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Mar 2010  |  By Liz Logan and Andrea Bartz  |  Comments

Open Your Heart

We spend so much time closed off, hunched over computers, desks, steering wheels, laundry baskets and the like. It’s time to open up—and when we do, things often start looking up.

The most energizing yoga stretches are backbends and positions that open up the chest, says Corinne Peterson, a certified yoga therapist at the Heartwood Center for Body Mind Spirit in Evanston. “It has to do with breath, but symbolically, when you’re standing tall and open, you’re engaged in the world rather than being drawn in.” She recommends this refreshing exercise:

Lie flat on your back with a foam roller (above) or rolled-up towel between your spine and the floor, from your tailbone to your skull.

Relax your shoulders and feel your ribs expand.