What is associated with yoga is numerous health benefits. But is that also the secret to a long life? Daisy Taylor, a centenarian from Chelmsford, UK, reports:
in recent interviews Taylor told the BBC on her 105th birthday that she owed her long and healthy life to yoga. There is also a sense of optimism and gratitude for the small things. She says yoga especially helps her stay mentally healthy. She continues to practice yoga at this age, but now does it more often in a chair than on a mat.
Taylor, an older and above all mentally healthy yogi, is not alone. Many of the world’s most famous yoga practitioners are healthy and live long lives.
Take BKS Iyengarfor example. Perhaps the most famous yoga teacher of our time, he was diagnosed with malaria, typhoid fever and tuberculosis in his childhood, and was given only a few years to live. There, she discovered yoga and began practicing 10 hours a day. Not only did he overcome his illness for several years, he lived to be 95 years old.
His brother-in-law and teacher Thirumalai Krishnamacharya, the founder of Vinyasa Yoga, lived to be 100 years old. And Krishna Pattabhi Jois, another master’s student almost as famous as Krishnamacharya, whose Ashtanga yoga laid the foundation for the yoga fitness boom. lived to be 93 years old.
There are many reasons why yoga is beneficial as you get older. Research shows that it can have a positive impact on a variety of age-related diseases. lower blood pressure, blood fat level and obesity.
Yoga can also relieve depression, stress and anxiety. Yoga also includes: generally healthy lifestyle – such as following a healthier diet.
There is also evidence that yoga may have many benefits when it comes to aging and staying young.
yoga and aging
Research shows that yoga can affect aging at the cellular level. in one studyparticipants who practiced yoga showed a 43% increase in telomerase activity, while those who simply relaxed showed an increase of just under 4%. enzyme telomerase It is an important factor in aging as it slows down cell aging.
Additionally, some very experienced yogis end up with a significantly reduced metabolism and worsening of their physiological state. Same as hibernating animals: Breathing and heart rate decrease significantly, as does body temperature. In animals, this type of telogen phase is shown as: extend lifespan. Some argue that there is a similar possibility true in humans.
There’s also evidence that yoga can help maintain mental health as you age.
As we grow older, we decline mentally. Learning new things and making new memories is becomes increasingly difficult. This is reflected in the brain, especially the hippocampus, which is important for forming new memories. Loss of essence with age.
However, studies looking at the brains of yoga practitioners have found that they typically have greater brain mass than people of the same age who do not practice yoga. This difference was particularly pronounced in the hippocampus. Not only that, the longer a person practices yoga, the more The larger the mass of the brain.
In another study, average brain mass The average brain mass of meditators aged 40 to 50 was comparable to the average brain mass of non-meditators aged 20 to 30. Meditation is an important part of yoga.
Many of these studies have taken care to control for variables (such as lifestyle and genetics) that may influence a person’s risk of cognitive decline, but this control is by no means perfect; , these relationships are just correlations.
However, research shows that meditation can indeed increase brain mass causally and fairly quickly. In a study with participants who were new to meditation, one group took part in a four-month meditation course, while the other group did not.
4 months later, Significant increase in brain mass In a meditation group. Again, this specifically affected the hippocampus. Overall, the data suggest that meditation and yoga are associated with rejuvenated brain age.
Research also focuses on so-called “fluid intelligence,” the ability to solve new and unknown problems, learn new things, and recognize patterns and connections. This ability tends to decline with age.
but Research results Middle-aged people who practice yoga or meditation for many years have better fluid intelligence than people of the same age who do neither activity.
longevity and yoga
But is there any direct evidence that yoga extends lifespan?
a study That’s all I saw. The researchers used linked data from the National Death Index and the National Health & Nutrition Exam Survey, a nationally representative ongoing survey of the health and nutritional status of the U.S. population.
The 22,598 study participants were asked a variety of questions about their lifestyle habits, including whether they practiced yoga.
The results were amazing.
On average, within 8.5 years after the study, participants who practiced yoga had almost two-thirds lower risk of dying than those who did not.
There was just one catch. That said, yogis are generally much younger than the average participant. When age was taken into account in the analysis, there was no longer a difference in mortality between yogis and non-yogis.
In other words, yoga doesn’t seem to extend lifespan after all.
Daisy Taylor spoke about her 103-year-old sister and five other siblings in an interview. They each lived to be over 90 years old. So in Taylor’s case, her longevity seems more like longevity. family characteristics.
However, yoga seems to keep us healthy and especially mentally energetic in old age. And perhaps, as was the case with Daisy Taylor, we can eliminate the fear of old age.
holger kramerProfessor, Complementary Medicine Research, University of Tübingen
This article is republished from conversation Under Creative Commons License. please read original article.
