Bhastrika Pranayama (bellows breath)

To do this pose:

Come to a comfortable seated position on your mat. Start inhaling and exhaling deeply through your nose, filling your belly with breath each time. Once comfortable, begin to inhale and exhale forcefully and quickly with each breath, using your abdominal muscles each time and for each action of the breath. Do this when feeling lethargic and feel your whole body awaken. 

How this pose is especially beneficial for nurses: 

•  It’s stimulating. This practice is great first thing in the morning as it performs a “rinse” like action to your whole body. This increases alertness, enhances memory and cognitive action, and even increases metabolism. This can be a great way to wake up when that early alarm goes off before a 12 hour shift. 
• It cleanses your respiratory system. This type of breathing can open up your sinuses and clear out any phlegm or inflammation as well as any toxins within the...

Kapalabhati Pranayama (breath of fire)

To do this pose:

Come to a comfortable seated position on your mat. Start inhaling and exhaling deeply through your nose, filling your belly with breath each time. Once comfortable, inhale deeply and start to exhale forcefully through the nose while pumping the belly in and out. Your inhale is passive between each breath while the exhale is forceful. Do this for a few rounds to truly wake up your mind.

How this pose is especially beneficial for nurses: 

• It awakens the mind. While the Bellows breath wakes up the body, Breath of Fire can be used to wake up the mind specifically. So when you’re feeling lethargic or you’re having trouble focusing at work, do a few rounds of breath of fire and feel your mind become more alert with every breath 
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• Similarly to Bellows Breath, this practice helps to cleanse the body by clearing the respiratory system, stimulating digestion and strengthening the core muscles.

Mrigasana (deer pose)

To do this pose:

Come to a seated butterfly position on your mat with the soles of your feet together. Swing one leg out and behind you, keeping the knee bent. Your back knee should line up with the sole of your front foot. Take your time to adjust yourself, you should feel a light stretch in your hips and low back. You can stay upright with your hands rested on either side of you, or you can bend forward and rest your elbows on the floor. Hold here and breathe. 

How this pose is especially beneficial for nurses: 

• It opens all sides of the hips. In this pose, your front hip is externally rotated while your back hip is internally rotated. This is one of the few poses that can really open up all sides of your hips. Opening up all sides of the hips helps you release some of those pent up emotions you’ve been holding throughout the day as well! 
• If gently massages your GI tract, stimulating digestion and release of toxins. So, do...

Dhanurasana (bow pose)

To do this pose:

Come to lay on your stomach on your mat. Once comfortable, bend each leg at the knee, swinging your arms around behind you to grab onto your toes, ankle, or any part of your foot you can reach. You can stay here, or move your hands to wrap around your ankles and start to pull on them as you lift your legs up, keeping your arms straight. Hug your knees into the midline while you open up through your collarbone, heart, and chest. Hold here and breath, engaging your abs to protect your low back and open through your front body. 

How this pose is especially beneficial for nurses: 

• It opens the hip flexors! The front of the hips are often ignored in traditional “hip opener” poses. Bow pose helps lengthen and stretch them which helps strengthen them over time. These muscles are often weak from underuse and at risk for injury in physically demanding jobs like being a nurse, so opening them up and lengthening them so...

Gomukhasana (cow face or shoelace pose)

To do this pose:

Come to a seated position on your mat. Pick up one leg and stack your knees with the top leg directly over the bottom leg. Your feet can be close to your body or farther out and your knees can be stacked or apart with your top leg hugged closer to your chest, whichever is more comfortable for you. From here, reach one arm straight up over your head and bend it at the elbow, placing your hand between your shoulder blades. With the other arm, reach out to the side before bending at the elbow to internally rotate at the shoulder and place that hand on the mid back facing up. If you can, link your hands, but it’s okay if you can’t, grab onto your shirt with each hand. Hold here and breath feeling a mild stretch through your hips and repeat on the other side. You can also bend forward at the hips, resting your upper body over your legs. 

How this pose is especially beneficial for nurses: 

• It...

