Older Adults Increasingly Turn to Yoga for Health

Yoga can relieve back pain, improve sleep quality, boost overall fitness

Excerpts from AARPBulletinToday, June 9, 2009; by John Hanc.

The idea that older adults are involved in yoga shouldn’t really come as a surprise. After all, while it may sound as trendy as Twitter, as new and shiny as your next laptop, this form of mind-body exercise has been around, by some estimates, for 5,000 years. What’s more, many of the most influential Indian yogis are nonagenarians, notably 90-year-old B.K.S. Iyengar, founder of an eponymous style of yoga that is practiced worldwide.

Yoga as practiced in America today is different from what it was in the peace, love, consciousness-expanding days of the ’60s. The emphasis for most devotees now is on the physical, as opposed to spiritual, aspects of the practice.

More older adults are now taking their place on the mats. According to the study, 18.4 percent of practitioners are now over 55.

Health benefits have been reported in numerous studies, most of them done in the past few years, involving “yoga interventions” with older adults here and abroad. Researchers have found that regular practice led to reduced incidence of chronic back pain; improved sleep quality and mood; a better sense of well-being and quality of life; improvement in heart health, rheumatoid arthritis and type 2 diabetes; and greater overall physical fitness.

The full article can be seen at: http://bulletin.aarp.org/yourhealth/healthyliving/articles/older_adults_increasingly_turn_to_yoga_for_health.html

The number of older adults in yoga has definitely increased, says one Yoga teacher. “I would say half of our level-1 students are 55 and over. Just five years ago that wouldn’t have been the case … maybe 10 percent would have been in that age group.”

So, if you're not already actively exercising, maybe a Yoga class is the place to start addressing your physical well being.

Have a great day.

Tom Binder
Seniors Real Estate Specialist