While many yoga classes across the country seem to cater to the youthful enthusiast who wants to sweat his or her way through an hour-and-a-half workout, a growing number of longtime yoga devotees are raising questions about the best way to safely continue a yoga practice into midlife and beyond.

“I suspect that yoga was at times an old person’s sport, and that it has prolonged the life and liveliness of people over the millennia,” said Dr. Loren Fishman, a back-pain specialist in Manhattan who uses yoga in his rehabilitation practice and has written extensively about yoga as an adjunct to medical treatment.

“Designed appropriately and taken in proper dose,” he said, “it is certainly safe.”

Carrie Owerko, a New York-based teacher of Iyengar yoga who has been a yoga student for decades, agreed. “Yoga can be practiced fully and deeply at any age,” she said, with an added caution that “the practice has to change as the body changes.”

Dr. Fishman noted that aging brings impairments of range, motion, strength and balance that can require modifications, even among veteran yogis, like using the support of a chair or the wall for many poses. In addition, students may begin to feel the effects of arthritis, injuries and other ailments that may require students skip certain poses altogether.

Someone with osteoporosis, for example, may want to avoid headstands and poses requiring extreme spinal flexion or extension, while someone with glaucoma may want to avoid taking the head below the heart in poses like headstand, handstand, shoulder stand and standing forward bends. When in doubt about the safety of practicing with any specific medical condition, Dr. Fishman recommended working with a doctor.

Generally speaking, a warm-up sequence is important for the veteran yogi, Ms. Owerko said. “Our bodies may need more time to warm up properly, especially if we are experiencing stiffness or arthritic changes in the joints or in areas that may be more vulnerable to previous injuries,” she said.

It is also important to include various one-legged standing poses — Tree Pose or Eagle Pose are examples — that challenge one’s ability to balance, even if you need the support of the wall, Ms. Owerko said. Weight-bearing poses, like Plank Pose and Forearm Plank, and standing poses like Warrior pose variations, are also important to help counteract the decline in muscle mass and strength as we age, she said.

To help maintain flexibility, poses like standing or seated forward bends and hip openers, like Bound Angle Pose or Pigeon Pose, are also important, said Roger Cole, a longtime Iyengar yoga teacher and psychologist in San Francisco.

Mr. Cole emphasized that a regular yoga practice can help the body maintain a high level of flexibility into midlife and beyond. If a student continues the same practice as much as possible without interruption through the 50s and beyond, he or she will see a gradual decline in certain abilities, but not necessarily a decline in flexibility, he said.

“I think the average person probably does get stiffer as they age,” he said, “but I believe that it’s mainly because they stop doing the things that keep them flexible.”

The passage of more and more baby boomer yogis, teachers as well as students, into and past middle age has sparked interest in creating a new kind of peer yoga community as well.

Desirée Rumbaugh, a longtime yoga teacher who passed the 50-year mark a few years ago, started a class in Del Mar, Calif., aimed at yoga veterans 50 and over. Called Wisdom Warriors, it was intended to offer veteran yogis the chance to keep learning in an environment that is comfortable and encouraging.

“People want to be pushed, but not in the same way they did in their 30s,” she said. “They want a little slower pace.”

Slower pace or not, Ms. Rumbaugh includes a full range of poses in her classes, including backbends and inversions. A recent Wisdom Warriors workshop, presented by Ms. Rumbaugh and Cyndi Lee at the Yoga Journal Conference in New York in April, would have been a vigorous day of yoga for students of any age.

Debra Hodgen, 61, of Vista, Calif., is a student in Ms. Rumbaugh’s class. A former dancer, she said that she began a consistent yoga practice when she was 48. She said she has become “stronger and more fearless” as a result of the class, despite having osteoarthritis, no cartilage in her right knee and joint pain throughout her body.

“I may have trouble just sitting in simple cross-legged pose, but I did full Monkey Pose recently,” she said.

The most important way a seasoned student will be able to continue to practice safely, many teachers say, is to listen to signals their body sends them in class, and know when to back off.

