You Wish! by Stefan Dimitrescu

by Nina

I recently saw a post on Facebook with the title “5 Yoga Poses for Longevity.” To be honest, it made me so annoyed that I didn’t even read it—something I’m currently regretting because I’m morbidly curious now about which 5 poses they chose. Instead, I quickly scrolled past it because I wanted to resist the temptation to leave a negative comment.

But it stuck with me, and just thinking about that title still makes me a tiny bit angry. Why? Because I think it really harms yoga to make false claims like this! No matter which 5 poses they did choose, there are absolutely no poses or practices in yoga that can guarantee you’ll have a long lifespan. Full stop. And click bait about yoga that simplifies, misleads, and downright lies is only going to make people distrust yoga’s legitimate benefits, which, of course, are many.

There has been a long history of these kind of false claims from prominent New Age health gurus out there stating that you can “reverse aging,” choose your “biological age,” or “change your relationship with time” with yogic practices, so it kind of triggers me when I see people continuing to promote this yoga snake oil. As someone married to a scientist who worked at an institute for the study of aging and who has also worked with a number of doctors and other scientists, I can tell you that right now that is no proof that there is anything at all out there that can slow aging much less “reverse” it.

But you may now be wondering, if yoga cannot increase your lifespan or slow aging itself, what exactly does the “healthy aging” part of “Yoga for Healthy Aging” actually mean and why have we been writing about it all these years? I addressed this very issue many years ago in my post  Yoga for Healthy Aging is Not Science Fiction: A Real-Life Mission Statement.

But I think this topic is worth revisiting, especially in light of the very recent post claiming that there are poses for “longevity.” Briefly, in the post Yoga for Healthy Aging is Not Science Fiction: A Real-Life Mission Statement I defined the concept of “health span.” A health span is the amount of time that is your lifespan minus the amount of time you spend in ill health (often referred to as “morbidity.”).

Lifespan – Morbidity = Health Span

So your health span this is the period in your life during which you are generally healthy and free from serious or chronic illness. I’m sure we all know some people who have had a long health span, either dying suddenly or maybe having only a year or so of ill health near the end of their lives. That’s the ideal, a long health span!  But we all also know people who lived for years in a very debilitated state, perhaps in a nursing home. That means they have a shorter health span with many years of suffering and/or loss of independence, which is obviously not what we hope for.

This is where yoga comes in! By using yoga to for physical conditioning, including maintaining strength, flexibility, balance, and agility, and for managing chronic stress, which has a particularly negative affect on health and causes many diseases, we can help keep our bodies as healthy as possible for as long as possible. How to do this with yoga has been one of the main focuses of our blog since the very beginning. See What is Healthy Aging, Anyway? and Opening Your Yoga Toolbox.

But although we have often advised you to practice yoga regularly with the goals of attaining a longer health span and maintaining your independence, we also believe it is important to keep in mind results are never guaranteed.

I’m 71 now, and at my last checkup, my doctor complimented me on my good health, saying that I was taking good care of myself. Well, you know, I am taking good care of myself, and my yoga practice, including meditation as well as asanas, is a big part of that. However, instead of taking full credit for my good health, I said to her:

“Well, I think it is due to three different things: good genes, good self-care, and good luck.”

I said it lightly, but I actually think this is very important to keep in mind. After all, if someone has a gene that causes them to experience ill health for a number of years, for example, my sister-in-law has a gene that causes polycystic kidney disease, no amount of self-care with yoga or anything else can fix an incurable disease. My sister-in-law does take very good care of herself—she was a nurse—but her disease is progressing and she’ll soon need to go on dialysis. And I’m also serious about the luck issue. I wrote a post Bad Luck and Cancer several years ago that says scientists do blame “bad luck” for some cancers and explains how things can just go wrong in our bodies due to random mutations. Yes, sometimes bad things like cancer and other diseases just do happen. (My doctor did agree with my statement, by the way.)

So here at Yoga for Healthy Aging we have always recommended that at the same time that you work toward staying healthy by using the tools in your yoga toolbox you should try to let go of all thoughts of success or failure and simply focus on your practice. This is the basic yogic attitude that is conveyed in the classic yoga text the Bhagavad Gita.

 Self-possessed, resolute, act
Without any thoughts of results,
Open to success or failure.
This equanimity is yoga. —Stephen Mitchell

Taking this approach means that even while you are actively engaged in working toward your goals of lengthening your health span and maintaining your independence—or any other goals you set for yourself—you also practice acceptance of your life in the real world as it unfolds. Cultivating equanimity through a combination of active engagement and acceptance is what provides you with lifelong wellbeing, as you navigate through all the stages of your life.

For me, maintaining emotional stability as we age is the most important aspect of healthy aging. For even if we manage to have a long health span, we will certainly have to go through poor health at some point. And even if we can prolong our independence into old age, we may eventually have to face the loss of that, however briefly. In addition, even if we are ourselves blessed with long and healthy lives, we’ll all have to deal with losing people we love. So being able to handle the challenges ahead with balance and grace is crucial. But I also believe that this is where yoga has its greatest strength. Stress management practices help reduce stress, anxiety, and depression. And meditation, yoga philosophy, and yogic tools for working with our thoughts can help us keep grounded and strong. At least that is my fervent hope.

You can read more about these topics in Chapter 1 of the book Yoga for Healthy Aging: A Guide to Lifelong Well-Being.

 

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