If you think you’re too (old, inflexible, arthritic, out of shape, fill-in-the-blank-excuse) to do yoga, you couldn’t be more wrong. As my yoga instructor once told me, “If you can breathe, you can do yoga.” After all, the essence of yoga goes beyond holding physical poses—it involves finding stillness within. Yoga invites practitioners to slow down, to be mindful of the present, and to cultivate a more purposeful life.
Between 34-37 million Americans (roughly 10% of the population) practice yoga. There’s a reason yoga is so popular—it’s accessible and adaptable for people of all ages and abilities. For those with limited mobility, chair yoga provides an even gentler option.
At 57, I went from practicing yoga a handful of times in my entire life to steadily practicing four to five times a week for the last two years—with no plans of stopping. I turned to yoga during the pandemic as a feel-good activity to restore body, mind, and spirit, taking a mix of gentle and restorative Hatha classes at the Red Sun studio in Winter Springs, Florida.
On the days when I can’t physically get to the studio, I’ll often practice at home watching YouTube videos. Sometimes, I’ll just take five minutes to practice balancing, perform some stretches, or do deep-breathing exercises.
As someone with osteoarthritis and a two-time cancer survivor, I understand the importance of staying active and maintaining physical well-being as I age. And, as we all learned during the pandemic, taking care of our mental health is equally as important. I’ve discovered that yoga offers an accessible activity that can boost your well-being, regardless of age.
While yoga has surged in popularity in recent years, this body-mind-spirit practice is actually centuries old, with its roots in ancient India. For more than 5000 years, people have turned to yoga to build strength, mindfulness and find inner peace.
Beyond calming the mind, the practice of yoga delivers a host of physical health benefits, such as improving flexibility and joint health. (I notice I feel more aches when I skip yoga for a week.) Yoga enhances balance, which can help prevent the falls that can lead to serious injuries as we get older, and strengthens muscles that support a healthy posture, Research also shows yoga can relieve symptoms related to fibromyalgia and lower back/neck pain, and may improve quality of life for people with chronic diseases such as multiple sclerosis.
My own feel-good experiences with yoga are corroborated by expansive research citing the many benefits of this ancient practice. On study at the University of California’s Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Centers showed that yoga reduces stress, anxiety, and depression. Similarly, studies from University of Illinois and University of Waterloo show that yoga improves cognitive functions. And research from the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease found that yoga enhances memory.
And yoga can help boost your social connections by becoming part of the local community. I’ve made several yoga friends at the Red Sun studio, with whom I dine out regularly.