I was recently asked, by Franklin County Free Press Founder Vicky Taylor, to write about specific benefits of yoga for the elderly.
Vicky specifically wondered how yoga instructors get around some of the issues experienced by people who can’t get up and down off the floor easily, have difficulty standing for more than 15 minutes at a time, or who struggle with flexibility in certain poses.
Those concerns are common and not limited to just the elderly. Folks who are recovering from illnesses, surgery, or injury may also fall in this category as do people who may be overweight or simply unused to physical activity.
For all these individuals, it is still possible to practice yoga using a chair. Chair yoga uses the traditional yoga poses that have been around for 5,000 years or more and are adapted to be done in a chair or using a chair for support.
According to the International Chair Yoga Association, “there are numerous health benefits to a regular yoga practice. Chair yoga encourages participants to slow down, focusing on one movement at a time to reduce stress and promote relaxation.
“Chair yoga can help to ease many health issues including hypertension, anxiety, chronic fatigue, arthritis, vertigo, multiple sclerosis, depression and chronic pain. There is particular emphasis on breath, movement and flow.”
Adjusting to a Participant’s Needs
As in any yoga practice, an instructor should be encouraging all participants to go at their own pace and take any pose or movement only to a limit of what’s available to their body during that particular practice.
I have had clients that utilize two chairs during the standing portion of a practice in order to ensure they felt supported during balance poses while other clients may place a yoga bolster on the chair seat to alleviate stress on arthritic hands. There are just as many modifications for yoga poses done in a chair as there are for traditional mat yoga.
A chair yoga class typically follows a standard mat class format in that there are poses at the start of the practice meant to warm up the spine and gently wake up the muscles. This section may last up to 10 minutes.
The following two sections would focus on standing poses for balance and strength and lower body poses for flexibility. The class would conclude with roughly 10 minutes of meditation. Breathing techniques may be taught during the warm-up section or during the resting pose at the end.
Practicing Meditation in a Chair vs Mat
One of the things that I personally enjoy about teaching chair yoga is the ease of practicing meditation while seated in a chair. Oftentimes during a mat class, yoga practitioners will remain in a seated position for 5-10 minutes (at a minimum) which can become uncomfortable on the joints if you aren’t used to it.
But during chair yoga the seated position is relatively comfortable allowing the practitioner to be able to focus on stillness and breathing in order to make to most out of the meditation practice.
I taught a chair yoga class to a group of lovely ladies for about 2 years and watched them make so many improvements over time. There was one practitioner who faithfully attended each week and I watched her balance improve, her flexibility increase, and she had more confidence in her movement.
One of my favorite moments came when she relayed to me that during a physical therapy appointment, her therapist complimented her on having such great balance at her age, and she told him it was due to her regular yoga practice!
There are options to practice chair yoga at home with a video or in a studio or gym with a certified yoga teacher, but I would recommend that you check with your physician before starting in order to make sure that certain poses and medications or illnesses are not contra-indicated (that’s medical jargon for “don’t do that!”).
Talk About Health Issues Before Starting
It’s also very helpful to tell your yoga instructor in advance of starting a class that you have health issues or may need medications during class (nitroglycerin, inhalers, etc.). I also encourage everyone practicing yoga to speak up if something doesn’t feel right or hurts during a pose. Yoga should not be painful!
More and more Americans are currently struggling with limited mobility. For them, gentler forms of exercise such as chair yoga allow greater access to this popular practice.
Overall, chair yoga is an adaptive form of yoga that teaches the traditional yoga poses, but with the additional benefits of gentle movement. Google shows the term ‘Chair Yoga‘ is trending three to one over ’Yoga’, so someone must be interested! Why aren’t you?
Kim can be reached at kim@kimcrider.com.
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