Yoga for daily life: Postures to open your heart
Tightness around the chest and shoulders is often put down to the stress and tension of daily life, but it can also be the body’s natural defence against our hearts getting hurt. Heart-opening postures can help to gently open your heart through yoga – to new loves, life experiences and feelings of happiness and wellbeing.
Featured posture
Setu-Bhandu (bridge pose). As well as being a beautiful heart-opening posture, this also strengthens the spine, improves spinal flexibility and stimulates the thyroid gland. For the ultimate in restorative healing, use a block underneath your lower spine (just where the top of your buttocks start) to work with the adrenals and deeply relax the body.
- Lie on your back, knees bent, feet parallel
- Lift hips up
- Interlace fingers behind your back, drawing your shoulder blades together
- Lift the hips higher
- Draw the chest toward the chin
- Release the hands and peel the spine back to the mat
- Rest, allowing the knees to come together
After practicing heart-opening postures like this, you will feel lighter, brighter and more receptive to the beautiful things around you – especially to love!
Why not try Anusara yoga, which is a yoga philosophy completely dedicated to opening the heart? Make sure you focus on your breath when undertaking any posture or practice, for the breath will tell you all you need to know… when you learn to listen.
