What We Mean By Healthy Aging

by Nina

Melitta teaches "Granny Yoga" to her mother,  aunt, and aunt's friend

For us, the life story of our friend Melitta’s mother Nancy is a perfect example of “healthy aging.” Born in San Francisco on December 12, 1921, Nancy died on August 27, 2015, age 93 (or 93 and a half as she liked to say). She was very active all her life. She played sports in school, and was her high school and college track and field champion in shot put and discus. She loved skiing, sailing, hiking, horseback riding—all things outdoors. She even worked as a wrangler at ranches around California. 

Even in her last years, she walked three miles every morning with her walking buddies Elaine and Ellen, power walking along the beach and greeting the other regular walkers. She did have some back problems with spinal stenosis, so Melitta gave her a yoga mat and some back care yoga poses to do. Nancy did them faithfully every morning, and was so pleased that they really improved her back.

Nancy also loved traveling, and during her lifetime, she traveled around the world, visiting every continent. In 2011, she returned to her favorite country, Turkey, and traveled around Eastern Turkey. In 2012, she did her last safari in Africa, and then gave up long haul travel, though she continued to travel within the US to spend time with family. She volunteered at her church until about age 91, and had an amazing network of friends and family. 

She lived independently in her apartment until her last few days. At age 90, she had made her own decision to stop driving. Although she didn’t have any hired help, her friend Elaine, a true force of nature, looked in on her regularly (and considered it an honor to do that). Elaine also helped her by taking shopping after she stopped driving and would send her husband Lloyd over to help her with tech stuff, such as her computer and printer. 

It was only in the last year of her mom’s life that Melitta noticed her mom was slowing down. She and Melitta did discuss her fear of decline, and Melitta’s fear of her decline. She had some gallbladder issues, and in July 2015 she had a bile duct blockage and had surgery. Then, in August 2015, she had emergency surgery for gallstones, but she also developed sepsis. She was in ICU for four days, and although doctors "threw all the antibiotics" they could at her, her organs were failing, so the family followed her directives and discontinued care. When Melitta first got to the hospital, Nancy was still conscious but unable to speak because she was intubated. In the joking way they had with each other, Melitta said, "it must be bad if I am here." Nancy laughed as best she could. She died two days later, with her children holding her as she moved on. 

In our post What is Healthy Aging, Anyway?, we defined what we mean by "healthy aging," describing its three basic components:

Compressed Morbidity. This is the time out of your life span that you spend in ill health. Nancy had a lifetime of excellent health, with some slowing down and her only serious problems limited to her last year of life. (This is generally the best-case scenario for people who live as long as she did.)

Independence. This means not just being able to live on your own, but being able to continue to do the activities that you love and that give your life meaning. And Nancy was not only able to stay in her home until the end of her life, she was able to keep up her active life almost until the end, including walking on the beach with her friends, traveling, volunteering at her church, and spending time with friends and family.  

Equanimity. This means being able to face difficulty and handle challenges with balance and grace. Although there’s much we don’t know about her life and how she faced earlier challenges, we think it’s worth considering how Nancy dealt with the challenges of being older. It sounds like she faced them head on! She realistically decided to stop overseas travel and driving when the time was right. And she was able to discuss her fears of decline and to confront her death. That allowed her to leave directives for her family and to die on her own terms. Finally, being able to laugh at her daughter’s joke at the very end sounds like she was she was able to stay engaged in life and family for all her days. How beautiful!

Thanks, Melitta, for sharing this story with us.

Subscribe to Yoga for Healthy Aging by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook ° Join this site with Google Friend Connect 

Read More

Friday Q&A: What Yoga for Healthy Aging Is, And What it is Not

Branches at Sunset by Melina Meza

Q: Thinking about it now, I decided that the “active engagement” part of our yoga for healthy aging attitude really is tapas, which means practicing for physical, emotional, and spiritual health with dedication and persistence. What do you think, Baxter?

A: Yesterday in her post Another Word for Stubborn? Tapas, Maybe?, while recounting a recent conversation we had, Nina waxed on eloquently and engagingly about some of the essential qualities of Yoga for Healthy Aging. And at one point while ruminating about “active engagement,” she posed the above question to me.

It turns out that I think a lot about what Yoga for Healthy Aging (YFHA) is, and also what it is not. As for “active engagement” and tapas, I couldn’t agree more with Nina’s assertion. But I’d like to back up and look at the bigger picture again and maybe use some slightly different language to describe my perspective.

I have to start by mentioning a fellow yoga teacher who I study with on occasion who has this interesting way of getting us to do something in class by telling us what not to do in a few different ways, then finally telling us what to do. In this same spirit, I’d like to say what YFHA is not, first, at least in my mind: YFHA is not “senior’s yoga.” It is not chair yoga. It is not Boomer yoga or AARP yoga. It is not yoga therapy. It is not prop yoga, Iyengar yoga, or yoga in the tradition of Krishnamacharya. It is not gentle or restorative yoga, yin or yang yoga. But includes all of these things, and more. If it were a Venn diagram, it would be a large, inclusive circle, inside of which all these other things would be smaller circles!

