This entry was posted on Jul 22, 2025 by Charlotte Bell.
(*6*)
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), falls are the main reason for damage or injury-related dying in older adults within the United States. There are many causes that older adults are extra inclined to falling, and to struggling severe damage after a fall. Bone and muscle loss are a pure a part of getting old, sapping our energy and stability. Hearing impairment can have an effect on your vestibular system’s skill to maintain you in steadiness. Some frequent pharmaceuticals could cause dizziness. The excellent news is that yoga may help. In future posts, I’ll make solutions for yoga practices that may help us construct balancing expertise. In at this time’s publish, I’ll describe six elements to contemplate when making a apply for good steadiness.
Good Balance is More than Just Tree Pose
Practicing Tree Pose (Vrksasana) can positively be part of your balance-building routine. But there’s extra to it. Maintaining good steadiness over your lifetime requires contemplating the entire physique/thoughts spectrum, and yoga can go a great distance towards honing the talents that contribute to steadiness.
Here’s an inventory of what I do know to be parts of regular steadiness. There could be extra that I haven’t discovered about but. This is an ongoing space of research for me, so I’d love to listen to from readers who can share extra data.
Element #1: Strong, Sensitive Feet
Our toes are our basis. And but, we have a tendency to not give them the eye they deserve. Our toes can lose sensitivity over time, on account of neuropathy, maintaining them in tight or ill-fitting sneakers, and on account of normal getting old. In order to keep up good steadiness, our toes must be sturdy, cellular and delicate. Strength requires utilizing them—strolling, operating, practising yoga’s standing poses. Our toes are intimately concerned in steadiness, so that they want to have the ability to transfer freely. It’s additionally vital to have the ability to really feel how our toes are articulating with the bottom, so we are able to detect when our toes are grounding erratically.
Element #2: Bone and Muscle Strength
You could also be stunned to be taught that muscle mass begins to lower in our 30s. It’s true, and the speed of lower accelerates round age 60. Muscle energy and mass are essential in sustaining bone well being. Weight-bearing train like yoga and energy coaching may help us preserve general muscle and bone well being.
Element #3: Core Strength
A powerful core—each stomach muscle groups and again muscle groups—stabilizes the entire physique, serving to us preserve good steadiness. In flip, balancing workout routines may help us preserve a robust core. Think poses like Boat Pose (Navasana), Bridge Pose (Setu Bandhasana) and the child backbends like Locust Pose (Salabhasana).
Element #4: Flexibility
It’s inevitable that we’ll, at occasions, lose our steadiness. But after we do, it’s vital that our our bodies are capable of get better, which may help forestall us from falling after we lose our steadiness. This means that now we have to have motion choices. A physique with stiff joints merely can be much less more likely to keep upright after we journey, twist an ankle or falter whereas strolling on uneven floor. Yoga, after all, is very suited to selling flexibility.
Element #5: Vestibular System
According to the Cleveland Clinic: “The vestibular system contains sensory organs in your interior ear that show you how to preserve your sense of steadiness. We’re continuously in movement, and so is the world round us. The vestibular system, when it’s working, helps your physique perceive the way you’re transferring and the way issues round you might be transferring to assist preserve your steadiness or steadiness.” Yoga is exclusive amongst bodily practices in that most of the poses require our heads to be in positions aside from upright, which stimulates and strengthens our vestibular system.
Element #6: Concentration
Many falls occur after we’re merely not paying consideration. We could also be mountaineering on uneven terrain and enthusiastic about one thing else solely after we journey over a rock and fall. Or we could also be practising Tree Pose and misplaced in thought when our steadiness instantly falters. In any case, listening to our actions, our surroundings, our posture, the connection of our toes to the bottom—all this stuff may help us steadiness. Mindfulness apply is essential to serving to us develop focus expertise.
In Conclusion: Build a Yoga Practice for Good Balance
In fashioning a yoga apply for good steadiness, we have to think about all these parts. Over the approaching weeks, and maybe, months, I’ll be sharing practices I do know to be useful. Yoga could be a fantastic ally in maintaining us upright. In the meantime, apply poses you recognize to strengthen, stabilize, stretch and promote regular steadiness.
About Charlotte Bell
Charlotte Bell found yoga in 1982 and commenced instructing in 1986. Charlotte is the writer of Mindful Yoga, Mindful Life: A Guide for Everyday Practice and Yoga for Meditators, each printed by Rodmell Press. Her third ebook is titled Hip-Healthy Asana: The Yoga Practitioner’s Guide to Protecting the Hips and Avoiding SI Joint Pain (Shambhala Publications). She writes a month-to-month column for CATALYST Magazine and serves as editor for Yoga U Online. Charlotte is a founding board member for GreenTREE Yoga, a non-profit that brings yoga to underserved populations. A lifelong musician, Charlotte performs oboe and English horn within the Salt Lake Symphony and folks sextet Red Rock Rondo, whose DVD gained two Emmy awards.