Another great offering at the Beaches BFF Event was meditation, yoga, and information on Ayurveda. The seaside morning meditation was simply bliss. One of my favorite places to relax and let things go is with the sound of the ocean in your ears and the sight of it when closing and then opening my eyes. How does any of this translate for nails? The instructor we had was Kim Valeri, owner of Yoga Spirit Studios, and she was kind enough to consent to an interview for the blog. I asked Kim what some good yoga or stretching poses would be to help nail techs with our hunched-up, crunched-up posture.

This is what hurts us all the slumped over posture we tend to assume, especially while working. Kim's suggestion was to use Frame the Back Body techniques:

• Relief for shoulders and neck

• Better posture

• Aid in better breathing

Frame the Back Body means:

• Broaden the collar bones

• Let the shoulder blades move down away from the ears

• The shoulder blades move toward each other and hub the back ribs

• Sternum lifts, which allows more energy and breath

There is a multitude of techniques for this, but Kim offered three easy ones for us to try:

Mountain Pose: Tadasana

Flank Pose: Parvottanasna

Second step of Flank Pose

Backward Plank

Next Kim offered a technique that would help by using a wrap method and I have photographed the step-by-steps. Elastibands would be idea, but feel free to improvise! We had to improvise with a robe belt, so it ran a little short at the end. Ideally you could tie the ends in front of yourself and wear this for a bit to get accustomed to the posture improvement. 

— Holly