So, what is it, then? Well, it does go back to what Nina mentioned yesterday: it is really the cultivation of an attitude, one that serves your highest goals as they relate to the unfolding of your unique life, which helps to enhance and preserve your overall health—mental, emotional, physical and even spiritual. I see this attitude included the essential qualities of curiosity, mindfulness, and willfulness. Curiosity leads the followers of YFHA to look for the reality and the truth of being human, growing, aging, and changing. Out of the discoveries that curiosity provides, we can then, via mindfulness, begin to plot a course of clear action or, just as possibly, a course of graceful acceptance of those things we cannot change. Willfulness, as expressed in tapas or fiery determination, equally allows us to set goals that can lead us to healing is some instances, assist in maintaining our present level of health in others, and even guide our course to new growth and higher levels of achievement. It is the healthy, honest balance of ambition and compassion. So, as Nina so rightly suggested, YFHA’s essential attitude and guiding principles can help you find the yoga practice that best serves you each day.

—Baxter 

Subscribe to Yoga for Healthy Aging by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook ° Join this site with Google Friend Connect 

Read More

Another Word for Stubborn? Tapas, Maybe?

by Nina

Leaf in a Grid by Melina Meza

Baxter and I had an interesting discussion yesterday about what “yoga for healthy aging” means. He said that he felt that essentially it was an attitude, you know, the combination of acceptance and active engagement we’ve been talking about since the early days of the blog (see What We Need to Practice  and Acceptance, Active Engagement, and the Bhagavad Gita). Then our conversation—as so often happens—wandered off track and we started talking about various older yoga teachers we know, how some of them were still very physically capable while others had lost a lot of abilities due to injuries and other physical problems. 

In reference to one particular teacher we knew, Baxter said he thought her injuries and physical problems were due to over-practicing asana over the years. 

I shook my head and said, “I think that some people are just more physically robust than others.” And then I mentioned another older teacher who was a very dedicated practitioner of asana who still seemed to be very good physical condition. 

“That’s also true,” Baxter said.

“Like me,” I sighed. “I not very physically robust.” 

“Yes, you are, Nina!” he said. “You’re very robust! Look at you, you recovered completely from two different bouts of frozen shoulder.”

I laughed. “I’m not robust. I’m just very stubborn. I remember once when someone was commenting on how I was practicing during class even while I had a frozen shoulder, Donald said, “Nina never gives up!”

Baxter laughed, too. “Maybe you should write about that—being stubborn.” 

“Good idea! I always need more topics....” 

“But the thing about you,” Baxter went on, “is that even while you’re being stubborn, you also know when to stop practicing poses that aren’t working for you.”

“Yes,” I said. “You need to practice only what is serving you.”

So this morning I’m sitting down to write the blog post on “stubbornness” that Baxter requested, and I’m thinking that “stubbornness” doesn’t really sound very yogic, if you know what I mean. But, really isn’t the term “stubborn” was just my humorous way of describing tapas, the niyama that Ram defined in his post The Second Branch of Yoga: Niyamas as “a burning desire or a disciplinary approach to achieve one’s aims and aspirations.” Yes, a “disciplinary approach” is a much nicer way of saying that when I was recovering from my frozen shoulders than I practiced stretching them every single day, even though it was quite painful, because, yes, I was stubbornly committed to trying to recover as much as could (see Living Proof). And I've actually already written about tapas as an important aspect of healthy aging in my post Tapas: Working with Dedication, where I used my mother’s determination to recover from a broken hip as an example of tapas and healthy aging. (Thank you, Mom, for setting me such a good example!)

Thinking about it now, I decided that the “active engagement” part of our yoga for healthy aging attitude really is tapas, which means practicing for physical, emotional, and spiritual health with dedication and persistence. What do you think, Baxter?

I’m also thinking that when Baxter said that I was good at practicing only what served me and giving up what didn’t, he was referring to the other side of the coin, acceptance. I used to believe—and even teach—that acceptance was primarily about santosha, or, as Desikachar put it, “the ability to be comfortable with what we have and what we do not have.” But this morning I’m wondering whether another big part of acceptance isn’t satya, or truthfulness (see Satya: The Truth About Lies and Healthy Aging). Perhaps I’m focused on truthfulness because I’m still mulling over what I wrote about Tama and how she faced her death with honesty (see The Death of a Friend). But it seems to me that to practice the yoga that serves you, you need to be able to look honestly at the aging process and how it is affecting you. Rather than practicing for the body you wish you had—or used to have—when you step on your mat, you need to meet yourself as you are at this moment, on this day. And adjust accordingly. Hmmm, I think I found a topic for my next blog post!

Subscribe to Yoga for Healthy Aging by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook ° Join this site with Google Friend Connect

Read More

Yoga for Healthy Aging is Not Science Fiction: A Real-Life Mission Statement

by Nina 

Field of Mars by Marc Chagall*

“As more people are living longer and fewer are dying young from diseases caused by infections or insufficient food, exponentially more middle-aged and elderly people are suffering from chronic noninfectious diseases that used to be rare or unknown.” —Daniel Liberman

I’m just finishing up the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson, a science fiction epic that takes place in the near future about the very first human settlers on Mars. The series spans a period of about 200 years, and several characters you meet at the beginning of the series are still alive at the end. When these characters are in their seventies and eighties, a longevity treatment is developed by Mars scientists that allows the original Mars settlers to continue to live active, healthy lives for an unknown amount of time. Although these characters do develop certain long-term memory problems (mostly about their middle lives), they continue to do productive scientific work, are energetic, physically fit and disease free, and even have active romantic and sex lives. Near the end of the series, a few of them die quite suddenly, not of any long, lingering diseases but very quickly of heart failure. And that seems to be the end that most, if not all, of them, will be facing.

