Hopefully the time during your reading week break allowed you to take rest, connect with nature and friends, catch up on reading, or do whatever helps you to best manage the stress of mid-winter and school projects.
A great go-to posture is eagle pose, or garudasana in Sanskrit. The posture is great for physically wringing out stress, stretching out your upper back, and stimulating circulation in your legs and arms. So, let’s give wings to the rest of the semester and fly like an eagle whenever you need to wring out a little stress.
Stand with your feet together and your arms stretched up into the air. You’re going to “twist-tie” your arms together in front of your body at the midline or hold on to opposite shoulders for that upper back stretch. Bring your arms out and down and then swing the left arm under the right one, nesting the right elbow on top of the inner left one. Attempt to twist your forearms around each other and bring your palms together. It may just be the fingers of the one hand that touch the palm of the other; if your shoulders are tight, hold onto opposite shoulders instead. Take a nice big inhale into your upper back and as you slowly exhale, draw your shoulder blades and back down and luxuriate in the stretch.
To bring the lower body into the equation, sit your hips down and back as if you’re about to sit in a chair. Keeping the fronts of your hip bones facing forward, bring your right leg up and over your left one, pointing your toes down toward the floor alongside your left calf, or wrap your left foot or toes around the calf. Hug your legs tightly together and then squeeze your arms a little tighter together. Hold this semi-seated posture for three to five breaths, with your gaze focused on one spot in front of you to help hold your balance.
To unwind out of it, inhale to bring your feet back together, standing up and unwinding your arms out and up overhead and then exhaling them back down by your sides. Take a few breaths as you feel the blood rush back into your arms and legs. As you repeat this on the other side, take note if one side of your body is tighter than the other.
Until next time, keep it real.