Chair yoga at your desk: 8 gentle poses for an office chair

Chair yoga at your desk is a short run of gentle yoga poses done sitting in an ordinary chair, moving slowly in time with your breath. Eight poses cover most of what a desk day stiffens (seated mountain, cat-cow, side stretch, twist, eagle arms, ankle on knee, neck release and a forward fold), and the whole set takes about five minutes.

You don't need a mat, special clothes or any yoga experience, and most of it looks like ordinary fidgeting to anyone walking past.

What is chair yoga?

Chair yoga adapts familiar yoga poses so that the chair does the job of the floor. You stay seated, so there is nothing to get down to and nothing to fall over. It grew up as a way to make yoga possible for people who can't easily get onto a mat, and it suits a desk for the same reason: you can do it in your work clothes, between two emails.

What makes it yoga rather than a list of stretches is the breath. Each movement goes with an in-breath or an out-breath, and you hold each shape for a few slow breaths rather than counting seconds. That slower pace is why it tends to feel calming as well as loosening.

The evidence is modest. Most research on chair yoga has been small and has focused on older adults, often people with arthritis or limited mobility, and it suggests that gentle seated yoga can ease stiffness and help people feel better. There is little research on desk workers in particular. The case for doing it at work is simpler: it is movement you will actually do, in a day that otherwise has very little.

Before you start

A minute of setup makes every pose safer and easier.

• Use a steady chair. A chair on wheels can roll out from under you during a twist or a forward fold. Lock the wheels if you can, or put the chair's back against a wall. A kitchen chair is ideal.
• Sit near the front edge. Your back should be clear of the backrest, with your feet flat on the floor about hip-width apart and your knees roughly over your ankles. If your feet don't reach, put a box or a couple of thick books under them.
• Breathe slowly, through your nose if that is comfortable. If you are holding your breath, you are pushing too hard.
• Go to a mild stretch and stay there. No bouncing and no forcing. Stop if anything hurts, tingles, goes numb or makes you dizzy.
• Check first if you need to. If you have an injury, back or neck problems, have had recent surgery (including a hip or knee replacement) or are pregnant, check with a physiotherapist or a doctor about which of these poses suit you.

Eight chair yoga poses for your desk

Do them in this order for a full flow, or pick the ones you need. Return to the first pose for a breath between the others.

1. Seated mountain

1. Sit near the front of the chair with your feet flat and your hands resting on your thighs.
2. Lengthen up through the top of your head, as if a string were drawing it toward the ceiling.
3. Let your shoulders drop away from your ears and keep your chin level.
4. Take five slow breaths here.

2. Seated cat-cow

1. Rest your hands on your knees.
2. Breathe in: lift your chest forward and up, draw your shoulders back and gently arch your back. Let your gaze rise slightly.
3. Breathe out: round your spine, tuck your chin toward your chest and press your hands lightly into your knees.
4. Move between the two shapes for five to eight slow breaths.

Keep the neck movement small and let the back do the work.

3. Seated side stretch

1. Rest your left hand on the seat beside your hip.
2. Breathe in and raise your right arm overhead.
3. Breathe out and lean gently to the left, keeping both hips heavy on the seat.
4. Hold for three breaths, come back up on an in-breath, and switch sides.

4. Seated twist

1. Sit tall and breathe in to lengthen your spine.
2. Breathe out and turn your chest to the right. Put your left hand on the outside of your right knee and your right hand on the seat or the back of the chair behind you.
3. Turn from your ribs, hips facing forward. Use your hands for balance, not to crank yourself further round.
4. Hold for three to five breaths, return to the center on an in-breath, then switch.

Keep the twist small, or leave it out, if it bothers your lower back. On a swivel chair, brace your feet so the chair doesn't turn instead of you.

5. Eagle arms

1. Hold both arms out in front at shoulder height.
2. Cross your right arm under your left at the elbows, then bend both elbows so your forearms point up. Bring the backs of your hands together, or your palms if they reach.
3. Lift your elbows a little and move your hands slightly away from your face. You should feel it between your shoulder blades.
4. Hold for three to five breaths, then switch arms.

If the wrap is too much, hug yourself instead, hands on opposite shoulders, and breathe into your upper back.

6. Ankle on knee

1. Sit near the front of the chair with your feet flat.
2. Rest your right ankle on your left thigh just above the knee, and flex your right foot.
3. Sit tall, then lean forward a little from the hips with a long back until you feel a stretch in your right hip and buttock.
4. Hold for three to five breaths, then switch.

If your knee complains, simply cross your ankles and sit tall instead.

7. Neck release

1. Sit tall and let both shoulders drop.
2. Slowly tip your right ear toward your right shoulder, keeping that shoulder down. For a little more, let your left arm hang and reach your fingertips toward the floor.
3. Hold for three breaths, then switch sides.
4. Finish with a slow half circle: drop your chin toward your chest and roll it from one shoulder to the other a few times.

Skip full circles that roll the head backward. The half circle is gentler.

8. Seated forward fold

1. Move your feet a little wider than your hips.
2. Breathe in and sit tall.
3. Breathe out and fold forward from the hips, letting your chest rest toward your thighs and your arms and head hang.
4. Stay for three to five breaths, then come up slowly on an in-breath, with your head last.

If folding forward bothers your back or makes you lightheaded, rest your forearms on your thighs instead, or leave this one out. End where you started, in seated mountain, with a few slow breaths.

How long should a chair yoga break be?

Five minutes covers the whole flow, and two minutes still helps. A short break several times a day is easier to keep up than one long session you keep putting off.

Chair yoga doesn't get you out of the chair, though, and health bodies advise cutting down on long, unbroken spells of sitting. Treat it as a companion to standing up and walking around, not a replacement. There is more on that rhythm in how often should you get up from your desk.

Can you do chair yoga in an open office?

Yes, and most of it is less noticeable than you think. Seated mountain looks like sitting up straight, the neck release and side stretch look like any stretch, and a twist looks like reaching for something behind you. Save eagle arms and the forward fold for a meeting room or home.

Two or three poses between tasks is easier to start than a full routine, and slow breathing through the nose is quiet: nobody needs to hear it.

For the wrists, chest and calves, two-minute desk stretches has more, including a few standing ones.

Fitting chair yoga into the workday

The poses are easy. Remembering them at two in the afternoon is the hard part, because the moment you are stiffest is usually the moment you are most absorbed. Tie the flow to things that already happen: the end of a call, the start of a build, a file export. On a Mac you can also set a repeating event in Calendar for mid-morning and mid-afternoon, or start a five-minute timer in the Clock app (in recent versions of macOS) and run the full flow until it rings.

Notchpals takes a different approach. Its Movement characters, Coach Flex among them, come out of your Mac's notch with a Stretch reminder now and then, and most of their lines name one specific move rather than a vague "go stretch". This one is the seated side stretch, more or less:

Coach FlexBig reach overhead! Side bend left, side bend right! Beautiful form!

Press Done once you have done it. Press Later to finish what you are on, and the reminder returns once, twenty minutes after that. Stretches share a daily allowance with the crew's other repeating reminders, such as water and eye breaks, so they turn up a few times a day rather than every hour. The same Movement character also asks you to stand up after about an hour of unbroken work, which covers the part chair yoga can't.