Online Yoga for Seniors – Easy to Follow YouTube Videos
ou might be worried that old age will interfere with your love for yoga or if you’re too old to start yoga. The answer is no one is too old to adopt yoga practice. When it comes to seniors, yoga is the simplest method to maintain muscles in the body. According to doctors, we lose half a pound of muscles every year that we aren’t in strength training. Yoga is a gentle type of strength training for seniors.
When you retire, you have a lot of time in your hands to adopt yoga as a daily practice, among other healthy habits that will help you elongate your life and have better health. When you retire, the best option is to adopt yoga compared to living a sedentary life. Yoga for seniors has many benefits like flexibility, physical health, and improved balance and sleep.
The 3 Best Youtube Videos For Seniors are:
When you get older, your muscles get tired, sore, and tight in some areas. By adopting yoga, you will reap the benefits of being fit, more flexible, and a mental health bonus. Most yoga practices include breathing and a bit of meditation—these help slow the mind down and relieve stress.
Article Topics
What type of yoga is best for seniors?
Iyengar Yoga
This type of yoga is suitable for seniors because it uses many props and is the best for developing strength and stability. Iyengar yoga is a slow yoga type that makes you hold the poses for longer, and you can use props and modifications at any point.
Most older adults always have balance problems, and Iyengar Yoga can help eliminate that problem since it will help you work on your stability and posture. By holding these poses, you’ll also be able to build strength. Seniors with arthritis and other chronic conditions could benefit from practicing this type of yoga.
Viniyoga
This type of yoga is gentle, and each pose is tailored to match each individual’s needs. When practicing Viniyoga, your teacher will ask you about your conditions such as back pain or arthritis to know what problems or illnesses your body is experiencing and create a yoga practice that could work with these problems.
Viniyoga is good for seniors because most of the time, you’d find an injury that causes too much pain, and general yoga wouldn’t suffice in such a situation. Only an experienced teacher can handle teaching such a class.
Kripalu Yoga
As much as all yoga emphasizes gentle movement and breathing, Kripalu yoga puts more emphasis on these aspects. Kripalu concentrates on spiritual transformation, physical healing, and mental transformation. Most of the classes begin with gentle stretches and exercise, then the class concludes with relaxation.
You won’t hold the poses for too long in a beginner class. The teacher introduces those later on when you’ve adopted the practice. Kripalu yoga is primarily for people who feel like they can’t handle yoga due to physical and mental constraints. When you have physical injuries preventing you from moving your body or have complex problems and feel strained, you should practice this type of yoga.
Sivananda Yoga
This type of yoga focuses on five principles to help you achieve optimal health and spiritual growth. The principles in this type of yoga are:
- Proper exercise
- Proper breathing
- Proper relaxation
- Proper diet
- Positive thinking and meditation
Sivananda yoga is appropriate for beginners and seniors because it modifies poses to suit individuals’ needs and focuses more on other aspects of yoga rather than the physical. When doing the poses, they are done slowly and with control leading to stretching and building strength.
Hatha Yoga
This style of yoga isn’t specific. It involves one putting together different types of physical yoga. Most Hatha classes include sitting down, breathing, and moving into different poses, nothing too crazy. Hatha yoga training is perfect for beginners and seniors.
Hatha yoga is the most basic type of yoga that is easy for seniors to adapt to. If you want to practice the basics, this would be perfect for you.
(Wondering what the difference between hatha yoga vs. vinyasa? Check out that article!)
Online Yoga for Seniors- 3 Easy to Follow YouTube Videos
Seniors need a gentle yoga that isn’t too complicated, that has modifications too. We’ve searched YouTube for these types of yoga classes, so you won’t have to.
1. Yoga with Adrienne
Adrienne can take you through intense and also relaxing yoga. In this YouTube video, she concentrates on yoga for seniors. Adrienne starts with a seated position where she allows you to find a comfortable position and improvise if you need to. She starts slowly with meditation and breath practice. As you do this, she reminds you why you are practicing putting your intentions in check.
She then moves into a slow movement that helps in stretching the back and arms. Her style throughout the practice is very gentle. I can say this from doing all of her 30-day yoga series. The whole exercise is very relaxing and gentle. The video is only twenty-eight minutes of pure relaxation and stretching. She emphasizes using the breath regularly, and this would help you stay present during the practice.
2. Yoga Etc
Tina is a senior herself and teaches this yoga class perfectly here. She starts her class in a standing position (mountain pose). You then move to breathe exercise stretching your arms, shoulders, and back. Her yoga style is gentle, and anyone would be able to follow easily.
