Are your muscles stiffening up because a sudden project deadline has meant you have missed your regular workout for a week? Rest assured, there is no major harm and you won’t start losing muscle provided you don’t let them stiffen up and keep your body moving. Just do some breath work and short exercise snacking as we call it. 1) You can do breath exercises for short spells in your busy day. I suggest deep, diaphragmatic breathing like the kapalbhati kriya of yoga, alternate nose breathing, also known as Anulom Vilom Pranayam. These are highly beneficial when done for even five minutes. You can even do a bit of tai chi, the ancient Chinese martial routine, that involves deep breathing, mindfulness and controlled movements, to relieve stress. 2) Plan a physical routine of no more than five minutes. Just climb a flight of stairs, do crunches while sitting on a chair, use your table to bend and stretch your spine, suck in your stomach and stretch your hamstrings, do slow jumping jacks or spot jogging. Usually, in a jumping jack, you jump with both feet off the ground, legs spread wide and the hands going overhead, and then returning to a position with the feet together and the arms at the sides. In a slow jumping jack, you can even do this one foot at a time and improve cardiovascular fitness, increase calorie burn, enhance strength, and promote overall functional fitness. A minute of spot running with high knees raises heart rate, builds muscle strength and burns calories. 3) Do exercises that include inversions, back bends, side bends and stretching: Since disconnecting from the blue light emissions for a short period of time can be a great stress buster, you can easily do any of these intermittently at your workstation. 4) Chair dips, squats and leg extensions: The dynamic chest stretch is effective. Stand or sit up tall in your chair with arms stretched out straight in front of your body. Keep your palms together and move your arms out to your sides at a steady pace. Rotate your palms upwards and push your thumbs as far back as is comfortable, hold for ten seconds. Return to the start position and repeat three to five times. Squats can be done even in the corridor against a wall. Keep your chest up and your back in a neutral position. Bend at the knees and hips so that you move into a seated-like position with your thighs parallel to the ground. Return to the start position and repeat. This exercises the legs, glutes and core. Keep a resistance band at your workstation as it is a great way to alleviate tension in your back and shoulders. Grasp each end in either hand and stand in the middle. Raise your arms so that the band becomes V-shaped. Slowly pull on either end. Squeeze the band tight and release.
