‘Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is pressure on a nerve in your wrist. It causes tingling, numbness and pain in your hand and fingers. You can often treat it yourself, but it can take months to get better.’ NHS
It’s important to work with lifestyle factors like mouse usage and simple tasks like choosing to push a door open with a soft fist rather than an open palm.
The main concern is compressing, spraining, overextending or causing inflammation.
Be careful with any pose that causes any sense of discomfort.
Yoga can help by:
- Increasing the range of motion
- Strengthening and rebalancing surrounding muscles
- Reduce compression on nerves that create carpal tunnel
Do
- Gradually increase strength and check the day after to ensure the previous day’s activity was beneficial and did not have any negative outcomes.
- Stretch off through the shoulders
- Soften your gaze when working on a computer screen. The tension between the eyes and hand can exacerbate carpal tunnel.
Don’t
- Do anything which causes pain
- Poses exercise caution with: pose with a weight-bearing element (all fours), poses that move the wrists strongly, especially if done unconsciously (cowface, eagle arms, twists if you use your arms)
- Poses to avoid: weight bearing poses (dog pose, plank)