by Nina

Centennial of Independence by Henri Rousseau

In my old post What is Healthy Aging, Anyway?, I wrote that Baxter and I believed that “healthy aging” had three aspects to it: compressed morbidity, independence, and equanimity. Today I thought I’d focus on independence, on what it means and how yoga can help you maintain your independence as you age.

When medical professionals talk about maintaining independence, they usually focus on our ability to keep living in our own homes and take care of ourselves as long as possible. So they tend to focus on basic daily self-care activities, such as dressing, going to the toilet, getting up and down from a chair, doing light housework, and so on. But Baxter and I think there are two more important aspects to staying independent. 

The first is the ability to continue to do the activities we love (which I wrote about in my post Being Able to Do What You Love) for as long as possible. This can include activities that we think of as being primarily physical, such as cycling, hiking, doing construction projects, or gardening, but it also includes activities that get us out of the house and into the world, such as attending concerts and theatre, art exhibits, and poetry readings, or joining family and other social gatherings. Finally, being independent means being able to continue with doing the work that gives shape to your days and allow us to keep our intellects fully engaged, whether that means writing poetry and playing music, keeping up with a law or science career, or teaching in your area of expertise.

Beyond doing what we love, another quality of life that makes life worth living as we age is dedicating ourselves to a cause beyond ourselves. According to Josiah Royce, a Harvard philosopher from the early 20th century, the cause could be large, such as one’s family, country, or a principle, or small, such as the care of a pet. Atul Gawande says in his book Being Mortal, “The important thing was that, in ascribing value to the cause and seeing it as worth making sacrifices for, we give our lives meaning.”

This concept fits well with karma yoga (see Altruism (Karma Yoga)), which can include community activities, such as, volunteering a food bank or an animal shelter, teaching low-cost or free yoga, or helping people learn to read and write. And Ram has written that caregivers, who give their time to family members, are true karma yogis (see Caregivers: The True Karma Yogis). 

Obviously, if basic self-care is all you are physically capable of, you’re going to be missing out on many of these activities. So for a truly independent life, you’ll need a combination of physical skills, including strength, flexibility, balance, and agility. A regular asana practice—even one that is modified over time—will help keep you able bodied, rather than sliding into the stiffness and weakness that results from a sedentary lifestyle. But rather than just doing any old yoga, such as Restorative Yoga all the time, we believe that focusing specifically on the four essential physical skills is the most effective way to maintain your independence. Although we’ve written about the four essential skills individually, we’ve never addressed them together (at least not so I can find them). So today I’m going to give a quick overview of each one along with a link to a post where you can find more information.

Strength. You need physical strength simply to get out of bed, stand well and move about your home, community, or work space in easy fashion and to carry what you need to take along with you. Even more strength is needed for more demanding physical practices, such as participating in athletic activities. You can use your asana practice to cultivate upper strength, lower body strength, core strength, and bone strength. Maintaining strength also helps you stay healthy, as maintaining muscle strength helps combat sarcopenia and promotes joint health, and maintaining bone strength helps combat osteopenia and osteoporosis. See Yoga for Strength: An Overview for information.

Flexibility. You need flexibility to maintain range of motion in your joints, allowing you to move your limbs and spine with ease so you can reach or twist as needed. Being flexible also helps you move smoothly and gracefully, rather than stiffly and awkwardly, allowing you to feel more confident in your body. Maintaining flexibility also helps you stay healthy, as flexibility preserves the range of motion in the joints, fostering joint health and improving arthritis symptoms. You can use your asana practice to cultivate flexibility in both your upper and lower body. See Yoga for Flexibility: An Overview for information.

Balance. The ability to balance is crucial for preventing falls, a serious concern for older people. It also allows you to move easily over uneven surfaces, whether that’s a cobblestone street or a mountain path, and to walk up stairs. You can use your asana practice to cultivate several different aspects of balance, from increasing proprioception (your awareness of where you body is in space) to improving your ability to focus. See Yoga for Balance: An Overview for information.

Agility. Maintaining agility increases your reaction time in the real world, preventing injuries and allowing you to participate in activities that require coordination and speed. Even something as simple as walking along a crowded city sidewalk (have you ever walked through the streets of New York on a weekday?) requires significant agility, not to mention dodging rude drivers. And, of course, skillful activities like dancing require even higher levels of agility. Moving in and out of your poses with your breath, linking poses together into simple or complex vinyasasa, and working on transitions into and out of static poses all help foster agility. See Yoga for Agility for information.


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