Most of the poses she goes through will help you stretch out your body gently and effectively. Tina also emphasizes breathing throughout the practice. Breathing keeps you present and helps in further stretching your body.
The whole video is nine minutes. This video is the first in an eight-week yoga challenge. If you’re up for it, you can keep on with the series and develop a daily yoga practice.
3. Crow Point Yoga
Crow Point Yoga is a YouTube channel that has yoga for people over sixty. Starting this thirty-minute yoga, the instructor leads you by starting with the child’s pose. She also emphasizes the use of breath throughout the practice. This first pose helps by stretching out the hips, back, and arms.
The practice is slow and considerate for everyone. If you’re elderly, you will love this yoga practice because all the people demonstrating are seniors, and you’ll feel right at home. As she leads throughout the class, she emphasizes only doing what your body allows, rather than forcing it.
The instructor also uses poses that will eventually help you acquire stability. After each sequence, she lets you rest in a child’s pose to catch your breath. You will hold most of the poses for a while. Apart from this specific video, Crow Point Yoga has many other videos for the elderly that you can follow.
(Looking for more of the best online yoga classes? Check out that article!)
People Often Ask: Is 70 Too Old To Start Yoga?
No. there is no age limit when it comes to practicing yoga. Yoga is a practice that you can adjust to suit your needs. If you have back problems or arthritis, you can be sure that there is a modification in yoga that will help you work around such an issue.
Gentle yoga is suitable for the elderly. But even though it’s gentle, it will help seniors strengthen their bones, improve stability and flexibility. All the stretching done in yoga helps prevent your bones from being stiff, and you will now be able to avoid those back cramps and lessen the risk of losing balance and falling.
With old age comes feelings of loneliness and not belonging. A daily yoga practice will help you keep your mental health in check and reduce anxiety and depression. Practicing yoga is good for our mental health too.
3 Common Yoga Poses for Seniors
Tree Pose
Tree pose s good for seniors as it helps in improving balance and coordination, which gets lost as we get older. One doesn’t have to start with a regular tree pose. Modifications can be done on this pose so that you can progress slowly into practicing better as your balance and strength improve.
This yoga pose can be practiced on a chair or as a Baby Tree for beginners. The pose also helps with hip mobility. Hips problems are so common as you get older, and such a pose will help you out.
Mountain Pose
Mountain Pose is good for reducing stress and anxiety. On the physical aspect, mountain pose helps with balance through grounding the feet. This pose helps seniors in straightening their backs as it always starts to slouch with age. During this pose, you’ll be breathing and actively engaging your feet. It will eventually help keep our feet strong and healthy.
Savasana
Savasana is a great pose to finish your practice. Seniors need their rest, and it would be nice to rest and let go in this pose. Savasana helps with comfort and relaxation. It also helps to restore peace in your body and resetting the nervous system. During this pose, you will get comfortable, let go and listen to your breath.
Benefits of yoga for seniors
- Bone strength: As you age, your bones become brittle due to decreased bone mass and density. By practicing yoga, one can prevent the onset of osteoarthritis. Practicing yoga could even help increase bone mass rather than reduce it.
- Stress and anxiety reduction: Most of the time, we hold tension in the upper back and shoulders. By practicing yoga, you will lower your fight or flight response. Anxiety is a result of heightened states of fight or flight response. By having this reduced, you can avoid inflammation and other mental and body problems. The participants experienced a significant reduction in stress and anxiety after adopting a yoga practice in a study.
- Increases strength, mobility, balance, and flexibility: Many seniors experience injuries due to falls. With slow practiced movements, you will prevent falls, be stronger and flexible.
- Better sleep habits: By practicing yoga, you will reduce the time it takes to fall asleep and stay asleep longer. A study on seniors in assisted living facilities concluded that yoga could benefit seniors by improving sleep and reducing depression.
- Lessen the risk of depression: By practicing yoga, you have to breathe deeply while also moving, bringing about a sense of well-being. Study shows that yoga helps in reducing depression.
- Reduces pain and aches: With yoga, you can reduce chronic pain and, with time, reduce the number of pain pills you have to consume.
- Breathing and lung issues: With more yoga practice, you will reduce breathing problems and increase your lung capacity. A study proved that a twelve-week yoga practice helps in increasing lung function.
Final Words
Yoga is generally a good practice that could help boost both physical and mental health. Being a senior doesn’t prevent you from practicing yoga. This practice is flexible and suits every need you have. You don’t have to agonize about back pain or arthritis as the practice will contain all your requirements.
(Yoga for seniors is extremely important, but it is also important for pregnant people. Check out this article on prenatal yoga poses!)
