Everyone knows that exercise is good for you. It can heal your body and your mind and offers other benefits—a better night’s sleep, greater focus, more flexibility, less stress. But if you have issues with mobility, if you’ve been injured, if you’re pregnant, or if you just work long hours stuck in a a chair, it can be difficult to find an exercise that will help.
Christina D’Arrigo has been doing yoga and teaching yoga for years, in person and on her YouTube channel Yoga with Christina, and now she’s put together Chair Yoga to help everyone find a way to get the benefits of exercise without putting themselves in danger.
She has divided the book into four sections, with one or two workout sequences for each. First, there is the Warm Up, with a ten-minute sequence of poses. Then there is Begin Gently, with either a 10-minute or 20-minute sequence. Next is Tone and Flow, which has some more intermediate poses that incorporate some gentle standing poses. There is a 10-minute sequence you could choose or a 20-minute one. And then there is Unwind and Sleep, a series of restful and restorative poses that involve some lying on the ground. And again, there is a 10-minute and a 20-minute option.
This doesn’t mean that you are going to be doing yoga for an hour. D’Arrigo’s sequences can be used individually or together, so you can just do one ten-minute sequence, or you can add them together, whatever works best for you. She emphasizes that you should do what feels best for you, be gentle and understanding and not to push yourself beyond your limits. Each pose has detailed instructions and illustrations to help you understand exactly what you should do in each pose. They also list the body areas that you are using in each pose and what they are good for, so you can see exactly what part of your body you’ll be working on and choose poses that will target the areas of your body you want to work.
Many poses also come with either an easier variation or a more challenging variation, so you can make the sequence easier for you at first, and if you want you can make it more difficult as you grow in strength and confidence. And throughout the book, there are informative articles about yoga and healing, about face yoga, and about breathwork, so there are bonus ways to heal your mind and body to help with stress, headaches, and eye strain.
If you or someone you know is healing from an injury or has issues with mobility, if you’re pregnant, or if you take long flights or sit in a chair for long hours, then Chair Yoga can help you build strength and flexibility, can help calm your mind when you’re stressed or anxious, and can help you move into healing and mobility.
I am someone who sits in an office chair all day, so I chose Chair Yoga specifically to see if there were things I could do to deal with work stress and to get some exercise during the day. I see a lot of ways that I can use these pose sequences to stretch and to build muscles, to find greater focus and concentration, and to just feel better. I love how supportive D’Arrigo is, emphasizing kindness and gentleness as you heal from an injury or illness, or just as a beginner. This would be a great gift for anyone who wants to try some simple yoga with the extra stability of the chair, and it can help heal the mind and spirit as well.
Egalleys for Chair Yoga were provided by Rockridge Press through the Callisto Media Publisher’s Club, with many thanks.