“In my experience, older students often bring a mature wisdom to the practice,” said Ms. Owerko, who turned 51 this week and has for many years attended an advanced yoga retreated for women over 40. “They have lived long enough to have a sense of humor about themselves. And they are often more compassionate toward themselves and other students.”

Do you have a question about yoga over 50? Dr. Loren Fishman is answering reader questions on the Booming blog.

This new iPhone App is super cool, has just been released as a Beta to a limited number of yogis.  The Creator of the App is giving my students a head start in downloading it.  Get it while you can or get stuck waiting for the official release!
Darren

DETAILS

OMies ia a brand new (and free!) iPhone app for the yoga community. Find classes near you, see which classes your friends are going to, track your practice, and connect with your favorite teachers. We’ve launched our beta version in San Francisco. Now we’re seeking beta testers to give us feedback and help us make the app awesome before we open it up to the larger community. If you are an iPhone-using yogi, you can download the free app HERE.

June 1, 2013 1:30 PM • Register Online

In recent decades, the practice of yoga as gone mainstream with millions of people practicing it in some form every day.  Scientific literature is continually publishing articles about the therapeutic benefits of yoga, and doctors, nurses and other healthcare providers regularly suggest their patients explore this ancient practice.

In this discussion, author and yoga teacher Darren Main will explore the practice of yoga and how it can complement Western Medicine. Because there are so many styles of yoga from which to choose , important considerations when talking to patients about yoga will also be discussed.

This discussion is perfect for any healthcare professional wishing advise their patient on the practice of yoga.

Donald Walters was a direct disciple  of Yogananda and a member of Self Realization Fellowship  (SRF),  an organization founded by his guru. Walters eventually took vows and became known as Swami Kriyananda.   Yet after  a rather public and acrimonious split with SRF,  he went on to found Ananda, author over 150 books and teach worldwide.

On Sunday, April 21st, Krinanada passed away leaving behind many devoted followers.  While he will likely be remembered by some as a rogue Swami and by others as a great teacher, I think he and his generation of  Western yogis is most influential in the brave choice they made to explore yoga at a time when it was known only as an exotic Indian practice.

If not for people like Kriyananda bringing yoga to the mainstream, I might well be wearing a suit to work each day rather than yoga shorts and bare feet!   For those of us who have had our lives healed by yoga, the people like Kriananda who came before us, deserve our gratitude.

Please keep Kriananda’s many students in your thoughts and prayers as they greave the loss of their teacher.  You can also listen to my two part interview with Kriyananda (part 1 • part 2).

Join the broader Grace Cathedral community in a march for marriage equality. Whether you are gay or straight, this is a chance to take a stand for love. We hope to see you all there! Darren

A new study has shown that bee venom can kill the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have demonstrated that a toxin called melittin found in bee venom can destroy HIV by poking holes in the envelope surrounding the virus, according to a news release sent out by Washington University.

Visit Washington University’s website to read more about the study.

Nanoparticles smaller than HIV were infused with the bee venom toxin, explains U.S. News & World Report. A “protective bumper” was added to the nanoparticle’s surface, allowing it to bounce off normal cells and leave them intact. Normal cells are larger than HIV, so the nanoparticles target HIV, which is so small it fits between the bumpers.

“Melittin on the nanoparticles fuses with the viral envelope,” said research instructor Joshua L. Hood, MD, PhD, via the news release. “The melittin forms little pore-like attack complexes and ruptures the envelope, stripping it off the virus.” Adding, “We are attacking an inherent physical property of HIV. Theoretically, there isn’t any way for the virus to adapt to that. The virus has to have a protective coat, a double-layered membrane that covers the virus.”

This revelation can lead to the development of a vaginal gel to prevent the spread of HIV and, it seems, an intravenous treatment to help those already infected. “Our hope is that in places where HIV is running rampant, people could use this gel as a preventive measure to stop the initial infection,” said Hood.

The bee venom HIV study was published on Thursday in the journal Antiviral Therapy, according to U.S. News & World Report.

