Yoga can help many of these people to reduce the effects of osteoporosis on two different fronts.

Firstly yoga is one of the best methods of helping people to get a better posture and in doing so it also assists in helping to strengthen all the supporting muscles and tissues that help you to retain that posture.

By keeping your body in alignment there is considerably less strain on your joints, bones, tendons and ligaments.

The other way that yoga helps reduce the incidence of osteoporosis in elderly people is by improving and assisting in all the other functions of the body thereby lifting the overall health of the person to a higher level.

The improvements in the circulatory system and digestive system ensure that the maximum benefits are retained from the food that is consumed and this helps to boost nutrition.

Osteoporosis is made worse by a lack in suitable nutrition of essential elements and anything that can be done to improve this and ‘feed’ the body it’s necessary requirements will help to ward off osteoporosis.

Yoga is one such method of assistance and the fact that it can have such a big impact on digestion and elimination, apart from the other factors mentioned previously, shows why yoga is a wise choice for quality of life as we age and particularly those people who are more susceptible to getting osteoporosis.

As with any other part of the body from the muscles to the skin, the bones can be strengthened from regular quality exercise and there is no for of exercise better than yoga to give the body an all over fitness boost at any age.

The true fact of the matter is that incontinence is the result of a weakening of certain muscles.

These muscles become weakened due to misuse and they can be strengthened by using various different exercises thereby reducing the problem of incontinence.

Yoga is particularly good at strengthening muscles throughout the body and in doing so it is a very effective way of reducing and eliminating incontinence for many people.

The yoga exercises that help with this problem are those that focus on the strengthening of the pelvic and abdominal muscles.

These exercises need to be done on a regular basis to ensure that you maintain good strength in those areas and thereby avoid becoming incontinent.

These exercises combined with good breathing techniques can have a rapid and dramatic effect on those who are suffering from incontinence whereby they regain their strength very quickly and gain back some of the freedom in their life that they have lost to this problem.

Even people who are confined to bed can use these muscle strengthening techniques on a regular basis, preferably a couple of times a day, until they have eliminated the problem.

The best exercise for this is in fact one that is done while lying on your back.

For a brief explanation:

Lie flat on your back with your legs bent and your feet flat on the floor.
Your arms should be stretched out by your side as you begin breathing in and out several times.

Next you will breathe out completely and then take a deep breath in through your nose and hold that breath for the count of three.

Finally breathe out completely as hard as you can and eliminating all the air and tightening your stomach muscles as you do so.

With all of the air expelled, suck in your stomach, pelvis and buttock muscles as hard as you can and once again hold for the count of three.

Release your muscles and repeat the exercise several times before having a rest.

This will help you to have more control and reduce the chance of becoming incontinent.

People think of yoga as being passive and mystical – an otherworldly activity that doesn’t relate to their lives. People are experiencing a vacuum because of all the outward directed activity, and they are going to have to go back to the experience of self.

Although the Indian discipline of yoga has been practiced for more than 5,000 years, in this country there are few followers. Almost half the American adult population swims and close to a quarter runs or jogs, yet only 2 percent practices yoga.

The word yoga derives from the Sanskrit root yuj, meaning to yoke or connect. Through yoga’s various techniques, one is said to arrive at mental and physical equilibrium, better health and inner peace. It has been described as providing, in effect, a “work-in” rather than a workout.

There are at least eight main branches of yoga and several offshoots of each, but essentially there are only two concerned with exercise: hatha yoga and kundalini yoga.

Hatha is the most popular type of yoga in the Western world. It is a slow-paced discipline that emphasizes controlled breathing and assuming various physical poses. It is said to aid the nervous system, the glands and the vital organs.

Kundalini, which was introduced to this country in 1969 by Yogi Bhajan, is more active, combining various modes of breathing, movement and meditation. It is based on the idea that body energy that is coiled below the base of the spine can be tapped so that it travels upward through different energy centers or chakras until it reaches the head. At this point one arrives at one’s highest potential.

Classically, there are 84 basic yoga positions, or asanas, which are coordinated with special breathing techniques. The asanas range from simple bends and twists to pretzel-like contortions reserved for the most advanced practitioners. The various poses elongate the muscles and build flexibility. Along with the proper breathing, they help rid the body of tension. Static holds isolate and strengthen particular muscles.

Asanas have evolved over the centuries so as to exercise every muscle, nerve and gland in the body. They secure a fine physique, which is strong and elastic without being muscle-bound, and they keep the body free from disease. They reduce fatigue and soothe the nerves. But their real importance lies in the way they train and discipline the mind.

