Antidote to ageing..?
Well, here’s an interesting one! For my birthday week, it couldn’t really be anything else.
A brief google will bring up endless articles and sources declaring the physically-proven ways that yoga can be anti-ageing, such as more flexibility in the spine, increasing bone density and muscle mass, calming the nervous system, lowering blood pressure, improving digestion etc etc. (Don’t worry, more details coming below).
But what I’m interested in is, can a yoga practice help us from having this obsession with anti-ageing in the first place? Why should we be anti it? In many cultures the fact of growing older is not seen as the terrifying, frankly shameful thing our media has us believe. Heaven forbid getting older could be a positive process where we gain experience, knowledge, compassion, confidence and self awareness?
I’m as vain as the next person and of course feel a bit downhearted when I notice the incremental signs of sagging, loss of perky youthfulness and the bounce-back-ability of having a physically younger set of bones, muscles, skin etc!
But like any of the thoughts in our mind, we can fight them and fight them and fight them, but we will never win.
What we can do is find awareness and acceptance. It’s a lot like the balcony battle with my pigeon friend that I wrote about a while back, which itself was mirrored in the episode of ‘Gardener’s World’ I was watching this week, as the ever-glorious Monty Don suggested that instead of the never-ending battle against slugs, that maybe, just maybe, we learn to live with them.
(And there’s a true sign I’m comfortable with my age; I’m more than happy to admit publicly that I spend my time watching gardening programmes.. ((-: )
Anyway, to save you precious googling time, and for those of you interested, here’s a few links if you’d like a more thorough read regarding the physical anti-ageing benefits of yoga:
https://www.yogajournal.com/yoga-101/15-anti-aging-health-benefits-of-yoga/
And to conclude, my vain side wondered about sharing these but I want to, to hopefully make you laugh and feel a bit more light-hearted about looking old. I kind of accidentally ended up with a terrible selfie once that made me laugh so much I’ve intentionally tried to take more awful ones since. And genuinely every time I scroll and see them, they make me laugh out loud. Maybe also because I’m a photographer and know the truth behind a good flattering photo, and therefore also a bad one, but really just because it’s funny and keeps me humble when people say ‘wow, you don’t look your age’!
I also obviously have to point out that in the ‘good’ picture, guess what I’d just been doing? Yep..a yoga class! (((((-;