Oh, if only old age was really like that, right? But this science fictional scenario actually exemplifies the very issues I wanted to talk about today. For when we talk about “healthy aging” on our blog, Sax, Nadia, Ann, Coyote, Michel, Maya and others in the Mars trilogy are ideal role models, not because of how long they live but for how healthy, physically active, and intellectually engaged they remain until the ends of their lives.

Lifespan. I guess this is rather obvious, but our “lifespan” is the period of time during which we are alive. But that lifespan could include any number of years spent in poor health. Sax, Nadia, Ann, et al in the Mars trilogy don’t have problems with ill health because in their science fictional world modern medicine can fix almost everything (although one man does die of leukemia). But here in the real world there are many medical conditions that just can’t be cured yet.

Morbidity. Right now, although our lifespans in first world countries have increased significantly due to better nutrition and modern medicine, as Daniel Liberman said in the quote above, middle-aged and elderly people in first world countries can suffer many years of ill health before they die. Lack of exercise, poor eating habits, and stressful lifestyles cause heart disease, strokes, diabetes, osteoporosis, and other chronic problems. This period of ill health during your lifespan is referred to as morbidity.

Now let’s do a little bit of very simple math:

Lifespan – morbidity = health span

Health Span. To put it in words, your “health span” is equal to your lifespan minus the amount of time you spend in ill health. This is the period in your life during which you are generally healthy and free from serious or chronic illness. For the people in the Mars trilogy, since they are very healthy until they suddenly die of heart failure, their health spans are very close to the length of their lifespans. But I’m sure in real life we all know people who live for years in a very debilitated state, perhaps in a nursing home, and I think we can all agree is not a future we would want for ourselves, if we can help it. (See Longevity vs. Morbidity for information about the epidemic of morbidity in the first world.)

So, to be clear, when we talk about yoga for “healthy aging,” we’re not talking about yoga for increasing your lifespan or your longevity. We’re talking instead about doing what you can to keep your health span as long as possible. And while you are makiing your health span as long as possible, we hope you'll also be making the period of time you spend in ill health near the end of your life as short as possible (this is called "compressed morbidity").

And, yes, we believe that yoga can help with this. Our mission here at YFHA is to explore all the ways that yoga can help foster your physical, mental, and emotional health during your lifespan (see Opening Your Yoga Toolbox). And because we’re not living in a science fictional universe, we must acknowledge that there will be times when ill health is unavoidable. But yoga has sometime valuable to offer you during those times as well, including both spiritual wisdom to guide you and tools for cultivating equanimity that will help see you through hard times.

This is all pretty basic stuff, but it’s worth saying because we want to set realistic expectations. We’ve certainly seen prominent new age health gurus out there claiming that you can “reverse aging,” choose your “biological age,” or “change your relationship with time” with yogic practices. But that really is science fiction. And here in the real world you deserve more than that.

Subscribe to Yoga for Healthy Aging by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook ° Join this site with Google Friend Connect

Read More

What is Healthy Aging, Anyway?

by Nina

Dahlia by Melina Meza

It has only struck me recently that while we’ve written about what aging is and the many ways yoga can help foster healthy aging, we’ve never really addressed what “healthy aging” is. So I thought I’d take a moment to give an overview of the thoughts that Baxter and I currently have on this topic. At this point—we’re still just discussing these ideas—we consider healthy aging to have three important aspects:

• Compressed Morbidity
• Independence
• Equanimity

And the reason why we’re such proponents of yoga for healthy aging is that we believe yoga can help with all three of these aspects of healthy aging. For now, I’ll just give you a brief overview of how.

Compressed Morbidity. Last week I wrote a post Longevity vs. Morbidity comparing the difference between longevity and morbidity. The medical term “morbidity” refers to the period of time you spend in ill health before you die. Obviously we all would like—both for ourselves and for our loved ones—to keep this period of ill health as short (that is, compressed) as possible. A well-rounded yoga practice, especially one that includes stress management, can help by preventing some of the diseases, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes that plague people during their older years.

Independence. Another goal I think we all share for ourselves and our loved ones is that we can continue to live independently and care for ourselves as long as possible. From our point of view living independently includes both the basic daily self care activities, such as dressing, going to the toilet, getting up and down from a chair, doing light housework, and so on as well as the ability to continue to do the activities we love (which I wrote about in my post Being Able to Do What You Love) for as long as possible. A regular asana practice—even one that is modified over time—will help keep us able bodied, rather than sliding into the stiffness and weakness that results from a sedentary lifestyle.