This study comes on the heels of news that a Mississippi baby with HIV has apparently been cured. The mother was diagnosed with HIV during labor and the baby received a three-drug treatment just 30 hours after birth, before tests confirmed the infant was infected. The child, now 2 years old, has been off medication for about a year and shows no sign of infection.

More than 34 million people are living with HIV/AIDS worldwide, according to amFAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research. Of these, 3.3 million are under the age of 15 years old. Each day, almost 7,000 people contract HIV around the globe.

Las Vegas Casino Night Fundraiser

When:
Saturday, April 13, 2013 • 6pm-11pm

Where:
Saint Anne’s of the Sunset
850 Judah St, San Francisco

Cost:
$12.50 (dinner and signature cocktail)
$32.50 (dinner,signature cocktail and unlimited beer & wine)

Purchase Tickets • (415) 681-2025

Details:

This adults-only event is open to the general public. Admission includes dinner and a signature cocktail, dance music, live and silent auction featuring a variety of goods, services and gift cards. Guests can also participate in Vegas-style game tables of craps, roulette and poker and purchase $2.00 raffle tickets in the hopes of winning one of three prizes, including a San Francisco Giants package worth $400.00.

All proceeds from the auction will go towards the general operating costs of Playmates Cooperative.

Auction and raffle tickets are available online at www.playmatespreschool.org or through the preschool office at (415) 681-2025.

With a surprising twist of flexibility, a key Italian bishop and doctrinal expert has given his green light to integrating yoga and meditation into Roman Catholic spiritual practices.

Monsignor Raffaello Martinelli, the bishop of the city of Frascati, near Rome, said that he is “open” to forms of eastern meditation previously rejected by the Vatican, as long as they are used in conjunction with the framework of Christian spirituality, writes La Stampa.

So, could we envision a Sunday mass with a “prayer mat” in the near future? Probably not, nor should anyway expect to see the faithful reciting Our Father in a lotus position, pranyana during a decade of the rosary, nor the happy baby pose after communion…Still, this could be a subtle revolution inside a Church, as it prepares tousher in a new papacy after decades of doctrinal traditionalism.

Mons. Martinelli had launched an official catechism study in 2010 with the translated English title of “50 + 3 Topical Arguments- Fragments of Catholic truth- Catechesis Dialogica.” One of the arguments deals with how Christians should meditate, which La Stampa reports for the first time: “Christians, for their meditations, can learn from other religions,” the document states. “Meditation practices (such as zen, yoga, controlled breathing, mantra…) from the Eastern Christian and other non Christian religions, can be suitable means to help the faithful to stand before an inwardly lying God.”

In 1999, six years before he succeeded John Paul II as Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s watchdog of doctrinal orthodoxy. He issued a document, according to The Telegraph, which warned Roman Catholics of the dangers of yoga, Zen, transcendental meditation and other ‘eastern’ practices. They could “degenerate into a cult of the body” that debases Christian prayer, the document said.

Monsignor Martinelli was a collaborater of then Cardinal Ratzinger, which shows that a potential change in the Church could be brewing.

“It’s an accusation that has nothing to do with reality,” Vanda Vanni, the founder of the Mediterranean Yoga Association, told Adnkronos, an Italian news agency, in reference to the Church’s standing antagonism toward the practice. “It’s a theory — if one can call it a theory — that is totally without foundation. Yoga is not a religion or a spiritual practice.”

Unlike other meditation apps available today, Transcend directly measures neural activity and takes into account the different ways that people meditate. It includes meditation guides for users new to the practice, or more experienced users looking to try a different style. Transcend’s ability to provide personalized feedback and suggest improvements for more effective meditation can benefit users of any experience level.

 

>>READ MORE

The benefits of meditation are well-acknowledged. Yet a scientific explanation of how it works has been conspicuously absent.

Brown University scientists may have helped to overcome this barrier as researchers propose a neurophysiological framework to explain the clinical benefits bestowed by meditation.

