Flexibility breaks: stay limber and reduce stress throughout your day with these quick yoga moves for the office

Men's Fitness, March, 2003 by Robert McGarvey

4 How your body will benefit: All your major muscles will relax. This is a Speedy, head-to-toe tune-up.

5 PHOTOCOPIER STRETCH Making photocopies shouldn't be the most physically demanding thing you'll do all day, unless you try to press the machine (not advised). But you can still make the most of it.

How to do it: While you're waiting, place your hands on the copier, lower your head, and stand back with your feet set wide apart. Breathe deeply. You're doing wonders for your back--dissolving tensions--and even better, Zeer says, you're harnessing those empty moments that chew up much of the day and putting them to use making yourself feel better.

5 How your body will benefit: Knotted-up back muscles will untie

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6 CLOSE-THE-DEAL WARRIOR POSE "Guys love this one," says Zeer. But it may attract some attention from your office mates, so use discretion about where and when you unleash it.

How to do it: Raise your arms to the sides, with your fingers pointed out. Take a big step, with your left foot turned out and your knee bent. Keep your right leg straight, the foot planted. Keep breathing. Relax your upper body. After a minute, switch sides, extending your right leg. Sure, you may draw a few glances, but this is a very empowering stretch, Zeer promises.

6 How your body will benefit: Chest, shoulders, arms--the whole upper body--will relax.

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7 ELEVATOR STRETCH If an elevator ride takes about a minute, and you ride an elevator four times a day, that adds up to 20 minutes by the end of the workweek. Take advantage of the time and steal a yoga moment, as recommended by Zeer.

How to do it: Place a hand against the elevator wall to balance yourself. Standing on your left foot, cross your right foot over your left leg, at the ankle. Feel your energy throbbing through the sole of your left foot. Relax, breathe, switch legs. Be discreet, and you can even do this when other passengers are onboard.

7 How your body will benefit: All major leg muscles get a workout.

RELATED ARTICLE: Is yoga actually exercise?

"Absolutely," says Joseph Nicola, D.C., a Las Vegas chiropractor, who frequently recommends that his patients take up yoga. "Yoga is very good for overall body awareness," he says. "It's catching on because there's growing realization that exercise isn't just for vanity. You also want to feel good, and yoga works on the wholeness of a person."

OTHER BENEFITS OF YOGA

Research on the legitimate health payoffs of yoga is just starting, but an early attempt to itemize the benefits is found in an essay titled "Health Benefits of Yoga" by yoga guru Trisha Lamb Feurstein. Feurstein cites improved cardiovascular efficiency, an increase in HDL ("good") cholesterol, and better depth perception, among several dozen often surprising effects. The paper--reprinted at www.iayt.org/ benefits.html, the Web site of the International Association of Yoga Therapists--is noteworthy for including in its bibliography a few dozen more essays and reports that document how and why yoga is good for you.