Thursday, September 13, 2012

Feel Better And Look Younger Through Yoga


Senior citizens have many options to help prevent certain illnesses from developing as well as to achieve a better overall body of health. For example, millions of seniors begin to develop problems with painful joints and arthritis symptoms well after their fifties. For these folks, the best method to feel and look younger is through yoga.

Yoga is one of the best activities for seniors to engage in as it will not cause any additional strain on their joints. Millions of seniors give up on staying active after they have reached a certain age simply due to the lack of mobility and the amount of pain and stiffness they are in. By stretching their bodies on a regular basis through yoga classes, they can essentially reverse most of their pain. Yoga is nothing but a series of poses to encourage increased flexibility and better posture. It can help them maintain their weight as well as prevent high pressure and heart disease. Yoga uses the body to form itself in these poses and then hold them while breathing as instructed in your class for seconds or minutes depending on your level of expertise. For seniors, it can be one of the only forms of exercise that they can endure on a regular basis that does not harm them or require too much cardio endurance to engage in. Most seniors cannot run several miles to maintain an active lifestyle, but they can certainly stand up straight and bend their bodies with a little practice. Think of how a senior citizen may feel if they have such a severe case of arthritis that they cannot tie their shoes or reach for something high on a shelf without enduring extreme pain. How intimidating and frustrating that can be for an older adult to essentially lose many functions they once could complete with very little effort at all. For all of these reasons, yoga can be a very therapeutic process for seniors. It encourages the physical activity they need to loosen up those muscles and joints and to also provide the breathing techniques that can help them reach that level of mental clarity as well.

Yoga classes for seniors should be found in any senior center facilities, or through a private trainer. Many private trainers will come straight to their homes to train them in yoga disciplines, and they can also incorporate the use of balance balls and roller pads that can be very useful to alleviate the pain from arthritis. Be sure to start off slowly if you are a senior that has not been involved in any form of exercise recently and also only do small timeframes for each pose during your first month of yoga training. This means to only hold your poses for a few seconds for each pose and gradually move up holding them one minute and so on. For more privacy, you can also try the yoga videos that are found on the internet or sold in any local department store.

3 comments:

  1. After reading so many articles on yoga, it is something I am considering taking up.

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  2. You definitely should Krinsky J, I'm serious, once you get into it you will never stop and wish you had started years ago.

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  3. Me too, I am really considering it.

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