Equanimity. For me, maintaining emotional stability as we age is the most important aspect of healthy aging. For even if we can “compress” morbidity, we will certainly have to go through poor health at some point. And even if we can prolong our independence into old age, we may eventually have to face the loss of that, however briefly. In addition, even if we are ourselves blessed with long and healthy lives, we’ll all have to deal with losing people we love. So being able to handle the challenges ahead with balance and grace is crucial. But I also believe that this is where yoga has its greatest strength. Stress management practices help reduce stress, anxiety and depression. And meditation and yoga philosophy can help us keep grounded and strong. At least that is my fervent hope.

Baxter and I will be writing more on these topics in the weeks to come, but we’d also love to hear your thoughts, ideas and personal stories.

Subscribe to Yoga for Healthy Aging by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook ° Join this site with Google Friend Connect

Read More

Continuing To Do What You Love

by Nina

Kale by Melina Meza

The other day Baxter and I were talking with an editor about a possible book on Yoga for Healthy Aging—isn’t that exciting?—when he said something about healthy aging that really struck me. We were going through the possible definitions of "healthy aging" (look for a post on that topic from me soon) when he mentioned that for a lot of his students, healthy aging meant being able to continue to do the activities they loved. Some examples he gave included a woman who wanted to be able to take her grandchildren on hiking adventures and another who wanted to be able to continue with her intensive gardening work.

What's so great about yoga is that a regular yoga asana practice can help with these goals for healthy aging. You can use your yoga practice both to fortify yourself and balance your body to keep yourself in shape to continue doing what you love.

Let’s take the example of gardening because that’s something I do a lot myself. Gardening can actually be quite hard on your body. You spend a lot of time bending forward, which can be hard on your lower back. Bending forward also stretches the back side of your body (your legs, back, etc.) while creating tightness in the front body, the same way that sitting at your desk all day does. You also use your arms stretched out in front of you all day, which tightens your shoulders. And you need strength for digging holes, and the occasional lifting of bags of fertilizer, large plants, etc.

But you could easily plan a “gardeners” yoga practice. Backbends would strengthen your back body, stretch your front body, and restore the natural curve of your lumbar spine that gets overstretched from all the forward bending. Backbends would also help stretch the fronts of your thighs and strengthen the hamstring muscles in the backs of your thighs, balancing the strength and flexibility your legs. Twists would help release tension from your back, as well as strengthening back muscles and bones. Upper body strengthening poses (see Upper Body Strength the Easy Way and our many posts on individual upper body strengthening poses) would help you maintain your strength, and shoulder openers (see Standing Shoulder Stretches and Opening Tight Shoulders) would help you keep your shoulders flexible. Full and/or gentle inverted poses where your legs are elevated, such as Legs Up the Wall and Chair Shoulderstand (see All About Supported Inverted Poses), would foster good circulation in your legs and relieve pressure and possible swelling in your feet, ankles or legs from being on your feet all day. And if your gardening session causes mild back pain, a back care sequence, such as Low Back Care Sequence, would help relieve it.

For each activity—whether it is hiking, surfing, cycling, traveling, playing with your grandchildren, cooking for family and friends or hula hooping—you could come up with poses specifically targeted to help you maintain the physical skills you need. But because a balanced yoga practice helps you maintain strength, flexibility, balance, and agility as you age, any regular yoga practice is going to be helpful for all these activities. And fortunately for many of us, yoga is one of the activities we hope to continue doing as we age, and that’s what this blog is all about!

What are your favorite activities you’d like to keep doing as you age? 

Subscribe to YOGA FOR HEALTHY AGING by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook

Read More

What Really Helps Foster Healthy Aging?

by Nina

Leaves Starting to Turn by Brad Gibson

As some of you may have noticed, the Sunday New York Times Magazine had an major article on aging with the rather overly dramatic title The Island Where People Forget to Die  about the island of Greek island Ikaria. A study at the University of Athens concluded that:

“people on Ikaria were, in fact, reaching the age of 90 at two and a half times the rate Americans do. (Ikarian men in particular are nearly four times as likely as their American counterparts to reach 90, often in better health.) But more than that, they were also living about 8 to 10 years longer before succumbing to cancers and cardiovascular disease, and they suffered less depression and about a quarter the rate of dementia. Almost half of Americans 85 and older show signs of Alzheimer’s. (The Alzheimer’s Association estimates that dementia cost Americans some $200 billion in 2012.) On Ikaria, however, people have been managing to stay sharp to the end.”

As usual with studies of long-lived communities, it was impossible to identify a single factor that was responsible for the long and healthy lives of the individuals within it. As the New York Times article says:

"If you pay careful attention to the way Ikarians have lived their lives, it appears that a dozen subtly powerful, mutually enhancing and pervasive factors are at work. It’s easy to get enough rest if no one else wakes up early and the village goes dead during afternoon naptime. It helps that the cheapest, most accessible foods are also the most healthful — and that your ancestors have spent centuries developing ways to make them taste good. It’s hard to get through the day in Ikaria without walking up 20 hills. You’re not likely to ever feel the existential pain of not belonging or even the simple stress of arriving late. Your community makes sure you’ll always have something to eat, but peer pressure will get you to contribute something too. You’re going to grow a garden, because that’s what your parents did, and that’s what your neighbors are doing. You’re less likely to be a victim of crime because everyone at once is a busybody and feels as if he’s being watched. At day’s end, you’ll share a cup of the seasonal herbal tea with your neighbor because that’s what he’s serving. Several glasses of wine may follow the tea, but you’ll drink them in the company of good friends. On Sunday, you’ll attend church, and you’ll fast before Orthodox feast days. Even if you’re antisocial, you’ll never be entirely alone. Your neighbors will cajole you out of your house for the village festival to eat your portion of goat meat."