Scientists believe that mindfulness practitioners gain enhanced control over sensory cortical alpha rhythms that help regulate how the brain processes and filters sensations, including pain, and memories such as depressive thoughts.

The proposal, based on published experimental results and a validated computer simulation of neural networks, is based upon the intimate connection in mindfulness between mind and body. This approach is consistent with standardized mindfulness meditation training that begins with a highly localized focus on body and breath sensations.

The repeated localized sensory focus enhances control over localized alpha rhythms in the part of the brain called the primary somatosensory cortex, where sensations from different body are “mapped,” said researchers.

In a paper found in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, researchers said that by learning to control their focus on the present somatic moment, mindfulness meditators develop a more sensitive “volume knob” for controlling spatially specific, localized sensory cortical alpha rhythms.

Efficient modulation of cortical alpha rhythms in turn enables optimal filtering of sensory information. Meditators learn not only to control what specific body sensations they pay attention to, but also how to regulate attention so that it does not become biased toward negative physical sensations such as chronic pain.

The localized attentional control of somatosensory alpha rhythms becomes generalized to better regulate bias toward internally focused negative thoughts, as in depression.

“We think we’re the first group to propose an underlying neurophysiological mechanism that directly links the actual practice of mindful awareness of breath and body sensations to the kinds of cognitive and emotional benefits that mindfulness confers,” said lead author Catherine Kerr, Ph.D.

In experiments that Kerr and neuroscientist co-authors Drs. Stephanie Jones and Christopher Moore have published over the last few years, the team has used a brain imaging technology called magnetoencephalography (MEG).

In these experiments, the researchers show that alpha rhythms in the cortex correlate with sensory attention and that the ability to regulate localized alpha brainwaves on a millisecond scale is more distinct in people who have had standardized mindfulness training than in those who have not.

Jones developed a computer model that simulated the alpha brainwaves, through reciprocal interactions between the cortex, which processes information and thoughts, and the thalamus, which is like a switchboard that mediates information flow from the rest of the brain to the cortex.

“We were investigating what are the brain mechanisms that can create this prominent alpha rhythm and mediate its impact on sensory processing,” Jones said.

“The model simulates the electrical activity of neural networks and makes very specific predictions about how this rhythm is generated. Once we understand the brain processes regulating alpha rhythm expression, we can better understand how it can be modulated with mindfulness practice and why this is beneficial.”

Among the most important predictions is one that could explain how gaining control of alpha rhythms not only enhances sensory focus on a particular area of the body, but also helps people overcome persistent competing stimuli, such as depressive thoughts or chronic pain signals.

To accomplish this, the model predicts, meditators must achieve proper control over the relative timing and strength of alpha rhythms generated from two separate regions of the thalamus, called thalamic nuclei, that talk to different parts of the cortex. One alpha generator would govern the local “tuning in,” for instance of sensations in a hand, while the other would govern the broader “tuning out” of other sensory or cognitive information in the cortex.

It’s a bit like focusing a telescope by precisely aligning the position of two different lenses. The authors’ framework hypothesizes that experienced meditators gain the ability to turn that proverbial focus knob to align those different rhythms.

In the new paper, the authors propose that training chronic pain patients in the standardized mindfulness techniques of focusing on and then focusing away from pain, should result in MEG-measurable, testable improvements in alpha rhythm control.

“By this process of repeatedly engaging and disengaging alpha dynamics across the body map, according to our alpha theory, subjects are re-learning the process of directly modulating localized alpha rhythms,” they wrote. “We hypothesize that chronic pain patients trained in mindfulness will show increased ability to modulate alpha in an anticipatory tactile attention paradigm similar to that used in [the 2011 study].”

Many such experiments are yet to be done, Kerr acknowledges, and her group can only do so many. “There are a number of hypotheses in this framework that can be tested,” Kerr said. “That’s one of the reasons we wanted to put this out as a framework. It is beyond our ability to test all of these ideas. We wanted to make this available to the scientific field and present this unified view.”

Source: Brown University