Adjusting Triangle Pose

By Wendy Courtney

This essay on Yoga and its relation to Senior health is based on my past experience with my aging relatives and surrounding community and also from what I have learned from the Chair Yoga Teacher’s course.

I have lived in the country all of my life and a big part of that, was spent living with my grandparents, on the family farm. Over the years, I grew a lot of respect towards Seniors, probably because I grew up surrounded by Seniors like my grandparents, great-aunts and uncles and my great-grandmother, especially knowing their past and how hard they have worked all their lives, trying to make a better life for their children and their children’s children.

I was 11 years old, when my great-grandmother passed away at the age of 94. She was a petite lady but, as I recall “she had an appetite like a horse”, not junk food either, we ate mostly everything grown or raised off the farm, three square meals a day and every day, at the same time.

As I grew older, I came to realize that my great-grandmother probably lived that long was due to a well balanced diet, and by eating properly it helped her to have a lot of energy and energy she had, you would think a little woman at that age would sit around taking it easy and enjoying everyone catering to her, but not my great-grandmother, up to the time she passed away and even after she has fallen down the stairs a couple of times and even broken her hip, she would not give up. But their came a time my grandparents thought it would be a good idea to make my great-grandmother a bedroom on the main floor, but because there was no washroom on the main floor, they had put a port-a-potty in her room, she accepted the idea of having her bed on the main floor, but a port-a-potty, she was not fond of. So when she had a chance, when no one was looking she would still sneak up the stairs, two flights of stairs at that, not only to get ahead of my grandmother to make all the beds, which was one of her morning shores she always done, but it was especially to use the washroom, oh! How she hated that port-a-potty. I remembered there were times she would come to me and ask me to guide her up the stairs so she can use the washroom, which was fine with me, at the age I was, it was like playing a game and I was her look out.

So remembering those things and knowing the things that I know now shows that balancing nutrition, exercise, keeping a healthy mind and having determination, is very important.

Although my great-grandmother had to live off the land and had to survive with the things she had on hand and still managed to eat healthy, exercised, the kind of exercise that was performed, mostly by hard work, and having a healthy mind, like the willpower and determination she had to be able survive and not to give up and in comparison to the life of that of a Yogi, I know that Yogis prefer not to eat meat and such and tend to do stretching with deep breathing for exercise and truly believe in the power of the mind, but All in all, there are similarities between my great-grandmother’s way of living and that of a Yogi, like a well-balanced nutritious diet, exercise and a healthy mind, when all put together they play an important role.

Introducing Yoga to Seniors would be beneficial, because yoga is low impact which is easy on the joints and great for the body, giving it energy, it would also be great for the mind keeping it alert and great for the spirit, which helps to keep us happy.

Yoga has the benefit to suit all ages, no matter what age you are, but you must always consult your doctor first, before your perform any kind of exercise, with your doctors permission, you can profit the reward that yoga can offer. For instance, the breath, with the correct techniques, will promote youthfulness inside and out, by providing oxygen to the blood stream, which it will generate through your body to help heel, repair and rejuvenate the body, making you feel and look younger.

After you have accomplished the correct way of breathing you can add some Yoga postures. These postures are to be done slowly and steadily with the flow of your breath, this will help lubricate your joints, develop flexibility and create more energy. This is especially good for Seniors, who will get stiffer with age, joints will get dry and Seniors will become less energetic.

Any time when you feel stressed, you can learn to use meditation techniques, this can be done at any time and anywhere. Meditation is a combination of deep breathing and relaxation of the body and mind. This will help you find inner peace and it will open the mind.

We need to keep our aging community active. The Seniors today are aging well and in better health, but after retirement, many get depressed because they don’t know what to do with themselves, especially in small communities that don’t have much to offer. When depression sets in, it doesn’t take long for some kind of illness to occur and then their health deteriorates quickly.

The community, where I live is trying to get funds to build a Retirement Home for active Seniors, which is badly needed, especially for the ones that don’t have family. We have nursing homes for those who absolutely cannot take care of themselves and need supervision all the time, but these places are not suitable for active Seniors with mild ailments.

Introducing Yoga to Seniors will help prevent loneliness through group gatherings and that itself will help reduce depression, while getting the exercise they need. Although there is no cure for depression, there are ways you can learn to cope with it, depending on the severity.

For those with certain disabilities, Yoga postures can always be modified to suite that person’s needs, without putting stress on the body.

You don’t have to be fit as a fiddle to do Yoga, as long as you are of sound mind and able to understand the instructions, you can do it.

For example, if you happen to have a person with an old back injury and his back became deformed from stiffness over the years and that he is complaining of muscle spasms and back pain, Yoga can help but with only certain Asanas. Twisting should be a no, no, because that person probably has herniated disk and probably has loss of bone density in the injured areas, twisting may cause more injury.

First start with basic warm-ups and some breathing techniques and how to combine movements with the flow of the breath then properly show him some Asanas like; forward folds, cat pose, child pose, downward facing dog, plank pose and cobra pose, without straining himself and to let him know that he will not be able to do certain postures perfectly because the spine has healed and the muscles and the tendons have become tight making the curvature of the back out of lined, through time it may get better, but it may never become perfectly in lined, so this person may never be able to do certain Asanas and you and your student shouldn’t expect to do them either, the main purpose of introducing Yoga exercise is do relieve pain, not induce it.

Another example, of a person in her sixties, a little on the heavy side and diabetic, with hip and lower back problems caused from improper posture alignment, she also has shortness of breath, a touch of asthma, caused from many years of smoking and incorrect breathing habits which was diagnosed from a lung specialist.

Now this person can’t stand for long periods of time and can’t lie on the floor, so I would have to prepare Asanas to meet her needs. First I would show her correct breathing techniques and work on that for a good month or more until she gets the hang of it and that she can to them on her own, in her spare time. Then I would slowly introduce some Asanas with support of a chair. I would first inform her and show her how important of combining posture movements with the flow of the breath and the benefits of doing them correctly.

I would first show her Asanas postures while she sits on a chair and if she was able, some standing postures with the support of a back of a chair, even if only for a short time, doing a little bit of movements will become better, she will become more flexible and stronger through time. I would start with some basic warm-ups then show her forward folds, side stretches and leg pendulums, something easy and something she can practice on her own. Through time I can introduce her more Asanas to help her maintain good health, flexibility and strength.

For my conclusion, I would love to be able to have the ability to introduce Yoga to Seniors and to the community, to show them the benefits of Yoga and how it could be set up in a routine, so that they can perform in their daily lives.

Yoga can be done in the morning for those early birds, in the afternoon, in the evening and because Yoga is not strenuous, you can even do Yoga before bed and still get a good night sleep.

Yoga can be done alone or in a group, but it is preferable to have a Yoga instructor just to make sure the postures are done properly and that they are the correct postures for you.

You can set up a Yoga class outside in a warm, sunny day, in a community hall, at a Seniors retirement home for active Seniors or you can give private classes in your own home.

Most importantly, meeting and greeting with the people and knowing you are there in their lives, spending time with them, getting to know one another, and learning from each other things from the past, present and dreaming of our future and the best feeling of all, is the feeling of accomplishments, knowing you are helping people with great appreciation.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my essay, I hope I didn’t confuse you too much, sometimes I get my sentences backwards, because I am fluently bilingual, and I tend to do that sometimes.

Wendy Courtney is a Certified Chair Yoga Teacher. She teaches Yoga classes in Gracefield, Quebec, Canada.