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Aging and Yoga

This text is a mod­i­fied excerpt from an article I have pre­sent­ed as part of my yoga teacher train­ing at the Vi­ve­ka­nanda ash­ram near Ban­ga­lore, India in the year 2000.

[...] in the text indicate that more de­tails are given in the free pdf-ver­sion. Please find the down­load link at the bot­tom of this page.

This text is a mod­i­fied ex­cerpt from an ar­ti­cle I have pre­sent­ed as part of my yoga teacher train­ing at the Vi­ve­ka­nanda ash­ram near Ban­ga­lore, India in the year 2000.

[...] in the text indicate that more de­tails are given in the free pdf-ver­sion. Please find the down­load link at the bot­tom of this page.

1. Introduction
Human beings get born, grow up, are get­ting old­er and fi­nal­ly pass away. After body and mind have de­vel­oped to their great­est ca­pa­bili­ty, usu­ally in good health, a slow decay starts off. The body’s defence mech­a­nisms against var­i­ous dis­eases will weaken and even­tu­ally it will die. The proc­ess of aging affects man’s phys­i­cal, in­tel­lec­tual, men­tal and spir­i­tu­al ca­pac­i­ties.

This article deals with some pos­sible chang­es on the bodi­ly and men­tal level and how yoga can help to live a health­ier and con­tent life. The focus will be on the bodi­ly level while the med­i­ta­tion sec­tion of this web­site pro­vides help­ful means on the men­tal level.

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2. Changes of body and mind
2.1 Bodily changes and problems
Due to changes and a slow­ing down of the me­tab­olism oc­cur­ring with old age, muscle cells are no longer re­newed as quick­ly as before and will in­creas­ing­ly trans­form to fat cells. The elas­tic­ity of the fibres and the tonus of the mus­cles are reduced.

Decades of mal­nu­tri­tion and the use of in­tox­i­cants like to­bac­co and al­co­hol may have left de­pos­its of plaque in blood vessels (ar­te­rio­scle­rosis, cor­o­nary heart disease), re­duc­ing the blood cir­cu­la­tion, in­creas­ing the blood pres­sure. Sed­i­ments of various kinds affect the joints and will result in dis­com­fort, pain and re­duced flex­i­bil­i­ty. Ac­ci­dents and in­ju­ries may increase.
The immune system is often weak­ened, re­sult­ing in an in­creased del­i­ca­cy against path­o­gen­ic agents.

The following diseases occur fre­quent­ly with age:
  • Hypertension, heart insuf­fi­ciency, heart attack, stroke;
  • Arthritis, arthrosis, rheumatism;
  • Stiffness, weakness of joints and limbs;
  • Back problems;
  • Reduced performance of inner organs, con­sti­pa­tion;
  • Diabetes mellitus;
  • Respiratory problems;
  • Eye- and ear problems and other.

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2.2 Mental, intellectual and emotional problems
Due to various reasons like de­gen­er­a­tion of nerve cells, a lack of blood supply to the brain, changes of trans­mitter sub­stances re­spon­sible to trans­port in­for­ma­tion be­tween nerve cells in the brain, changes in the hor­mon­al sys­tem, de­hy­dra­tion and others, prob­lems like:
  • A lack of concentration;
  • Insufficient memory;
  • Parkinson's and Alzheimer's dis­ease;
  • Depression, neurosis and others may occur.
Additionally elderly people may get lone­ly and may face dif­fi­cul­ties in find­ing some­thing in­ter­est­ing and chal­leng­ing to do after their re­tire­ment. They are said to be of little or no use for soci­ety any­more and there­fore they lack re­spect in (west­ern) so­ci­e­ties. This again may lead to wor­ries, anx­ie­ties, iso­la­tion, de­pres­sion, ag­gres­sion etc. which in turn may result in de­vel­op­ing bodily and men­tal­ly tension and dis­orders. A lack of self-confi­dence and un­hap­pi­ness is not un­com­mon.

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3. How yoga can help
Yoga has positive effects on the bodi­ly and men­tal health. Though the focus is more on pre­ven­tion than on cur­ing, yoga ther­a­py is suc­cess­ful­ly ap­plied on chron­ic and stress re­lat­ed ail­ments like dis­tur­bance of blood supply, di­ges­tive and sleep re­lat­ed dis­or­ders, res­pi­ra­tory and back prob­lems.

3.1 The preventive aspect of yoga in the course of aging
Hatha yoga practice
In recent years man in the in­dus­tri­al­ized coun­tries are de­vel­op­ing a more ho­lis­tic ap­proach in liv­ing life. Many have realized that human life is a complex inter­action be­tween body, mind, social and nat­u­ral en­vi­ron­ment and sick­ness or health have to be viewed and dealt with con­sid­er­ing all of these aspects. In deal­ing with sick­ness one has to take the phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al, in­tel­lec­tual and spir­i­tu­al facet of the patient into account, his past, his origins and cul­ture, his en­vi­ron­ment. Of­fer­ing chem­i­cal drugs, which in many cases will cure the symp­toms but not the under­lying root cause, will only bring tem­po­rary relief.

