Try Our Simple 60 Second Breathing Exercise Video To Relax During The Day!

Are you tense and sore after or during a work day? Do you have neck or shoulder tension? Stressful work days? Try our simple 60 second breathing exercise to help you make it through the day feeling more relaxed and efficient, with less pain.

Hi this is Dana Ranahan from Body Works Sports Physiotherapy and today I want to talk to you about breaking posture with breath in the daytime.

If you’ve looked at some of my other videos, I’ve talked about breathing and the importance of breathing, and trying to relax some tense muscles. We do this by changing our pattern a little bit for breath in the day and also to improve our oxygenation.

So as we work at our computer, our shoulders rise, we get tight, and we tend to breathe quite shallowly. This creates a lot of tension across the chest, or PEC muscles, and can also create tension in your neck. Some of the muscles that then lift the ribs become really active, and your neck just stays tight all the time at work.

One of the things you can do to break this, is take breaks though the day to do some deep breathing. If you’re doing that, I want you to:

  • Scoot yourself back into the chair and use the backrest for a bit of support just to keep your spine aligned.
  • As you’re breathing, I want you to think about expanding yourself towards your sides, as if you’re going to breathe towards your elbows or in towards the back of the chair. Your breath is directed there.
  • As you breathe out, think about softening your sternum so you get a little bit of release through the chest area, but not by slouching. You want to stay connected to the chair so that your spine can stay tall.
  • So, nice deep breath, expanding to the side, and as I breathe out, letting it relax and letting your chest go.

Just doing two or three breaths every hour or two will really break your posture and take away some of that tension from working all day. If you have more questions or want more information, give us a call.