In fact, if you leave out the rather sensationalist aspects of the story (the man who was cured of cancer just by returning to the island, a tale which may or may not be true), the main conclusion of the author had to do with community.

"The big aha for me, having studied populations of the long-lived for nearly a decade, is how the factors that encourage longevity reinforce one another over the long term. For people to adopt a healthful lifestyle, I have become convinced, they need to live in an ecosystem, so to speak, that makes it possible. As soon as you take culture, belonging, purpose or religion out of the picture, the foundation for long healthy lives collapses. The power of such an environment lies in the mutually reinforcing relationships among lots of small nudges and default choices. There’s no silver bullet to keep death and the diseases of old age at bay. If there’s anything close to a secret, it’s silver buckshot."

So, what, if anything, does this have to do with yoga? Well, did you know that all of us here at Yoga for Healthy Aging, even those of us who teach, take regular yoga classes? And we certainly do not attend these classes because we don’t know enough to practice on our own home. I think I can speak for all of us when I say that we do it for two other main reasons. The first reason is for the wisdom we continue to receive from our teachers, which helps keep our home practice inspired. But the second reason has more to do with the other people in the class than with the teacher: we want to stay connected to the yoga community. Being part of the yoga community is like belonging to a small “ecosystem” within our larger culture. Practicing with other people helps us stay steadfast in the healthy choices we have made, whether that is a having regular asana or meditation practice or even making career, family or other life decisions that we believe will be better for us.

So, thank you, thank you, thank you to all my fellow students in my regular class (you know who you are!). And, dear readers, I hope you, too, find the same sense of community in your yoga class. And if you don’t feel supported and encouraged in your current class, I urge you to get out there and look for one where you do.

Subscribe to YOGA FOR HEALTHY AGING by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook 

Read More

What is Healthy Aging?

by Nina

Despite the horrifying vision of “exergames,” Brad’s post on Tuesday ("Successful Aging and the Thinking-Moving-Feeling Triad") got me interested in Dr. Dilip Jeste’s work. After all we’re all blogging away here about “healthy aging” without ever having really defined what it is. And that’s exactly what Dr. Jeste, Estelle and Edgar Levi Chair in Aging and Director of the Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging at the University of California, San Diego, is currently trying to do. In an interview on Medscape (here), he said the following: 

“Successful aging has not been consistently defined; that is one reason why this area is ideal for research. There have been some studies funded by the MacArthur Foundation beginning in the mid-1980s going on through the mid-1990s. But the [scientific] literature is limited, and there is no consensus on what is successful aging. Our research goals include developing a definition as well as criteria for successful aging.”

Jeste and his colleagues observed that while the components of successful aging typically include: longevity, life satisfaction, absence of physical disease, freedom from disability, mastery/growth, active engagement with life, high/independent living, and positive adaptation, sometimes only physical functioning and disability are considered. But most importantly, very few scientists include “self rating” in their assessments (that is, to put it bluntly, they don’t bother asking the subjects how they feel about their own experience of aging). So they decided to do a study in which “participants’ subjective ratings of successful aging were contrasted with sets of researcher-defined criteria, and correlates of subjectively rated successful aging were examined.” (See "Correlates of self-rated successful aging among community-dwelling older adults".)

One result of this study was this: “Nearly all the study participants rated themselves as aging successfully, but far fewer met researcher-defined criteria for absence of illness and physical disability.” (Note that only participants with higher levels of cognitive functioning were studied.)

Dr. Jeste concluded, as he said in the Medscape interview, “It is also important to say what is not an essential part of successful aging—absence of either physical diseases or physical disability is not necessarily a part of successful aging. I want to stress that people who have physical illnesses or physical disabilities can be aging successfully.” Instead he lists the components for successful aging as:

• Higher level of cognitive functioning
• Adaptation to changes associated with aging
• Socialization—that is, some kind of social activity and/or social contacts
• Life satisfaction

And in the very same interview, he gives two examples of people he considers to have aged successfully, and they are: Franklin Roosevelt and Frank White, a well-known Los Angeles yoga teacher. Hmmm. It appears we're not on different wavelengths after all. You may want to watch this video of Dr. Dilip, in which he speaks about wisdom and successful aging. Around the 12-minute mark, you can hear him speak about the Bhagavad Gita.

For some time now, I’ve been going around saying that yoga provides two out of the three of the requirements for healthy aging: exercise and stress reduction (the third is a healthy diet). As of today, I’m going to add a new one: wisdom.

Subscribe to Yoga for Healthy Aging by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook ° Join this site with Google Friend Connect

Read More

Stress Test

by Nina

Under the Beach Umbrella by Joan Webster 

“You did great,” my oral surgeon said. “In fact, you were the most relaxed patient I’ve ever worked on. You even fell asleep there for a while.”

“Wasn’t asleep,” I mumbled through my numb and swollen lips. “Was doing yogic breathing.”

