The New Yoga for People Over 50: A Comprehensive Guide for Midlife and Older Beginners

Many seniors are searching for ways to improve their quality of life and remain active as they enter midlife and later years. Nationwide, people are recognizing yoga for its ability to slow down and reverse the aging process. A complete health system, yoga not only restores vitality to the body, but also expands the mind and soul. Yoga transforms the years after 50 from a time of deterioration to one of increased perspective and illumination.

In The New Yoga for People Over 50, readers will learn how the health of the spine and posture affect every sustem of the body, and how yoga positions and breathing exercises benefit the circulatory system, the heart and other vital organs, relieve menopausal symptoms, and remove stiffness and inertia from the body. In this comprehensive guide, Iyengar yoga expert Suza Francina describes and illustrates how to begin and maintain a yoga program through personal stories and over 100 easy-to-follow instructional photos of older teachers and students.

One key to modifying postures for older, stiffer bodies is the use of props that provide support to let the yoga student get into strenuous postures and hold them longer without pain or fatigue. The book illustrates how to adapt many postures with the aid of chairs, walls, wall ropes, bolsters, back-bending benches, and straps. Yoga decreases stiffness and inertia, and enhances health, energy, flexibility, posture, breathing, independence, and balance (physical and emotional). Francina explains how yoga may prevent the shortening and rounding of the spine and ward off osteoporosis. This book is an excellent companion to a yoga class or an inspiration to begin one. --Joan Price