{"id":120449,"date":"2025-05-21T18:17:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-21T18:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/120449\/"},"modified":"2025-05-21T18:17:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T18:17:09","slug":"emotional-well-being-fall-prevention-chair-yoga-has-a-lot-to-offer-people-of-all-ages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/120449\/","title":{"rendered":"Emotional well-being. Fall prevention. Chair yoga has a lot to offer people of all ages"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Whitney Chapman, right, conducts a chair yoga class at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, in New York city, on March 28.Richard Drew\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

Marian Rivman is pushing 80. Harriet Luria is a proud 83. In this trio, Carol Leister is the baby at 62. Together, they have decades of experience with yoga. Only now, it involves a chair.<\/p>\n

Chair yoga adapts traditional yoga poses for older people and others with physical challenges, but the three devotees said after a recent class that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s not a quality workout. As older adults have become more active, chair yoga has grown in popularity. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re stretching your whole body,\u201d Rivman offered. \u201cWhat you can do in the chair is a little bit more forgiving on the knees and on the hips. So as you age, it allows you to get into positions that you were doing before without hurting yourself.\u201d <\/p>\n

Sitting down to exercise, or standing while holding onto a chair to perform some poses, may not sound like a workout, but Rivman, Luria, Leister and practitioners everywhere see a world of benefits. <\/p>\n

\u201cI took it up because I have osteoporosis and the chair yoga is much easier,\u201d Luria said. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to worry as much about falling and breaking anything. It\u2019s not as difficult as I thought it would be, but it\u2019s not easy. And you really do use your muscles. It\u2019s an excellent workout.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yoga with a chair isn\u2019t just for older people<\/p>\n

Chair yoga is clearly marketed to older women, who made up the class where the three yoga friends got together at the Marlene Meyerson JCC on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. But the practice also has a lot to offer others, said their instructor, Whitney Chapman.<\/p>\n

Desk workers can squeeze in 15 minutes of chair yoga, for instance. Many companies offer it as a way to cut down on stress and improve overall health. And people recovering from surgery or injuries may not be ready to get down on a yoga mat, but they can stretch in a chair.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve known these ladies probably 18 to 20 years. And the very first time in a yoga class that I brought in the chair, all of my students said I don\u2019t want geriatric yoga. I\u2019m not an old person,\u201d Chapman said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then they saw that having a chair is just as good as a yoga strap, a yoga block. It\u2019s another prop that\u2019s going to help you do what you want to do. So it\u2019s not necessarily because you\u2019re older, but that it can be helpful. And it doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re geriatric just because you\u2019re sitting in a chair.\u201d<\/p>\n

The benefits are many, Chapman said: improved flexibility, strength, balance. And there\u2019s the overall emotional well-being that yoga practitioners in general report. It\u2019s particularly useful for people with mobility issues or chronic ailments like arthritis or back pain. Chapman also teaches yoga to cancer and Parkinson\u2019s disease patients.<\/p>\n

In addition to restorative and other benefits, the practice of chair yoga can help improve posture for people of all ages and abilities, and help older people prevent falls.<\/p>\n

A physical practice that can last a lifetime<\/p>\n

Leister recently retired.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been looking for all different kinds of exercises to do and this is one of them,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is the one that I could see doing for the rest of my life, where some that are a little more strenuous I may not be able to do in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Traditional yoga originated more than 5,000 years ago in India. Many of the poses used today are also that old. It can be as much spiritual as physical, and that also goes for its chair descendant. The precise movements are tied to deliberate, cleansing breathwork.<\/p>\n

Rivman has been doing yoga for about 50 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you start and you get what it does for your body, you don\u2019t want to give it up. And if there\u2019s a way that you can keep doing it and keep doing it safely, that\u2019s a choice you\u2019re going to make,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Yoga by the numbers, including chair yoga<\/p>\n

The practice of yoga, including chair yoga, has been on the rise in the U.S. over the last 20 years. In 2022, the percentage of adults age 18 and older who practiced yoga in the past 12 months was 16.9%, with percentages highest among women ages 18\u201344, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.<\/p>\n

As older adults have become more active, chair yoga has grown in popularity. Sitting down to exercise may not sound like a workout, but devotees see a world of benefits. New York City yoga instructor Whitney Chapman points to improved flexibility, strength and balance, and overall emotional well-being. <\/p>\n

The Associated Press<\/p>\n

Women are more than twice as likely as men to practice yoga, the data showed. The percentage of adults who practiced yoga to treat or manage pain decreased with increasing family income.<\/p>\n

The CDC, didn\u2019t break out chair yoga for analysis but recommends that adults 65 and older focus on activities that improve balance and strength. That, the health agency said, can be achieved through various exercises, including chair yoga. <\/p>\n

Why don\u2019t more men do yoga?<\/p>\n

Chapman and her students have thoughts on why more men don\u2019t practice yoga. Traditionally, Chapman said, the practice was reserved for men, but as yoga became more westernized, women took over.<\/p>\n

\u201cWomen tend to be more group-oriented. I would love to see more men in class. I do have a few. I don\u2019t know if they\u2019re intimidated, but you know, it\u2019s a great way to meet women if everybody\u2019s single,\u201d Chapman said with a chuckle.<\/p>\n

Luria theorizes that fewer men are drawn to yoga because it\u2019s not a competitive sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re really working at your own level,\u201d she said. \u201cTake out the competition and it\u2019s not their thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

These chair yoga practitioners have lots of advice. Rivman summed it up best: \u201cGet into a chair and do some yoga. You don\u2019t have to stand on your head, but you have to move. You\u2019re never too old to start.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Whitney Chapman, right, conducts a chair yoga class at the Marlene Meyerson JCC…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4322],"tags":[6934,6925,6935,1500,6918,6936,943,6917,6930,6931,6927,6919,6916,1700,2266,728,6929,1630,6923,6946,6920,6921,1234,105,6926,388,3611,6607,603,6941,6942,6944,6939,6943,6937,6940,6922,6932,6933,285,3027,6938,6924,53,183,6928,16,15,727,263,6945],"class_list":{"0":"post-120449","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-alberta","9":"tag-arts-news","10":"tag-bc","11":"tag-breaking-news","12":"tag-breaking-news-video","13":"tag-british-columbia","14":"tag-canada","15":"tag-canada-news","16":"tag-canada-sports","17":"tag-canada-sports-news","18":"tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","19":"tag-canadian-breaking-news","20":"tag-canadian-news","21":"tag-economy","22":"tag-education","23":"tag-environment","24":"tag-federal-government","25":"tag-fitness","26":"tag-foreign-news","27":"tag-globe-and-mail","28":"tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","29":"tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","30":"tag-government","31":"tag-health","32":"tag-life-news","33":"tag-lifestyle","34":"tag-local-news","35":"tag-manitoba","36":"tag-national-news","37":"tag-new-brunswick","38":"tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","39":"tag-northwest-territories","40":"tag-nova-scotia","41":"tag-nunavut","42":"tag-ontario","43":"tag-pei","44":"tag-photos","45":"tag-political-news","46":"tag-political-opinion","47":"tag-politics","48":"tag-politics-news","49":"tag-quebec","50":"tag-sports-news","51":"tag-technology","52":"tag-travel","53":"tag-trudeau","54":"tag-uk","55":"tag-united-kingdom","56":"tag-us-news","57":"tag-world-news","58":"tag-yukon"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}