Practising the yogic system­ pu­ri­fies the body, im­proves health, strength­ens the mind, in­ten­si­fies spir­i­tu­al growth, balanc­es emo­tions and thus leads to a ful­filled and healthy life. [...]
When talking about yoga in the West, people usu­al­ly think of the bodi­ly pos­tures, the asanas, also known as Hatha yoga.

Hatha yoga offers a wide range of pos­tures with dif­fer­ent degree of dif­fi­cul­ties. There is some­thing suit­able for eve­ry­one at every age. De­pend­ing on one’s health and fit­ness one can start with very easy pre­par­a­tory exer­cises and pro­gress little by little. If prac­tised in the right way, posi­tive ef­fects will occur almost im­me­di­ately at any level of practice.

With continued practice the body will be­come more flex­ible and healthy. The train­ing of the body, the breath­ing exer­cises and the prac­tice of med­ita­tion will have very posi­tive effects on the mind as well. It will become more quiet and calm by turn­ing inward, the will­power will in­crease, unrest and anx­ie­ties will lessen, con­cen­tra­tion will develop and become power­ful, a spir­i­tu­al growth will take place and in due course will lead to more and genuine hap­pi­ness. This hap­pi­ness is achieved by turn­ing the mind away from chas­ing external sense pleas­ures and look­ing inside instead.

All of the above mentioned ef­fects may lead to a dif­fer­ent view of life. People prac­tis­ing yoga may switch to a vege­tar­ian diet, avoid in­tox­i­cants, being aware and tak­ing care of them­selves, the persons and the en­vi­ron­ment around them. Their change in at­ti­tude and behav­iour will give a posi­tive example for others and may inspire them to start prac­tis­ing as well. They may use their gained energy to serve others and so­ci­ety, thus avoid­ing lone­li­ness.

The practice of yoga can­not avoid death, but liv­ing life in a healthy body with a sound, free and con­tent mind can be ex­tend­ed; death no longer is some­thing one has to be afraid of. A trained body is less prone to in­ju­ries, and even if weak­ness, sick­ness, and pain of the body can­not always be avoided, the spir­i­tu­al devel­op­ment will help to deal with them more wise­ly with less suf­fer­ing for the mind.

These are some of the methods and re­sult­ing benefits yoga prac­tices may have on the aging process of man­kind.

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3.2 The healing aspect of yoga in the course of aging
If ailments and deficits on the bodi­ly and/or men­tal level have already arisen, one should try to cure, at least lessen them. Yoga ther­a­py has proven par­tic­ular suc­cess­ful in treat­ing chron­ic health prob­lems like asthma, chron­ic bron­chi­tis, high or low blood pres­sure, chronic diar­rhoea or con­sti­pation, weak­ness of the immune system, etc.

The key principles of the inte­grat­ed ap­proach in yoga therapy are:
  • Deep relaxation;
  • Increasing the stamina and for­bear­ance;
  • Awaken and strengthen in­ter­nal aware­ness.
By adopting the inte­grated ap­proach, the af­fect­ed organs and the whole body will be normal­ized, strength­ened and re­vi­tal­ized. The appli­ca­tion of suit­able bodi­ly ex­er­cis­es, breath­ing and cleans­ing tech­niques, as well as emo­tion­al con­trol through de­vo­tion­al ses­sions and me­di­ta­tion are the tools to put these key prin­ci­ples into prac­tice.

Obviously different ailments require dif­fer­ent treat­ments; dif­fer­ent pa­tients have to be treated in an in­di­vid­ual way; many eld­er­ly persons suffer of multiple health prob­lems. Every single case has to be treated ac­cord­ing to his or her def­i­cits in close co­op­era­tion with the doctors and ther­a­pists in­volved.
On the other hand it has proven that cer­tain basic treat­ments will usu­al­ly have posi­tive ef­fects on a range of dif­fer­ent ail­ments. [...]

The choice of the asana is very much de­pend­ing on the sever­ity of the ail­ment. A col­lec­tion of easy to learn and to do ex­er­cis­es with dif­fer­ent degrees of dif­ficul­ty can be found in my book Enjoy Hatha–Yoga

Yoga asanas will vitalize the whole body, keep­ing or mak­ing it flex­ible and pro­mote the blood cir­cu­la­tion. To­geth­er with the deep relax­ation it relaxes body and mind, nerves and mus­cles. Tired­ness and fatigue will be released. [...]

 

Rehabilitation
Another important aspect in the ap­pli­ca­tion of yoga ther­apy is the field of re­ha­bil­ita­tion, eg, the reha­bili­ta­tion of stroke pa­tients or after ac­ci­dents. In these cases an often long and in­ten­sive treat­ment is neces­sary. These pa­tients very often will suffer of a lack of con­fi­dence in the pos­si­bil­ities to lessen their def­i­cits or re­stor­ing their health. They get dis­cour­aged, some­times de­pres­sive. An inte­grat­ed ap­proach which takes care of the bodi­ly as well as of their mental, in­tel­lectual, emo­tion­al and spi­ri­tu­al needs is most essential.

