Whether you began practicing yoga yesterday or thirty years ago, your practice will evolve and change, just like your daily life transforms.
You probably don’t enjoy coloring books and the jungle gym like you did in first grade, right? In our teens and twenties, it’s common for many people to practice sweaty yoga with a variety of physically intense asanas. As you move toward the middle and later years, it’s natural to shift to gentler, quieter types of practices. This week, we’re excited to share a program designed for the more mature yogi.
In order to age as gracefully as possible, making shifts to how we show up on our yoga mat ideally would mirror the transitions in our professional and personal lives. Different concerns arise with each stage of life and yoga can play a major role. If you’re already a yogi, you know how eating well, moving your body mindfully, and breathing purposefully enables you to feel your best. Even if you’ve always been active and taken care of yourself, aging happens. Diseases, injuries, and degeneration of the mind are realities.
How does yogic philosophy and practice help the process of aging? Yogis have long believed that life is divided into four stages or ashramas. This perspective is applicable to our modern life and yoga practice.
The four stages are:
Brahmacharya or Student: ages 1 to 24 where we focus on learning.
Grihastha or House-Holder: focus on establishing our careers and families.
Vanaprastha or Retired: transition from the focus on the material world to more on the spiritual world.
Sannyas or Renunciate: focus on furthering our spiritual development.
A well-rounded yoga practice, which addresses your changing physical and mental concerns, can help you stay or become as healthy as possible. If you’re in a transitory stage of your life, it might be time to try some gentler types of yoga to find the optimum practice for you.
Yoga helps with maintaining bone strength, flexibility, mental sharpness, reduces high blood pressure, improves balance, and respiratory health.
This week’s program is a well-rounded set of intelligently sequenced classes by expert teachers. These practices will give you all the transformative physical, mental, and emotional benefits of yoga, without stressing your body too much.
Check it out and get ready to feel your best!