Last Updated on March 12, 2024 by admin
Yoga is closing in on becoming a $10 billion industry. It’s an ancient art and form of fitness that helps people all over. Yoga builds a strong body and mind and is particularly helpful to the elderly community.
Add this to your list of senior exercises so that you can take your life to the next level. Keep reading to learn more about senior yoga and how it can make an impact in your life.
Table of Contents
1. It’s Excellent for Your Brain
One of the greatest benefits of yoga for seniors is the effects that it has on your brain. Your neurotransmitters click on all cylinders and make connections when you practice yoga.
Yoga helps to protect against some of the natural mental degeneration that happens with aging. Cognitive protection is crucial since 5.8 million people live with Alzheimer’s.
When you practice yoga every day, it improves your ability to build your concentration. You’ll have a sharper mind as you age, with better memory and more alertness and awareness.
Prioritizing senior fitness is excellent for your mind as much as your body.
2. Yoga Keeps You Fit
Yoga is excellent because it keeps you physically fit without taxing your body. As you get older, you might not desire to hit the weights heavy or run miles on the treadmill or track.
Practicing yoga gives you a workout that can keep you trim and fit without it being too intense. It builds muscles and gives you total body strength more effectively than many other forms of exercise. Athletes in several sports practice yoga to build their bodies and make them more effective.
Add this to your list of senior fitness routines and break a sweat in a focused yoga session four to five times per week. Yoga teaches you to breathe deeper, which helps with your vitality and energy.
A fitter body is also more resistant to injury. You’ll appreciate being more durable as you go about your daily life.
3. Senior Fitness Routines Help the Heart
Yoga is a powerful cardiovascular workout. It builds a stronger heart, boosts your circulatory system, and makes sure your veins and arteries perform better.
People who practice yoga will also have better cholesterol levels and lower blood pressure. Sticking to some senior exercise routines will help you lower your risk of stroke and heart attack.
More than 800,000 people in the United States suffer a heart attack each year.
4. Your Joint Health Improves
Seniors need to take great care of their joints. Yoga is an exercise that improves your flexibility while also strengthening all your joints.
Your joints will feel lubricated and less creaky. People who practice yoga find themselves able to bend, twist, and move without the limitations they used to have. About 22% of adults in the United States live with some form of arthritis.
Taking care of your joints in a natural way will help you roll out of bed easily, play with your grandkids, and go up and down stairs without missing a beat.
5. Yoga Offers Pain Relief and Better Sleep
Yoga is like nature’s medicine for your body. Building your coordination, taking care of your joints, improving blood flow, and improving your fitness level will also work to reduce inflammation.
When your body is less inflamed, you’ll have fewer pain issues. Many people take pain medicine every single day for issues that ail them. Your body will be less tense, stiff, and swollen when you hit the yoga mat regularly to work out the kinks.
Physical pain and mental tension can also keep you up at night. By sweating it out in yoga sessions, you’ll go to bed tired and ready to fall asleep as soon as you get under the covers.
This means you’ll also get better and deeper sleep cycles, which allow your brain and body to restore themselves. The improvement in sleep will help you wake up with more pep in your step, better energy, and less brain fog.
6. Practicing Yoga Improves Balance
You’ll love and appreciate your body when you practice yoga. It builds bodily awareness that makes it easier for you to catch yourself, walk upright, and maintain posture.
Improved bodily balance helps you avoid falls and serious injuries. This is vital since close to 3 million elderly adults each year go to the emergency room (ER) due to preventable falls.
The improvements in bodily awareness during yoga practices will make you feel a greater sense of balance that lets you live in the moment.
7. It Keeps the Stress Away
People fall in love with yoga because of its anti-stress benefits. It helps you to relax your body’s stress response since it lowers your cortisol hormone levels.
Yoga will help you to stay calm and keep your emotions in check so that you live each day without getting carried away by the little stressors that add up. This practice can work wonders for people who struggle with issues like anxiety and depression.
This is why people who care for elderly relatives also find yoga impactful. The restorative healing powers let them take a break and then show up more prepared to serve.
A primary caregiver may also opt for short term respite care that will offer relief.
Explore the benefits of yoga to better understand how it can fit into your life.
Start Practicing Senior Yoga
Senior yoga practice will help your mind and body more than you know. It’s something that everyone can practice regardless of their health or fitness level.
Look for some yoga studios in your area, or find an online yoga workout that you can follow along with. Start with these benefits and check out our other articles related to senior fitness and well-being.
Read more: Top 5 Reasons You Should Consider Becoming a Yoga Teacher