He looked at me with fascination, then quickly handed me a piece of paper and a pen. “Could you write down what you did for me?”

“Uh, email you later?”

Of course I didn’t become so good at yogic breathing just so I could stay, uh, relatively relaxed during gum surgery (though it was certainly an interesting test of my skills). As someone who once suffered from agitated depression, I’ve been using yogic breathing, along with many yoga techniques, for many years to manage my stress levels for my emotional wellbeing.

Now it turns out that I’ve been practicing yoga for healthy aging while I was at it. Because I can tell you right now that along with exercise and diet, stress management is one of the most important keys to healthy aging. Chronic stress contributes to many common age-related diseases, such as high blood pressure and heart disease, and can cause a weakened immune system overall. It also affects the quality of your life. Possible effects of chronic stress include: chronic anxiety or depression, insomnia and/or fatigue, headaches, and digestive disorders.

And how does yoga help you manage your stress? Let me count the ways:

• breath practices and meditation trigger the relaxation response 
• inverted poses (and semi-inverted poses) physically reduce your stress levels 
• restorative yoga poses relax your body and quiet your nervous system
• active yoga poses (such as standing poses, twists, and backbends) release stress from your body and create a focus for your mind
• yoga philosophy teaches you to cultivate equanimity in the face of difficulty

Over time, I’ll be providing detailed information and instructions for techniques in each of these different categories. And I hope very much that you’ll find one or more that’s useful.

And in case you’re wondering, yes, I did eventually email my oral surgeon. Next time you’re in a dentist chair (or are lying sleepless in bed, need a break after a stressful day, or just want to experiment), maybe you can try:

Breath awareness. Focus your attention on your natural breath, observing how your abdomen or chest rises with your inhalation and falls with your exhalation. When your mind wanders from your breath (to the dental procedure or any other topic), simply, and without judgment, return your attention to your breath. It is natural to be distracted from this practice, but it seems to work even if your attention wanders repeatedly.

Focusing on your breath will enable you to keep your mind of neutral topics rather than stressful ones, and after 10 or 20 minutes, the relaxation response (identified by Dr. Herbert Bensen of Harvard Medical School in the 1970s) will be triggered. 

Extending the Exhalation. The heart slows during the exhalation (and speeds up during the inhalation) so extending your exhalation is a relaxing breath practice (and also provides the benefits of breath awareness above). Take a deep soft inhalation followed by a deep soft exhalation. At the end of the exhalation, instead of inhaling again, retain your exhalation for one or two beats. Repeat through the procedure. Keep it easy. At no time should there be strain. If needed, return to your natural breath at any time. 

During my procedure I did the second breath practice (extending the exhalation). But I’m very experienced with yogic breathing, and we generally recommend that beginners to start with simple breath awareness. 

Subscribe to Yoga for Healthy Aging by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook ° Join this site with Google Friend Connect

Read More

Clarification: Aging, Yoga and Science

by Brad

Winter Trees by Brad Gibson

Today’s post is largely in response to the question: How would one go about investigating the effects of yoga on aging scientifically? Before tackling this question—which I will get to in the next week or two—I will first attempt to define or at least discuss a few key terms and assumptions. The reasons for this will hopefully become clear.

In the broadest the terms, “aging” applies to how systems or entities change with time. To inanimate objects, such as your new car or jacket, this begins right after it’s manufactured or, more relevantly, after you bought it. This process of aging can be rapid or slow (weeks, months, or years), and depends a lot on what the object is and what it was designed for. In biological systems (including us), we typically think of aging as starting after development, or post-puberty in our case. We also tend to associate aging with a decline and/or loss of functions, both physical and mental. However, aging can include more positive properties or phenotypes, such as increased knowledge and skill sets, and it isn’t all that hard to name a few that fit into this category. But in most biological scientific studies of aging, we refer to aging mostly in the former sense, i.e., an accumulation of mostly pathological properties, such memory loss, frailty, neurodegenerative diseases, bone loss, muscle loss, and so on. Surprisingly there are quite a few competing theories of basic aging, such as error accumulation, telomere shortening, antagonistic pleiotrophy, free-radical theory, and entropy, just to name a few. What all (or most) of these theories seek to address is the underlying molecular and physiological event that drives these largely negative processes. 

The term “successful aging” is more recent, having come into wide use in the last few decades. If you want to read more about this concept, I found the first chapter in the book Successful Aging: Perspectives from the Behavioral Sciences by Paul and Margaret Baltes quite useful (for information see Cambridge ebooks). 

Even last week as I read the science section of the New York Times (see NY Times), I came across a short review of a just-published study on “Alcohol Consumption at Midlife and Successful Ageing in Women: A Prospective Cohort Analysis in the Nurses Health Study” (see PLOS). In this prospective correlative study, researchers at Harvard demonstrated that a modest increase in successful aging for women who consumed small, but regular amount of alcohol at mid-life. (Maybe a glass of wine after yoga class isn’t such a bad idea after all?). Here they defined "successful aging" in a more precise manner: "as being free of 11 major chronic diseases and having no major cognitive impairment, physical impairment, or mental health limitations." Of course, this more operational definition to successful aging made it easier to make clear and objective distinctions among the woman in this group, typical of population based epidemiological studies. 

