Many of you are working remotely or sitting at a desk for hours upon hours. This type of work can be trying on your back and other muscles. When you sit at a desk for long hours, you’ll start to slouch. This isn’t done on purpose most times. Slouching seems to slowly creep in as we sit tirelessly typing away at the computer for 8-10 hour days.

You’ve probably noticed that you start to arch your back and slump downward as you type and watch the computer screen during a regular workday. This is quite common and can mess up your posture as well as other muscles causing health issues in the future.

Signs of Bad Posture

You’ll find that bad posture has a variety of signs. Your shoulders may be slumped often. You’ll have a pot belly and your knees will be slightly bent. These three signs of bad posture can impact your cardiovascular health, mental health, and other areas of physical health in the long term.

Today we wanted to feature some tips to help you improve your posture so that you can feel better, stand up taller, and reduce the impact of health issues caused by sitting for long hours every day.

Consider Yoga-Like Exercises

There are a few yoga-style poses that can help improve your posture. These poses are listed below, but there’s an extensive list of posture improvement poses to choose from on many yoga websites.

The Child Pose

Sit on the shinbones with your knees close together. Have your heels underneath each leg naturally, as you lean forward. You’ll walk your hands slowly out in front of you until they’re touching the floor in front of your child posed body. Gently press your forward to the floor so that your entire body is at a slight slope and hold this pose for about 5 minutes while breathing slowly.

Chest Opener

The chest opener is helpful to stretch your chest, as that’s another area of your body that cramps up and causes poor posture when sitting for long hours. Stand with your feet apart about the same distance as your hips. Bring your hands and arms backward until you meet both hands and clasp them together.  Look straight forward to keep yourself standing tall. Repeat this process at least 10 times with each chest opener pose holding for five minutes.

Forward Fold

Another good pose to help improve your posture is the forward fold. Stand up with your big toes touching while keeping your heels slightly apart. Fold your body, bending downward, at your hips. Take your hands and reach as far down to the ground as you can get. Bend your knees slightly and loosen your hips as you allow your spine to stretch. Stay in this forward fold pose for at least one minute remembering to breathe during the process.

Making it a common practice to complete these poses will help you improve your posture after a long day of sitting for work. With many people remotely working, there are far more people sitting than ever before. This is why we felt it imperative to feature some poses that will assist in maintaining proper posture during our current times.