How Practicing Yoga Brings Balance to Your Life
Rod Lowry | Member, Wellness Committee, ARTA
I live in a wonderful community with a very active senior centre. Last fall, they offered a ‘chair yoga’ course. Like regular yoga, its benefits include greater strength, improved flexibility, and stress relief. This form of movement provides crucial support, especially for those with limited mobility or balance challenges. Practicing yoga regularly can help reduce the risk of falling and allows deep stretches and muscle strengthening.
In this article from John Hopkins Medicine, it lists nine benefits of yoga, poses to try for noticing each benefit, as well as links to other interesting articles on exercise and aging. I encourage you to read the article and implement some of these poses into your routine.
These benefits include:
- Improved strength, balance, and flexibility
- Helping with back pain relief
- Possible easing arthritis symptoms
- Benefiting heart health
- Improved sleep by helping you relax
- More energy and brighter moods
- Managing stress
- Connecting with supportive communities
- Promoting better self-care
Additionally, chair yoga provides:
- Accessibility & safety: Support from the chair helps those with balance issues, arthritis, chronic pain, or difficulty getting on the floor.
- Enhanced stability: With a stable base, you can focus on alignment and deeper stretching in poses like forward folds or twists.
- Deepened stretches by letting you relax into stretches, chair yoga improves flexibility in the spine, hips, and shoulders.
- Strength building: Muscles still work against gravity and body weight, building strength while seated.
- Low impact: Gentle on joints, chair yoga is great for seniors, those recovering, or desk workers needing a break.
- Mind-body connection: Improves proprioception (body awareness) and interoception (internal state awareness).
As we age, it’s essential to maintain an active lifestyle, be that with yoga or other forms of exercise. I've often heard that “motion is lotion.” Regular movement lubricates your joints, reduces stiffness, and keeps your body flexible, acting like lotion for your muscles and joints, preventing them from getting rigid and painful after long periods of stagnancy.
Whether it’s yoga or another physical activity, choose something that you enjoy doing; it increases your chances of getting up and moving! But don’t feel intimidated by trying yoga – it’s a practice that has existed for thousands of years and truly stands the test of time. All ages and abilities can participate, and there are plenty of variations in poses that cater to your level of strength and flexibility.
If you’re up for the challenge, research yoga classes in your area, join a local yoga group, or enjoy the many internet channels such as YouTube that provide yoga routines you can do at home at no cost.
Rod Lowry
Member, Wellness Committee, ARTA