Review of Yoga for Healthy Aging

Yoga for Healthy Aging: A Guide to Lifelong Well-Being 

by Baxter Bell, MD & Nina Zolotow

Shambhala Publications, Inc. , Boulder, Colorado. 2017 321 pages

Yoga for Healthy Aging is a thorough and well-organized guide for incorporating yoga practices into daily life to increase our “health span” — that portion of our life span when we are generally healthy and free from serious or chronic illness. Compiled and written by two yoga teachers, the “yoga toolbox” provided in this book includes concepts and techniques that foster physical, emotional and spiritual well-being, including yoga poses (asanas), meditation, breath practices (pranayama) and yoga philosophy.

Asana sequences are illustrated and grouped according to specific aims, such as building strength, increasing flexibility, improving balance and increasing agility. A chapter each is devoted to practices that support cardiovascular health, brain and nervous system health, and stress management, and include asana sequences and lifestyle choices that support health in each of these areas. A chapter entitled “Cultivating Equanimity” provides basic instructions on meditation practice, as well as instruction on a number of pranayama or breath practices. A short chapter providing an overview of yoga philosophy is followed by a comprehensive illustrated catalogue of the essential yoga poses that make up the various sequences recommended in earlier chapters, with detailed instructions for each version of each pose. 

This book is a terrific resource for anyone interested in cultivating a beginning yoga practice or enhancing a current practice, especially if the desire is to practice safely and effectively at home.

-- review submitted by Sally S.

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