When we chose the term ‘healthy aging’ for this blog, the purpose was to provide information not on just how practicing yoga might help to avoid or reduce your chances of acquiring one or more of these age-related losses, but also to better manage and minimize their impact when they occur. Indeed, this is the position most of us are in, whether is through the vagaries of our genetic background, chance, past behavior, or whatever. (This reminds me of the joke: Q: What’s the best thing you can do to insure a long life? A: Choose your parents well.) So as I go back and reconsider the original question on how science can study the relationship of yoga and aging, I will reframe this question a bit: How can science study the effects of yoga on our overall physical and mental health as we age? I’ll tackle this question next time…. But as a preview, there are few good places to start, including the 2009 pilot study in Lancet on comprehensive lifestyle changes and telomere length (a biomarker of aging and cellular senescence) and several recently funded NIH studies examining yoga’s effects on depression, fatigue, and menopause. 

And please leave any questions for the Friday Q&A in the comments.

Subscribe to Yoga for Healthy Aging by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook ° Join this site with Google Friend Connect

Read More

Full Disclosure

by Brad Gibson

The Light on the Water (from Muir Beach) by Brad Gibson

Okay, so it took me ten years to finally listen to my wife Nina and take up yoga. I may be slow, but I’m not an idiot. So what was the epiphany? There were actually several. 

The first was listening to my wife Nina and Rodney Yee at a book signing in Los Angeles talk about how restricted most of us are in using and exploring our bodies. As adults we typically sit, stand up, walk, and lie down. That’s pretty much it. Compare this to our younger selves, where we rolled down hills on our bellies, spun ourselves so we were so dizzy we crumpled to the ground, and did handstands on the lawn. And all that just for the fun of it.

The second was attending a seminar given by a well-regarded scientist from the University of California San Francisco. Here I learned about the startling plasticity of the human brain, and its ability to rewire and reorganize itself based on various environmental and behavioral stimuli. One particular example struck me: that the regions in the brain that control movements to our fingers are spatially distinct and this spatial resolution and control can be lost if the hand is constrained in motion over long periods of time. These regions then shrink and become partially fused, resulting in the inability to use the hand in a way we are accustomed, and more like a paw. The good news was that this is largely reversible if the constraint is removed. The brain—along with the slow recovery of the hand —can then restore these neural connections. The significance to our aging brain and body was clear, both in a negative and positive sense. We must actively fight against the restricted physical activity that we impose on ourselves, as well as the loss of dexterity that is the result of this behavior. Otherwise, this can become a vicious cycle as we react to our aging bodies by imposing further restrictions to our movements, and our brain’s ability to control and balance these movements becomes diminished as a result. 

My third epiphany was a bit more vain, but important to me nonetheless. As I was attending a party in the Berkeley hills on a warm summer evening, I was struck by how many beautiful women were there. Now this party was not one of the faculty or science-type parties that I usually attend, but one made up of by yoga practitioners of many stripes and ages. But as I pondered this—admittedly over a few glasses of very good vodka and some really delicious food—I realized that these people held their bodies in a posture and poise that I was not generally accustomed to. They were not just physically fit, but healthy and vibrant. Okay, my wife did point out the next morning as I told this story that I not only didn’t have my glasses on, but was also pretty drunk by this point. Fair enough. But over the years—and under more sober conditions—I have found this observation to hold up pretty well. 

So as a scientist who studies the biology of aging and the many diseases that are associated with aging, I have come to my own personal conclusions on the importance of practicing a mind/body discipline like yoga. And as I approach my 59th birthday, the immediate realities of physical and mental loss become more apparent. And I am not one of those people who think I can avoid this. I do believe, however, that we have the capacity to regain some of theses age-related losses, and if not, at least slow down their progression. Regaining or maintaining a higher level of balance, physical dexterity, and cognitive function and resolution is therefore something that is attainable and has the capacity to make huge impacts on the quality of our lives. The aging component that works against all this and drives these declines, however, is scientifically and mechanistically poorly understood. This is what makes my scientific life and work so interesting. But as far as I can tell, the basic processes underlying human aging are largely inescapable, at least as we currently understand them. That doesn’t mean we can’t intervene or we have to give up, nor that some of the losses we associate with aging can’t be mitigated. We probably need to practice both acceptance and active engagement as we confront our own aging—part of the underlying philosophy of yoga that I am still struggling with. In any case, it can’t hurt to strive to feel better and think more clearly. There are few things that I would consider more important.

My primary interest in participating in this ongoing discussion on “yoga for healthy aging” is to examine evidence on how practicing yoga might intervene and in some cases reverse some aspects of the mental and physical decline we think of as normal aging. In doing so I have to first acknowledge that there is a lot of crap out there, and as a scientist I would want to bring rigorous and critical thinking to the process of evaluating these claims. Most published studies or claims just don’t stand up to rigorous scientific and statistical scrutiny because of poor study design, small sample size or the lack of good controls. But I also I don’t want to fall into the trap of constantly seeking to debunk or ridicule studies that attempt to establish a connection between yoga (or other related disciplines) and possible beneficial effects on aging or limiting age-related diseases. Rather, I’m more interested in trying to extract whatever useful information I can from these aging studies and see if it can be applied to improving one’s yoga practice.

