Yoga’s popularity as a supportive wellness practice is growing across the world. The beneficial effects shared by individuals undergoing yoga led scientists to verify their claims.
An analysis was made of 22 cluster-randomized and randomized clinical trials to determine the link between practicing yoga and physical and mental well-being among the healthy aged.
Yoga programs of varied durations ranging from 1 to 7 months and individual sessions lasting between half an hour to one hour and half were included in the analysis. Comparison of benefits from yoga with those arising from chair aerobics and walking was also done.
People with an average age of 60 years or so and doing yoga greatly benefited by way of enhanced physical balance, limb strength and suppleness as compared to those not indulging in any physical activity. Additionally, they experienced sounder sleep, lesser symptoms of depression and increased energy. The aged yoga enthusiasts also experienced a sense of mental and physical well-being.
Yoga was a better alternative to walking or chair aerobics, the study found, as the lower limbs of the elderly people were infused with greater strength and symptoms of depression reduced.
Yoga was a suitable mode of physical activity for the aged who were largely an inactive lot and found it difficult to adhere to the muscle and balance enhancing guidelines set out by foreign and government health institutions.
It would be of great benefit if the older adults did a yoga workout as that would enable them to be in good form mentally as well as physically.
The study concluded that yoga was a light physical activity that could be suitably modified to enable the elderly and ailment afflicted individuals to undertake it and gain benefits from it. Yoga is a potential solution for enhancing psychological and physical well-being in the elderly adults.
