Susan Dawson-Cook
If you’re seeking ways to improve balance and posture, practicing yoga can accomplish that and much more. Researchers say yoga can improve emotional and physical health in more than 38 different areas.
If you’re shaking your head, convinced you’re too old to start yoga, please think again. A recent online article in Reader’s Digest Best Health featured Ida Herbert, a 96-year-old Canadian yoga instructor. She not only performs yoga postures, she teaches them to others. Yoga, like any exercise practice done right, should start out easy and gradually progress with the participant. Even very simple postures and breathing exercises can greatly improve health and quality of life.
Slow breathing makes a person more mindful. This state of being present here and now in the mind and body can draw attention to problematic postural issues such as slumping shoulders or a head rolling forward.
Poor posture not only isn’t attractive, it often leads to back and neck pain and degenerative arthritis of the spine. Awareness of something that isn’t serving your health is the first step to making a change. Many yoga postures or asanas emphasize core and back-of-the body strengthening and lengthening and extension of the spine and neck. These activities are natural postural correctors.
Regular yoga practice also induces that heightened awareness to know when your body is moving in proper alignment versus when something’s out of kilter. Eventually, better posture will carry over beyond the yoga studio.
Poor balance can lead to bone-breaking falls. It’s well worth the time investment to practice balance skills. This will make every activity you enjoy feel easier. Balance is largely about developing proprioception or the ability to feel where your body is in space. Once you feel when you’re grounded to the floor, it becomes easier to feel when instability begins to happen and know which muscles to engage or move to handle a position change. The more comfortable you become at being unstable, the more you learn to correct for it by engaging the core muscles, raising the arms out to the side or shifting weight to accommodate the imbalance. Asanas such as the Tree and Warrior poses are excellent for balance.
Consistency is the key to reaping balance and postural benefits and much more. You won’t be able to stand on one leg for a minute after one yoga class just as weight doesn’t fall off overnight after someone takes up running. Through regular yoga class attendance, you will learn a variety of asanas and breathing techniques. You can even assimilate the most essential elements of what you learn into your own daily practice.
Susan Dawson-Cook, M.S. has been an AFAA certified fitness professional since 1988. Her SaddleBrooke employer is Vital Moves. She completes her 200-hour Yoga Alliance certification in Corn Island, Nicaragua on June 8.