Yoga at your desk… sounds good in theory but rolling out the mat, burning the incense and downward dogging in front of colleagues isn’t ideal.
Enter Fiona Patterson… a Melbourne yoga, tai-chi and qigong instructor who passionately advocates yoga and guided relaxations at work.
Her vision to give desk bound people “a break” led to the creation of her ‘Salute the desk’ app and corporations are quickly implementing ideas like these to reduce workplace stress.
The app includes mini yoga classes, stretches and guided relaxations.
Has 27 poses designed to release tension and improve posture.
And allows us to plan sessions according to calendars, track our progress and set reminders to practice. Fiona says it’s a way of honouring our work space and treating it as an expression of our creativity, as opposed to resenting our time there.
Mum to little Octavia, Fiona also really wanted to also help people improve their posture, “this was a frequent request from my colleagues, so I wove in a ‘sit tall’ message throughout the stretching and relaxation sequences in the app,” she points out.
Like many martial arts practitioners Fiona also has a Kung Fu ‘family.’ She is a disciple student to a Master, Liu Deming, which means she carries on the Zi Ran Men lineage.
Take a peak at her pad in Melbourne’s groovy bayside suburb of Elwood.
Fiona’s discipline medallion from her Kung Fu training . Production – Martine Harte. Photo – Changwei Dean
A plant tank aquarium has pride of place in Fiona’s Elwood apartment, very 70’s but I have to say a very relaxing addition to their home. Production – Martine Harte. Photo – Changwei Dean
Fiona believes in bringing nature inside our homes and uses colour to produce a calm interior, “Green is a beautiful colour to be greeted by in the morning,” she says. Production – Martine Harte. Photo – Changwei Dean.
Mindfulness and meditation technique programs are now being adopted throughout corporate Australia. Research has shown it helps productivity which is why big corporates such as IBM Australia and NZ are getting on it.
If you want to check it out, take a deep breath and calmly, purposefully head over here.