The deep breathing techniques that are taught in yoga can bring about calm in your life while at the same time energizing you. Many people feel that they need some form of stimulation to get energized but yoga will show them that this can be far from the truth. Yoga gives you a long term energy that is not influenced by hyper activity or nervousness.

You can practice the basic yoga breathing techniques where ever you like. Even while sitting at your office desk it is as easy as following a few simple techniques…

Sit up straight in your chair with your feet flat on the floor. Rest your hands on top of your thighs and begin to relax, slowly closing your eyes.

Now begin to think about the various parts of your body starting from your feet and relax each part one at a time as you feel them become soft and relaxed releasing all the tension that is being held there.

Feel your lungs filling with breath, expanding and contracting in a relaxed manner. Don’t ‘push’ your breathing. Just maintain a relaxed breath in and out. With each outwards breath expel the tension that is being held in your body. Set it free and breathe in the next breath of relaxed energy.

This will come more naturally the more often you do it and you will find that you can get into a relaxed state faster each time. The energy that you get from this will carry over further into each day of your life until you are constantly in a more relaxed state in your everyday life.

Try it now and see how easy it is to change your mindset. When thoughts come into your mind whilst doing this, let them float on by and don’t hold onto them.

Eight Thousand Years Old

It is believed that yoga began about eight thousand years ago, though some put its true age at about only four thousand years back, though the first records of yoga date back to about 3000 BC. It was about this time that people living in the Indus Valley civilization began to practice yoga and it continued until 1500 B.C. when the Vedic civilizations also practiced it.

However, depending upon which historian’s version you believe, the history of yoga is variously put at between four thousand to eight thousand years go. This is borne out when one looks at the seals from Mohenjo-daro, an ancient city settlement from the time of the Indus Valley Civilization, which show figures of sitting yogis. Such a figure was called the Shiva Pashupati and the name refers to the archaeologist that discovered these seals.

There is no doubt however that yoga was being practiced during the time that the Rig Veda was being used and so by the time that the Upanishads, from about between 800 to 100 BC came into existence, it had been widely practiced. These writings delved into different aspects of yoga including control of the breath, union of six limbs, meditation and sensory inhibition, concentration, ecstasy and examination.

Yoga also found favor among the Buddhist and Jain philosophies and the popularity of it extended to a number of cultures. Of course, if one looks at modern times it has truly gained in popularity all around the world in the past five decades or so.

One of the more modern forms of this exercise regimen is known as Bikram yoga, which has been developed quite recently. Its founder was Bikram Choudhury, after whom this form of yoga was named.

In the western world, the form of yoga that is most popular is the one known as Hatha and its origins date back to about the fifteenth century. In the past fifty years it has been popularized in the U.S. It has also been shorn of its spiritual content to suit western tastes.

If you’ve come to this site looking to understand yoga as a means to help your body heal or improve, then please don’t worry; you’ve come to the right place!

Yoga is indeed a process that involves releasing blocked tension and energy in the body, and helping make the muscles, tendons, joints, ligaments, and all other components work to their utmost potential.

Yoga believes that human beings are optimally designed, by nature, to be flexible and agile; and stiffness and lack of mobility only arrive when the body is unhealthy or out of alignment.

Therefore, countless people have found themselves in a yoga class, or on a yoga mat at home in front of a Yoga video or DVD, in the hopes of improving their physical health; and perhaps you may be one of them. If that’s the case, then keep reading!

There are proven physical benefits of yoga, which include:

* increased flexibility and range of motion

* reduced pain in joints and muscles

*reduced back pain

* stronger immune system

* stronger lung capacity and therefore higher quality respiration

* increased metabolism (which can lead to weight loss!)

* higher quality of sleep (especially due to improved breathing and a more oxygenated body)

Given that certain yoga practices require postures to be mastered, yoga has always helped promote the body’s flexibility; it also helps in lubricating the joints, ligaments
and tendons. Yoga detoxifies by increasing the flow of blood to various parts of the body. It helps tone and invigorate muscles that have grown flaccid and weak.

So please do keep in mind that, while yoga is often discussed in terms of its mental approach, there are clear and proven physical benefits that are a part of this approach.

Therefore, if weight loss is your goal, or the ability to shovel the snow in winter without experiencing back pain for days, then yoga is as viable an option to you as it is for the stressed-out corporate executive who needs to find a strategy for coping with the craziness if her busy life!

The program consists largely of what it calls procedure screens, in which each position is demonstrated in one window while described textually in another. A narrator reads that same text aloud. In addition to the usual tape-recorder buttons to pause, stop and restart the action, there is a graph that displays the approximate duration of each segment of the routine.