Diet
An important factor for man’s health is his diet. Many bodily and men­tal dis­orders are due to mal­nu­tri­tion and the use of in­toxi­cants.

Dedicated yogis will stick to sattvic food (fresh­ly cooked veg­etar­ian food, if pos­si­ble organic, fresh organic veg­e­ta­bles, fruits, leg­umes, dairy, whole grain prod­ucts, seeds

and nuts, mild spices, no black or red pep­per, no garlic, no left­overs) only, but people liv­ing in the world may fare al­ready better when adopt­ing a diet with little animal fat and meat, little salt, much fresh vege­tables, fruits and grains to en­sure a well-bal­anced supply of vi­ta­mins and min­er­als.

Very important is not only what one eats but how one eats. One should nei­ther eat in a hurry nor eat very big meals. Se­ver­al small meals dis­trib­uted over the entire day and slow and mind­ful eat­ing is required. The ancient yogic rule “Eat the fluids (do not gulp them down) and drink the solids (chew them thor­ough­ly and care­fully)” should be ap­plied. A well bal­anced diet is of enor­mous value in the pre­ven­tion of ail­ments.

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3.3  Aging, spir­i­tu­al growth and yoga
Spir­i­tu­ality and wis­dom are in­ter­con­nect­ed. Old age, if not asso­ci­ated with senil­ity, is said to be in­ter­con­nect­ed with wis­dom. Does this mean that the proc­ess of ag­ing au­to­mat­i­cally lead to spir­i­tu­ality or to a growth of spir­i­tu­al qual­i­ties?

What is spir­i­tu­ality?
Spir­i­tu­ality could be de­scribed as a turn­ing away from the "outer" world per­ceived through the sense doors and as a move to­wards the "inner" world, as an inward jour­ney in search for man’s true nature, as a search for truth which may lead to last­ing happi­ness in­stead of chas­ing im­per­ma­nent pleas­ures.

What makes man searching for true hap­pi­ness?
Humans tend to look­ing out­side, to the outer world, to the envi­ron­ment, seek­ing happi­ness in the out­side world by means of the sense organs. Chas­ing after sen­su­al pleas­ure by run­ning after deli­cious food, hear­ing allur­ing sounds, smell­ing fra­grant odours, enjoy­ing ex­cit­ing body con­tacts, watch­ing beau­ti­ful sights is all around. All of this may re­sult in some kind of hap­pi­ness, may be more ac­cu­rate to say pleas­ure, for some time but then it will fade away, leav­ing us crav­ing for another sense pleas­ure or for a repe­ti­tion of the al­ready ex­pe­ri­enced ones – chas­ing hap­pi­ness end­less­ly.

Photo of a Sculpture at Wat Poh, Bangkok Sculpture at Wat Poh, Bang­kok

One needs not to grow very old to un­der­stand these im­per­ma­nent, ev­er chang­ing proc­ess­es in­tel­lec­tu­ally. But to rec­og­nize this vi­cious cir­cle of crav­ing – strug­gling for sat­is­fac­tion – fad­ing a­way of the sat­is­fac­tion – re­newed crav­ing mere­ly in­tel­lec­tu­al­ly will not help much and so we spend year after year, decade after de­cade in run­ning after sense pleas­ures, in run­ning after dis­ap­point­ment. [...]

The methods of yoga and med­i­ta­tion can help us to avoid many traps and to ad­vance more quickly on the spir­i­tu­al path. It has al­ready proven to be suc­cess­ful in aid­ing and guid­ing spir­i­tu­al seekers to the final goal. [...]

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4. Summary
In the course of aging body, mind and spirit of man will under­go cer­tain chang­es. Final­ly these chang­es will lead to the un­a­void­able death of the per­son. Before this is go­ing to hap­pen, very often avoid­able and to in­creased ag­ing and de­cay lead­ing health pro­blems will occur. This is fre­quent­ly due to the fact that humans do not care for their true needs; in­stead they indulge in all kinds of sen­su­al pleas­ures in­clud­ing mal­nu­tri­tion and the use of in­toxi­cants. They over­work, do not ex­er­cise their bodies prop­er­ly, and neglect their spir­i­tual needs.

Man sticking to the path of yoga and med­i­ta­tion will know that true hap­pi­ness is not to be found any­where out­side but inside them. They will strength­en and purify body and mind; they will balance their emo­tions and grow spir­i­tu­ally, thus be­com­ing con­tent­ed, peace­ful and calm. Of course they can­not es­cape de­cay and death, but they can delay it and lead a ful­filled life.

By fully implementing yogic methods in dai­ly life, the pre­ven­tive, the heal­ing and to further (spir­i­tu­al) de­vel­op­ment lead­ing as­pect of yoga can hard­ly be sepa­rated from each other; they will serve all of these three tasks. This yogic way of life, wise­ly applied, is bene­ficial at eve­ry age and eve­ry state of health.

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