Yoga for all

Chair yoga can allow you to improve balance, flexibility, mood, and overall strength.

Benefits of Yoga

Yoga is a series of poses (called postures) and respiration techniques that include a component of meditation. Asanas are useful in some ways. They help reduce muscle tension, construct flexibility and strength, increase bone strength, and improve balance.

In addition, the meditative quality of yoga triggers a well-studied physiological change often known as the relief response, which may also help lower your blood pressure, heart rate, respiration rate, oxygen consumption, adrenaline levels, and levels of the stress hormone cortisol. “And it boosts your mood, reduces anxiety and depression, and improves sleep,” Malloy says.

A modified approach

Chair yoga includes lots of the asanas utilized in traditional yoga, but in chair yoga the chairs are replaced by sitting or standing next to the chair. “Instead of stretching your legs on the floor, you can do them sitting. Or if it’s a simple standing posture, you can hold onto a chair,” says Malloy. For example, the standard solution to do “downward dog” is to put your hands and feet on the ground to form an upside-down V shape together with your body. In chair yoga, you may modify this by placing your feet on the ground, then bending on the hips and placing your hands on the seat of the chair as a substitute of the ground.

Do you get the identical advantages with editing? “Absolutely,” Malloy says, “because you’re still focusing on your breath and being in the moment, so you’re relaxing, and you’re also getting a stretch and strength.”

Chair yoga class

Like traditional yoga, chair yoga is taught at school. In a typical class, participants might start with quarter-hour of respiration and stretching exercises, resembling “sun breathing”: inhale and extend your arms out to the edges and up, then exhale and lower your arms. This might be done sitting down.

After respiration and stretching time, participants spend about half-hour strengthening balance and posture. Tree Pose, great for balance, is finished while holding the back of a chair for support: Start together with your feet flat on the ground, then bend your left knee and place your left foot in your right inner leg, as in the event you’re making the letter P. You can proceed to carry the chair or raise one or each of your arms. Then you hold this asana for 3 to 6 breaths.

After balance and strengthening, participants spend the last quarter-hour of sophistication doing guided rest.

to start

You’ll find chair yoga classes at senior centers, yoga studios, local YMCAs, and even hospitals. You won’t have to buy any equipment. You can wear loose clothing, resembling a t-shirt and shorts. The costs are often not covered by insurance. Malloy says you may expect to pay $10 to $20 per class.

And one other tip: Look for a yoga instructor trained to work with older adults, preferably one with at the least a 200-hour certification. Be sure to let the trainer know your physical limitations in order that they can higher assist you.

Movement of the Month: Seated Crescent This seated yoga pose stretches the edges of your torso and in addition helps strengthen your core. Sit up straight in a chair together with your feet flat on the ground and arms resting at your sides. Inhale and produce your arms up with palms up. Keeping your shoulders down, point your toes and the crown of your head toward the ceiling. As you exhale, twist to the left, feeling a stretch in the best side of your torso. Hold for 3 to five breaths. On an inhale, straighten your body, after which lower your arms as you exhale. Repeat, turning to the best.