Yoga for seniors can be an extremely inspiring and fulfilling experience for both students and their instructors. Still, being a yoga enthusiast isn’t always easy. Realizing the trans-formative power yoga has on the body and mind inspires the need to share the truth about the benefits of yoga for seniors. But as you spread the word, you run into some myths about the practice.
Here are five common yoga myths that make older adults nervous about starting yoga.
1. It’s a young person’s activity
As a senior citizen, yoga can seem intimidating, especially if you’re unfit and battling health issues. Perhaps the only people you see practicing yoga are young. Here’s the good news: You don’t need to start with the 90-minute intense hot yoga sessions with young athletic yogis.
Instead, you can ease into it with a gentle beginners’ yoga for seniors class that keeps you active and reduce your stress levels. Yoga can offer people over fifty many benefits, including anxiety relief, flexibility, and healthy bones. Not only is yoga safe for senior citizens, but it’s also effective in maintaining their mental and physical well-being.
2. The poses are too complex
You don’t need to be super flexible to start yoga. Many factors, ranging from genes to the weather outside, affect your flexibility. Gender and age are also important. Males and older adults are typically less flexible than their female and younger counterparts.
If you’re struggling with inflexibility, here are twelve poses to get you started.
- “Tasadana” or mountain pose
- “Balasana” or child’s pose
- “Utkatasana” or Chair Pose
- “Vrksasana” or Tree Pose
- Shavasana
- “Setu Bandha Sarvangasana” or Bridge Pose
- “Salabhasana” or Locust Pose
- “Viparita Karani” or Legs-Up-the-Wall Pose
- “Virabhadrasana II” or Warrior 2
- “Ardha Uttanasana” or Wide-legged Standing Forward Bend
- Plank Pose
- Thread the Needle
3. They lock you in a room and turn up the heat
There are many types of yoga, and only the variety of yoga known as hot yoga involves sessions in a hot room. There a yoga out there for everyone, whether you’re looking for a meditative, relaxing, easy class or a physically demanding yoga routine. Yoga styles vary widely. Even similar classes can have variations depending on the instructor. Before settling down on a yoga style, it’s a good idea to explore different styles and try different instructors.
4. It’s a religion
Yoga is not a religion, nor is it part of any religion. Religious practices typically involve activities that aim to connect the people who practice religion with a supernatural entity or entities. These entities are usually specific and unique to the specific religion.
In contrast, yoga is a universal practice that is not tied to religious doctrine. Granted, yoga originated in India where practitioners used it to achieve harmony with divine entities. The yoga has, however, evolved over the years and anyone can practice it regardless of their age, gender, race, religion or country of origin.
Yoga doesn’t bind you to specific cultural beliefs. Instead, people who practice benefit from it on a personal, subjective level. For that reason, individuals from a vast set of diverse cultural and religious and non-religious practice yoga.
5. You have to learn a new language
Even though Sanskrit is widely considered the “language of yoga,” you don’t need to be fluent in it to enjoy the benefits of the practice. Most yoga instructors translate Sanskrit yoga terms to the language that their clients use.
