How Older Adults Can Unleash More Vitality with Yoga and Soft Martial Arts

Most people know about the research that shows that regular exercise provides a wide range of health benefits and, perhaps most importantly, can preserve function and independence. Fewer realize that their choice of exercise activity can produce another host of unexpected benefits. By choosing mind/body exercises, such as yoga or soft martial arts (like Chi Gung and T'ai Chi), older adults can unleash even greater health and vitality.

Yoga and Chi Gung (as well as all other soft arts) are ideal choices for older adults because they positively affect the whole person: body, intellect, emotions, and spirit. They increase vital energy while strengthening and soothing the body, focusing the mind, and nurturing the spirit. The best reason older adults need a mind/body practice is that when they do, they address and honor a whole-person wellness model:

Body - Caring for the body improves health, preserves your ability to function and preserves independence. Yoga and Chi Gung offer powerful protection from falls - a major threat to older adults!

Strengthen Muscles and Bones… Yoga especially builds muscle strength and bone mass. The vital weight-bearing postures of yoga stimulate the bones to retain calcium. In yoga, both the upper and lower body receive the benefits of bearing weight, unlike walking or running.

Improved Heart and Respiratory Health… Chi Gung and the soft martial arts have been shown in studies to improve circulation, heart health, and respiratory function. Yoga breathing exercises are very powerful tools to increase respiratory function, breath capacity and physical energy. Both increase vitality and sense of well-being.

Increased Flexibility… Yoga and Chi Gung both increase overall flexibility, contributing to improved everyday functioning and mobility, and protection from falls. Despite popular notions, you do not need to be flexible to practice yoga. The idea is to practice at your current level with patience and compassion, gently becoming more pliable.