Although mostly a seated activity, chair yoga promotes good health
By Deborah Jeanne Sergeant
For people with limited mobility, practicing yoga seems unattainable. But chair yoga may offer an entry point.
Chair yoga is an informal term that may refer to practicing yoga, including some modified poses, entirely while seated or it can also refer to using a chair more like a yoga prop for people capable of standing but who need support.
“You can make it as strenuous and vigorous as participant can tolerate,” said Shannon Loughlin, certified therapeutic recreation specialist. “If you have decreased mobility or decreased cardio endurance, you can also slow it down and make it more purposeful movement. It helps increase your muscle strength and muscle tone. You can move from pose to pose to improve your special awareness.”
Loughlin directs life enrichment and recreation at The Nottingham in Jamesville and leads chair yoga classes throughout the continuum, from independent living to skilled nursing.
People who are capable of standing can use the chair to help them balance better. Loughlin also said that people recovering from surgery or injury find chair yoga helpful for reducing the risk of hurting the injured area again.
“Just that stretching alone helps increase blood flow which helps the healing process of the injured area,” she added.
By making yoga available for any person, chair yoga helps more people access the stress-reducing aspects of practicing yoga, even if their poses are modified in some way. The breathing and meditation aspects of yoga contribute to this effect.
“We live in a stressful society,” Loughlin said. “Chair yoga helps distract you for a short time about those stressful things going on in your life. It’s good for decreasing blood pressure, anxiety, inflammation and chronic pain.
“Overall, it helps promote cognitive, physical, spiritual and emotional wellbeing. It doesn’t have to be vigorous. You can do it. You have to work through and push yourself. The more you move, the better you feel.”
Valerie Patrick, owner of Core Pilates & Yoga in Cicero, likes that chair yoga can be for anyone. She has taught corporate classes, gentle yoga for older adults and has instructed a student who used a wheelchair.
“We’d do upper body things and we worked around what she could and could not do,” Patrick said. “Even if you use a wheelchair, if you have upper body movement, it can be very beneficial, especially the mind body connection and the breath work.
“It’s great for the older generation. Our balance isn’t as good as it used to be and our bones are brittle. We want better balance so we don’t fall and want better strength so we can catch ourselves. A broken hip or pelvis can be detrimental to someone’s health. Chair yoga is weight bearing so it helps with osteoporosis.”
Chair yoga can also help people who have deconditioned and want to become fitter. Jill Murphy, certified personal trainer and co-owner at Mission Fitness Syracuse, had a client who was unable to walk or spend much time on her feet.
“She would do exercises in the chair using a home workout video that would guide her on working out,” Murphy said. “It definitely helped her lose weight and helped her burn body fat so she could work towards getting to a place of overall health.”
She views chair yoga as a way to help keep participants safer, more active and able to explore their potential. Even if a pose isn’t perfect or traditional, it keeps participants moving.
Chair yoga may be helpful for people who have sedentary work. Rolling out a yoga mat in one’s cubicle isn’t practical, but learning a few chair yoga moves can help desk-based workers breathe deeper, relax, stretch and strengthen.