping the palms together move them up until your elbows touch. Return your hand to their original position. Repeat a few times. This stretch will loosen most of the arm and provides another good wrist and shoulder stretch.
Ankle stretch—Lift your knee up as high as you can and flex your ankle back as far as you can. Then extend your leg forward pivoting at the knee and flex the ankle forward as far as possible. Repeat a few times. This one stretch will loosen up most of the leg. If you throw in a little side to side motion while doing this motion you can loosen up the hip as well.
Source: About.com |