The practical difficulties of using this CD-ROM are fairly obvious. The manual, dragged kicking and screaming into English from its Japanese roots, advises the user to First practice forming the pose while watching the screen and try memorizing the whole procedure.” This, unless you have a 24-inch monitor or keep your monitor on the floor, is likely to be difficult. Clearly the actual learning of the poses could be more readily done with a videotape.

On the other hand, you can hunt around in the CD-ROM, choose from the positions you want to learn, and collect them into personal groups. And maybe you’ve got a really big monitor, and a cordless, long-distance mouse.

This is a nice program, well-made and instructive. My only complaint is that it does not emphasize clearly enough that unless you are as slender as the model executing the poses, you are not going to be able to do many of them — the Crow, the Heron and the Frog, for instance — correctly. On the other hand, we can all do the Corpse.

Shiatsu Relaxation, which teaches a massage technique clearly related to acupuncture, is another kettle of fish.

The theory is that rubbing, kneading or poking specific points on the body, called acupressure points, will make other parts of the body feel better. I am not prepared to argue that premise, but the entire procedure seems shiatsu yourself is not clear, either; the program initially suggests you find some of your own more accessible pressure points, but they are not all available to your own hands and all the demonstrations show one person ministering to another.

The yoga mat is a thin, smaller sized mat that you place on the floor and which offers you a bit of padding and comfort while you are performing your yoga exercises. All yoga mats are basically the same, but they are available in different sizes, colors and styles.

When you start looking for a yoga mat the first thing you should do is read a yoga mat review or two. This will help to give you a better idea of what is out there and which are favored by past consumers.

Where to Shop

Now that you have a good idea of the yoga mats you can choose from, you are going to need to learn about where you can go to purchase them. Yoga is a very popular exercise and there are literally thousands of retailers around the world that you can go to for your yoga supplies, but if you are on the hunt for a yoga mat there are a few companies in particular that you are going to want to check out.

One is Buy Yoga Mat, one of the top yoga supply stores on the Internet today. Here you can find top quality yoga mats and yoga equipment for your health and fitness needs, and all purchases you make are completely secure and your satisfaction is always guaranteed. There are yoga mats, yoga blocks, yoga blankets, meditation supplies and much more.

The Buy Gym Mats Company is another great option here, and one that you will definitely want to consider for all your yoga supply needs. They offer discounted yoga supplies of all sorts and a qualified and trained staff which you can contact if you have any questions or need help finding the right mat for you.

One of the best things about yoga is that there is so little equipment required for it. But you are definitely going to want to make sure that you have a mat to use so you will not be uncomfortable while you are performing your yoga postures, and so that you can get the best out of your workout.

Even those who are unable to stand can perform certain yoga exercises while seated.
For those who are a little more mobile many of the exercises that they can do in Yoga will help them to become more mobile still, or at the least more stable and coordinated which will reduce the incidence of them falling over and breaking bones or sustaining other types of injuries.

Such events can affect elderly people quite considerably and anything that can be done to reduce or eliminate these from happening will help to extend their life and improve their quality of life.

Whilst many elderly people sit for considerable periods of time throughout the day this in itself can bring about many aches and pains in the body and light stretching can help to reduce these muscular and joint pains.

It is well-known fact in the medical profession that the majority of people who seek assistance for their aches and pains will be able to eliminate the majority of their problems with simple stretching exercises done on a regular basis.

As pain is also a drain on energy levels there is the added benefit that even by doing a small amount of simple Yoga stretching, the elderly person can expect to have an increase in energy that will only make it all the more easier to continue with the yoga exercise.

The calm and relaxation that yoga exercise also brings with it can help to reduce a lot of the frustration that elderly people begin to feel when they are unable to do the things that they would like to do.

Yoga for seniors helps them to cope a lot better with life and to enjoy what life has to offer them even when they are somewhat incapacitated.

The overall benefits of mind-body exercise are documented in an increasing number of scientific studies. They include everything from reducing cardiac risk factors to enhancing mood.

You’re under stress, but you have to be in control all day, and after so many years, what happens is that leads to eating misbehaviors, stress hormone production and cardiac risk factors. The good news is you can reverse these risk factors non-pharmacologically and develop some habits for a lifetime that complement conventional diet and exercise.

The kinder, gentler movements typical of yoga improve flexibility, strength and muscle tone and can be more youth-promoting than the wear-and-tear of daily aerobics, weights and running alone.

Especially with the baby boomer generation getting older, they’re realizing the need for flexibility, the need for good posture, and the desire for the things that are going to help them look and feel young.