Relax into Yoga for Seniors: A Six-Week Program for Strength, Balance, Flexibility, and Pain Relief

Relax into Yoga for Seniors presents twelve principles of yoga practice for seniors, including those with limited mobility. This evidence-based workbook will guide you safely—step-by-step, and with posture illustrations—on a six-week program for improved balance, flexibility, and overall well-being.

Managing the emotional and physical challenges that come with aging can be difficult. Seniors face a number of age-related issues, such as chronic pain, hypertension, heart disease, osteoporosis, arthritis, and anxiety and depression. And while some people may consider yoga a young person’s practice, there is a growing body of evidence that suggests yoga can be beneficial for a wide variety of age-related ailments.

Relax Into Yoga for Seniors—based on the innovative Yoga for Seniors program, and including new material for fans of the Relax Into Yoga for Seniors DVD—provides a step-by-step guide that combines the best of modern, evidence-based medicine with the ancient wisdom, experience, and tradition of yogic teachings. With this book, you’ll explore what yoga is and how to do it safely, including important movement considerations like how to get up and down from the floor with care, and how to stand and sit with healthy postural alignment.

With this popular program, you’ll be able to create a safe and effective individualized practice that will address your needs, take personal limitations into consideration, and help you relieve pain, become more flexible and active, and connect more deeply with your inner experience.

Relax into Yoga for Seniors includes free downloadable guided audio practices and printable PDFs. Instructions for downloading these extra features can be found on page 229 of the book.
 

Kimberly Carson, MPH, E-RYT, is a health educator at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), in Portland, Oregon, specializing in the therapeutic use of yoga and mindfulness meditation for seniors and people with medical challenges. She currently offers classes to cardiac, oncology, and chronic pain patients. Kimberly has developed and taught yoga programs being researched at Duke University Medical Center and OHSU. The Yoga of Awareness program, developed by Kimberly and her husband Jim, has been shown in research trials to significantly reduce pain and fatigue in women with metastatic breast cancer, breast cancer survivors, as well as women with fibromyalgia. For more information, please visit her website: www.mindfulyogaworks.com.

Carol Krucoff, E-RYT, is a yoga therapist at Duke Integrative Medicine in Durham, North Carolina, where she offers individual sessions, workshops, and group classes for people with health challenges. An award-winning health journalist, Carol served as founding editor of The Washington Post’s Health Section and her articles have appeared in numerous national publications including The New York Times, Yoga Journal, and Reader’s Digest. She is author of several books including “Yoga Sparks: 108 Easy Practices for Stress Relief in a Minute or Less” and “Healing Yoga for Neck and Shoulder Pain,” and is creator of the audio home practice CD, Healing Moves Yoga. For more information, please visit her website: www.healingmoves.com.

Kimberly & Carol are co-directors of Yoga for Seniors, a network of yoga teachers dedicated to making yoga practices appropriate and available for older adults. They are co-directors of the Therapeutic Yoga for Seniors Teacher Trainings and co-creators of the DVD, “Relax into Yoga for Seniors.” For more information, please visit their website: www.yoga4seniors.com.

Foreword writer Mitchell W. Krucoff, MD, is professor of medicine/cardiology at Duke University Medical Center and Director of the Cardiovascular Devices Unit at the Duke Clinical Research Institute.  He is internationally recognized for his pioneering research in computer-assisted heart monitoring, new modalities of coronary revascularization, and cardiovascular applications of spiritual and complementary therapies.  Author of more than 250 publications in the cardiology literature and book chapters in medical texts, Mitchell is Senior Editor of the Journal of Alternative & Complementary Medicine.   He has served on the Board of Directors of the Sri Satya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences in Puttaparthi, India, since its construction in 1990, and is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology, the American Heart Association, and the Society of Coronary Angiography and Intervention.  Mitchell is a special government employee of the United States Food and Drug Administration, from whom he received a Distinguished Award for his tenure on the Circulatory Devices Advisory Panel. He has been married to Carol Krucoff since 1974 and they have two adult children.

Afterword writer Jim Carson, PhD, is a long time student of Swami Muktananda and former yogic monk who has taught the practices and philosophy of yoga worldwide for over 30 years. Now a clinical health psychologist and associate professor of anesthesiology at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), Jim is applying his expertise to the development and evaluation of yoga and meditation-based clinical treatments. He has worked extensively with patients suffering from persistent pain, including those with cancer, fibromyalgia and multiple sclerosis. While Jim was on faculty at Duke, he and Kimberly developed the Yoga of Awareness program and completed research trials with metastatic breast cancer patients and with survivors of early stage breast cancer. During his tenure at OHSU, a successful research trial has been completed using Yoga of Awareness for fibromyalgia. Jim and Kimberly together developed the first mindfulness program for couples as well as the first loving-kindness meditation program for medical patients.