And lastly, a full disclosure: I’m a firm believer in science. I am also a believer in western medicine, although with some qualifications. My concern with western medicine is that it can overreach itself at times and rely on vastly incomplete scientific knowledge in coming to diagnosis or treatments. Or worse yet, it can incorporate many cultural biases. That said, it’s by far the best and most successful form of medical practice that we have. I am also aware of limitations in the scientific method. Not so much as a philosophy or discipline, but rather from the standpoint of recognizing the difficulty of scientific inquiry in tackling highly complex phenomena or systems. And as complex biological systems go, humans are at the top. This makes it exceedingly difficult for scientists to predict, investigate or fully understand how we respond to various environmental, temporal and behavioral changes. And yes, yoga would fall under these latter categories, as would aging itself.

Despite all this, I believe there are important things that we can do that can impact and alter our aging status and overall health, and that yoga has the potential to be a key player in this process. Indeed, some reasonable information already exists on how yoga might lower blood pressure, or reduce muscle atrophy (sarcopenia), stress, or cognitive decline. These and other such topics will be ones that my colleagues and I will try and tackle.

Do any of you have questions for our scientist?

Subscribe to Yoga for Healthy Aging by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook ° Join this site with Google Friend Connect

Read More

Teaching a Man to Fish

by Baxter Bell

Having started out in the healing profession as a medical doctor, I always remember back to the times when patients presented with physical affects of aging. In those days, when my prescription pad was my only option, I felt I didn’t have many good tools for helping them. For example, when a patient would present with complaints of lower back pain related to arthritis, I would typically prescribe anti-inflammatory medication, rest, ice and heat, and possibly a few visits to a physical therapist. These days I find it much more effective to start with modified yoga practices and lifestyle modifications before moving on to a typical western treatment.

Yoga is a treasure chest of options, techniques and tools, some of which have developed over thousands of years. And these days, when people in my classes and therapeutic sessions present with difficulties that are the direct result of aging (such as arthritis, auto immune diseases, and high blood pressure), I feel like I can truly offer something of benefit. By giving my patients new skills for self care, including yoga poses, breath work, and meditation techniques, I am, as the Chinese proverb says, teaching them to fish:

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

Through this blog I’m hoping to be able to help you the same way. I’m also excited about the topics we’ll be taking on for the personal impact the information will have on my own life. I have been practicing yoga coming up on 20 years now, and as I look around at my contemporaries in age and background, I get the impression that my health is better than most of theirs. But I have big questions about why this is happening. For this reason the current scientific research on aging is very intriguing to me. And the process of getting new information and digesting it, and then figuring out its applicability and validity is one that I love. I start to look at it with a critical eye to determine how beneficial it is both to my patients and myself, and then present it in a more realistic and accessible way. The blog will allow me to the share this ongoing process with you.

We'll be answering questions this week in a Friday Q&A post, so please ask any questions you have for me by leaving a comment. Tomorrow, Brad will hold forth.

Subscribe to Yoga for Healthy Aging by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook ° Join this site with Google Friend Connect

Read More

In the Kitchen

Mt. Tamalpais Above the Fog—Sometimes We Can Get There by Brad Gibson

It came to us while the three of us were in the kitchen, preparing a meal together and talking about how these days, as we age, our yoga practices are designed to address our changing needs and concerns: wasn’t it about time the three of us finally collaborated on a project? “Yoga for healthy aging,” Nina said. “And a blog would be a perfect way to start.” Baxter was concerned that we might not have enough material for an ongoing project, but Brad said, “No way. We’ll never run out of topics!”

You see, between the three of us, we have a wealth of special information and techniques we'd love to share with you.

Baxter Bell is an MD, a medical acupuncturist, and a long-time yoga teacher. Besides teaching regular asana classes, he specializes in yoga for back care and anatomy for yogis. He'll be recommending yoga poses and other practices for you that address various physical aspects of healthy aging, including strength, balance, flexibility, circulation and agility.

Brad Gibson is a professor at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, where aging and age-related diseases are the sole focus of the institute. As more is discovered about the aging process, our understanding about how to support healthy aging with yoga will increase. Brad will help you keep in touch with the latest scientific discoveries, and we'll explain their connection to specific yoga practices.

Nina Zolotow is a yoga writer as well as a certified yoga teacher and a long-time yoga practitioner, and her special area of expertise is yoga for emotional wellbeing (including yoga for stress, insomnia, depression, and anxiety). She’ll be recommending yoga practices for cultivating equanimity because as we age, reducing stress is more important than ever, both for our physical health and our peace of mind. 

This week each of us will take a turn letting you know a little more about ourselves and why we decided to take on this project. After that, we hope to take requests! Below is a list of the general topics we are planning to take on. But please leave a comment if any you have any special questions or concerns you like us to address.

• strength 
• balance 
• flexibility 
• agility 
• circulation 
• stress 
• cognitive functioning 
• equanimity 
• specific age-related diseases (such as arthritis, high blood pressure, Parkinson’s, diabetes, etc.) 
• what is known (and what is not known) about the aging process 

Tune in tomorrow to hear from Baxter. 

Subscribe to Yoga for Healthy Aging by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook ° Join this site with Google Friend Connect

Read More