The Best Way To Promote Healthy Limbs And Flexibility

Advancement in age comes with lots of perks – wisdom, grace, maturity, experience, and many other gifts. While the gifts that accompany old age are quite enormous, so are the challenges that creep in as you get older. Some of such life’s challenges that come as a result of old age include a higher risk of life-threatening diseases such as diabetes, some types of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and even regular pains around your joints and limbs. Well, talking about pains on your joints and leading a physically healthy lifestyle, the meditation practice of yoga remains a very powerful practice to help you enhance your flexibility and physical health. Frankly speaking, through some simple yoga stretches, deep breathing, stretching postures, and relaxation, you are sure of a host of health benefits that will make you look healthier, stronger, smarter, and even younger as you advance in age. But before we dive deep into some simple yoga you should adopt to enjoy all the health perks of yoga practice, let’s take a quick look at some striking benefits of yoga for seniors.

 

Health Benefits of Yoga for Seniors

Generally, yoga is known to be an effective remedy to handle stress and anxiety and also a good way to promote better sleep patterns. But beyond these, here are some specific health benefits of yoga to seniors.

 

  1. Yoga Enhances Joint Health and Overall Flexibility

With some gentle yoga stretches now and then, you can easily wad off joint stiffness and pains. In research, it was shown that yoga stretches provide therapeutic benefits over osteoarthritis in older women. Besides helping your joints to be healthy and flexible, yoga also tends to tone your supporting tissues and muscles as well as preventing injury from some strenuous routines.

 

  1. Yoga Enhances Stability and Balance

One important component common among various yoga poses is their focus on developing the balance and stability of yogi. With this, you can tell that with a regular simple yoga routine for seniors, you can overcome unnecessary and frequent falls, as it is the case with most seniors. Also, with a regular yoga routine, you can develop strength and stability to quickly bounce back on your feet if at all you slip off the floor.

 

  1. Yoga Enhances Stronger Bones

In case you may be having concerns bordering around osteoporosis and brittle bones, with some simple yoga for seniors, you can easily bolster your bone strength. In a study, it was shown that regular yoga improves the bone density of women after menopause.

 

  1. Yoga Enhances Effective Breathing

Pranayama, an aspect of yoga concerned with breath control, is another helpful yoga routine you can adopt to enhance your lung and pulmonary capacity and functioning. According to a study, it was shown that there was a significant improvement in the respiratory function of older women who practiced yoga at least thrice weekly for 12 weeks.

 

 

 

Some Simple Yoga Practice for Old People

Here are the top 5 types of yoga with incredible health benefit for older people

  1. Iyengar

This form of yoga is focused basically on the maintenance of proper form and alignment using props such as straps, inclined boards, bolsters, and blocks.

 

  1. Hatha

Hatha is more of a generic word for different types of yoga, with special attention to physical posture.  In most cases, hatha yoga classes involve a series of slow-paced standing and sitting poses. Hatha yoga classes also involve breathing and stretching without necessarily lifting your legs high above your head, and this makes hatha the perfect yoga for seniors.

 

  1. Yin

Yin yoga involves slow and focused poses, which are held for a long time, and by so doing, you stretch your inner connective tissues. Frankly speaking, yin yoga is a perfect routine if you want to enhance your flexibility and wad off joint stiffness.

 

  1. Ashtanga

Although a fast-paced yoga, ashtanga typically involves repeating the same pose over and over again. Doing this is a good way to boost your circulation and heart rate as well as weight loss. Give ashtanga a shot; it is a great yoga practice for seniors.

 

  1. Vinyasa

Common referred to as vinyasa flow, vinyasa involves repeated matching of breath with a series of body movements that flows from one form to the other. In most cases, vinyasa is usually likened to dancing, mainly due to its physical engagement of different parts of the body. Nevertheless, vinyasa is also another good yoga you can adopt to boost the health of your limbs as you age. 

 

Wrap Up

Yoga is a fitness practice that is not limited to age, race, or gender. Yoga remains a perfect fitness routine for seniors, especially as it can be easily modified to suit an individual’s needs. With some routine yoga poses such as ashtanga, vinyasa, Hatha, or yin, older people can enjoy an improved balance, stability, breathing, flexibility, and joint movements.

 

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