Nerve Flossing || Chair Yoga

13:06

13:06

Nerve Flossing || Chair Yoga

Rated

5

Type

guided

Activity

Meditation

Suitable for

Everyone

Plays

12

What the heck is nerve flossing?? Nerve flossing is a gentle movement meant to release (or hopefully prevent) compression on irritated nerves. Also referred to as “nerve glides”, these exercises can improve both range of motion and pain because they can help free a nerve that may be impinged by muscle, connective tissue, or joints. As with any exercise, if you feel actual pain, stop! Also, never do more than 10 repetitions in any one exercise. We don’t want to further irritate an already angry nerve, nor do we want to cause one! As always, work slowly and listen to your body.

Yoga Pain Management Movement Breathing Balance Body Awareness Spinal Mobility

Meet your Teacher

Brossac, France

Meet your Teacher

Brossac, France

Transcript

So welcome to this video. We will be practicing something called nerve flossing. And I've written a little bit in the text description, So be sure to read that. Please sit in your chair comfortably, Feet flat on the ground, Hands resting on your thighs, And just breathe and center yourself. This is a good opportunity to insert one of your breath practices that you've already learned from the course. A good example here would be long deep breathing. That's it. Just drop into the center of your being. Alright, What you're going to do is bring one knee to your chest and just hug it there. Breathe. Extend the thigh now, Or the leg, The heel out in front of you, And you're holding under your thigh. Knee to chest. And extend the leg. It doesn't have to be as high as I'm holding mine. Knee to chest sitting up nice and tall but grounded in your sits bones and extend the leg. Don't lock the knee here, You're extending through the heel, But protect your knee joint. Now begin circling the ankles one direction. And then the other direction. Great, Now let's go to the other side. Taking the knee to the chest. Breathe. Extending the leg through the heel, Not locking the knee. Knee to chest. Nice and tall through the spine, Extend the leg. One more time, Knee to chest. And extending the leg. Now your ankle rotations in one direction. And the other way Excellent. Take a moment here. Again, Bring the first leg, Knee to chest. This time, You're going to look up at the ceiling. And as you extend the leg, You're going to look down. So knee to chest, Looking up towards the ceiling with a little extension through the back. And then rounding the spine, Head drops toward the knee as you extend the leg. Now we're going to switch. So you're going to bring head to knee, And as you extend the leg, Look up towards the ceiling. So this is the exact opposite. You're taking your head to your knee and then looking up as you extend the leg. One last time here. And we'll switch. So bringing your knee. To your chest and looking up. And then head to knee as you extend the leg rounding. And then knee in, Head up. Head down, Leg extended. Remember not to lock your knee. Good, One last time looking up. And then extending the leg rounding down keep your head here bring your knee into your chest And then extend the leg and look up. Knead it. And extend and look up. Good. Make sure you're breathing. And relax for a moment just to see how that feels. Flossing now. So you're going to extend one arm out to the side and flex at the wrist with the fingers pointing upwards. With an inhalation, Move the head away from the arm. And then back to center. Inhale away. And exhale back. Good. One last time. Inhale away. Exhale back. Now just bend the wrist down so the fingers are pointing toward the floor. Same thing. Breathe in, Head away. And relax and come up. Repeat. And one last time. Great, And let's move to the other side now. Extending the arm with the fingers pointing up. Breathing in as you move the head away. And back. Sense and feel what's happening. Through the arm from the fingertips all the way into the Deep side of the neck there. Pointing the fingers down now and repeating. Practice really saved my life when I had a pinched nerve in my neck. Take a moment to feel the effects of that practice. Now put both arms out. With the hands flexed, Fingers upward as you're going to turn and look. Towards each hand. Breathe in as you turn, Breathe out as you come back to center. And then flex the arms so that the fingers are pointing down. Continue turning your head side to side. And relax. We're going to take a forward bend here. I'm just going to show you that you can use the blocks if you need to bring the floor up closer to you and you can position them. On whichever edge is helpful. If you don't need them of course then just bring your hands to the ground. You're going to be working your knees out and away from you, Allowing the spine to lengthen. Ground yourself through your feet so that it's a little active through the legs. Breathe. And release. And then bringing one elbow to a thigh and coming up. Rolling through the spine, Head up last. Bringing your feet together. Going to do some standing practices now. Just going to change the camera angle. So my head is not quite so chopped off. Now bring one heel up to the chair. You're at an angle, So you're not facing the legs square on. You're just going to begin to point and flex the foot. Now square your hips towards that leg. So you're facing the leg and you'll do the same thing. Just flexing and pointing the foot. Make sure that you're not locking your knee. Now orient yourself again facing forward. With that leg out to the side, The knee bent so you're going to have to come closer to the chair so that you can bend towards that leg and away from it. To protect your knee, Make sure that you're not bending too far over your toes. Now get ready, What we're going to do is extend the arms out to the side and come up on our toes with the standing leg. Now you might find this very challenging, Just do your best. The more active your whole body, The easier it will be to balance. Now we'll go to the other side. So starting at an angle to your leg. And point and flex the foot. Then orienting your hips square onto that leg, Again pointing and flexing. Now facing forward Coming a little closer to the knee or the leg on the chair and then leaning in towards that leg. You'll want to try to make sure that your knee's not coming too far over your toes. It actually should be more perpendicular. Good. And then again, Coming up to your toes as best as you can. Your arms will really help you balance here. The whole body is active. Okay, Let's sit down in the chair now. Good. And feel the effects from what we've done. Good work.