Create Needlepoint!: Needlepoint & Yoga

My yoga instructor, Carol More, is going to be a guest blogger at Create Needlepoint! Here is her first post:

Yoga for Your Hands

Ouch! According to Sudha C. Lundeen, Holistic Health Nurse, anyone can suffer from repetitive stress syndrome in their hands. Needlepointers endure long periods of steady hand movement, repeated grasping, holding, twisting and turning that could send us into needlework rehab or worse, retirement.

For those curious about the ‘whys’ of hand pain:

The meridian nerve passes through the wrist in a narrow passageway formed by the carpal bones and a tough layer of ligaments. It controls sensation in your fingers, thumb, and some muscles in your hand. Repeated motions cause the finger tendons (that also pass through that tunnel) to swell and press the nerve against the bone. If the movement patterns that cause the symptoms continue, the hands can eventually lose their ability to firmly grasp objects or even suffer permanent damage.

Needlepointers can take time to warm up their hands and wrists by performing simple yoga stretches exercises. I also prefer portable exercises you can do without expensive, gimmicky tools. You can practice these any time, any place and any where but set a goal to take hourly mini-breaks to do the following strengthening and stretching poses:

Rotate the hands clockwise for 10-15 seconds and then reverse the direction

Open and close the fist ten times

Massage your arms from the fingers up to the elbows – before, during and after a needlepointing session
Grab a tennis ball and squeeze and release it throughout the day (hide a tennis ball in each room of the house!)

Place the palms together in front of the chest, lift the elbows and press your fingertips and palms together. Some of you may remember this exercise from Junior High -- “We must, we must, we must increase our bust!” Who would have thought it was healthy for our hands, too?

Over time, you can actually build strength from performing these exercises. Next, we’ll explore the therapeutic benefits of hand mudras. Mudras not only work on your body parts, they also work on your mind!

Carol More is a certified yoga instructor and a registered yoga teacher in the Cleveland, Ohio area. She is a Yoga Instructor at Evolution Yoga Studio in Beachwood, Ohio. She has been practicing yoga for more than 10 years and has been a needlepointer since the age of 13. She is currently mired in several unfinished knitting projects. She holds an MBA in systems design and is a project manager consultant. She has lead programs in process design and control, yoga, meditation, natural health, and healing. She offers private yoga coaching and specializes in relating any yoga pose to riding her Harley Davidson motorcycle!

Thank you so much Carol!!

Barbara Bergsten Designs

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