Garudasana (eagle pose)

To do this pose:

Come to a standing position at the front of the mat. Bring your arms out to your sides in a T position. Wrap your arms together in front of you with one elbow under the other. Continue to wrap your arms around one another and up to wrists if able, or bring your hands back behind you resting on your shoulder blades, giving yourself a hug. Then, pick up one leg and bring it up into your chest. Once high enough, cross that leg over your standing leg and bend deeply through both legs. Continue to wrap that leg all the way to the ankle or keep the top leg pointed out or on the floor to help with balance. Bend even deeper into your bottom leg while holding your arms up and out, feeling your shoulders open up.

How this pose is especially beneficial for nurses: 

• It promotes deep breathing. This pose pulls the shoulder blades apart so you can breathe even deeper into your upper back, really opening up your lungs. This can be so helpful...

Half Hanumanasana (half split pose)

To do this pose:

Come to a downward facing dog. Lift one leg up and behind you and take a step forward with that foot. Plant the front foot and relax your back knee down to the ground in a low lunge position. Push your weight back to your back leg, straightening through the front leg and flex the front foot. You can keep your hands on the ground or use blocks to help keep yourself up. Relax your upper body over that leg and breath. 

How this pose is especially beneficial for nurses: 

• It stretches the low back. This pose can offer a light and gentle low back release for people who may not be as flexible as others and can’t bend all the way forward. This helps protect your back from injuries in the future but also helps with ongoing pain. 
• It opens the hips in a way that improves range of motion. When doing this pose, it’s important to bend from the hips and not the low back (like every pose) so that your...

Vajrasana (hero pose)

To do this pose:

Come to your knees with your hips up. You can keep your toes tucked or untucked, whichever feels good on your body. Start to lower your hips down until you are sitting on your heels. You can put a pillow or a block between your feet to sit on if you feel any stress in your knees. If you are extra bendy, you can move your feet to the sides and sit on the floor between them, with a foot on each side of your hips. Keep your hands relaxed on your legs, palms up or palms down, and let yourself close your eyes. 

How this pose is especially beneficial for nurses: 

• It strengthens your thigh muscles while opening up your knees. This helps to strengthen the muscles around your knees over time which then protects them from injuries in the future! Like we’ve discussed, knee injuries are very common in nurses and keeping that joint well lubricated, strong, and flexible helps prevent those from happening after long shifts on your...

Vrikshasana (tree pose)

To do this pose:

Come to a standing position at the front of your mat. Bring your hands into a prayer position then lift one up, knee towards your chest. Release one hand, grabbing onto the lifted ankle, and use your hand to help place your foot either on the side of your calf or your inner thigh, avoiding the knee. You can also place that foot next to the ankle and keep your toes on the floor if you’re having trouble with balance. From here, keep your hands in prayer, or start to reach your arms up over your head if your balance is steady. From there, you can keep your eyes open or close, but focus on pulling the crown of your head to the sky. 

How this pose is especially beneficial for nurses: 

• It strengthens the leg. The standing leg is now supporting your entire body weight in this pose so you may feel a little bit of fire start to light it up, even some shaking! This is a sign that your muscles are working, hard, and getting...

Dandasana (staff pose)

To do this pose:

Come to a seated position on your mat. Extend both of your legs out in front of you. You can keep your knees bent if you need to or straighten them out, keeping your feet flexed. Reach behind you and move the flesh out from under you so that your sit bones can be directly on the mat. Sit up tall, engage your abs to protect your low back and keep your hands relaxed at your sides. 

How this pose is especially beneficial for nurses: 

• It provides a gentle stretch to your hamstrings. After a long shift, most people have sore muscles and an intense stretch may be more painful than beneficial. So this pose can offer your body a gentle release after it’s worked hard all day. 
• It improves spinal awareness. As we’ve discussed multiple times, our society has cultivated a very hunched spine position. Whether you’re charting at a computer or leaning over a patient, your spine is crunched over. This pose helps...