Yoga is more popular than ever before, and many seniors are trying it for the first time. But why is yoga recommended so often for aging adults? The answer lies in the benefits that seniors can get from simple movements. If your loved one has senior home care services providers, they can watch over her as she attempts to do yoga.
Yoga Can Improve Balance
Often seniors find that they have bigger issues with balance as they grow older. These problems can become even more of an issue if your elderly family member is more sedentary than she used to be. Yoga poses help to improve balance, helping to reduce the likelihood that your senior might fall. Senior home care providers can be there with your senior to help her keep her balance when she’s first trying yoga.
It Can Also Help with Joint Flexibility and Reduce Blood Pressure
Another reason that yoga is so wonderful for seniors is that it helps with flexibility both in muscles and in joints. Joints, in particular, may experience a lot of pain and stiffness, which is exacerbated if your senior is more sedentary. Yoga poses help to warm up the joints and keep them limber, making movement easier and less painful for your senior.
Yoga focuses on breathwork as well as slow movements. These two aspects combined can reduce blood pressure and help your elderly family member’s circulation to improve. Meditation can do some of the same things, but the added benefit with yoga is that your senior is moving her body at the same time. Combined with her doctor’s recommendations, your senior may see some serious benefits. Senior home care providers can remind your senior to stick to her routines around medications, food, and yoga.
People Who Do Yoga May Sleep Better and Increase Brain Activity
If your senior has been having trouble sleeping, yoga might just help her out a bit. Many people who try yoga find that they’re able to sleep better. This is in part due to an increase in activity, but it can also have to do with the deep breathing exercises and relaxation benefits. There are specific poses that your senior might try before bed that can help her to sleep better, too.
Keeping your senior’s brain active and engaged is really important, and yoga can do that, too. Your elderly family member’s brain gets the benefits from the increased circulation that yoga offers, but there’s more. Endorphins also help your senior’s mood and mental health, reducing stress. Then there’s also the fact that coordination and changing poses keep your senior’s brain working.
Your Senior Is Up and Moving with Help from Senior Home Care Aides
The biggest benefit of all, even though it plays into a lot of the other benefits as well, is that your elderly family member is up and moving. Even chair yoga has huge benefits for your elderly family member’s body and mind, and she’s still moving her body. Remembering to do yoga regularly is a lot easier with the help of senior home care providers keeping your senior in her routine.
Yoga is low impact, making it the perfect activity for someone with joint pain who wants to become a little more active.
