Cantissimo Senior Living Blog

We’d love to share with you six pillars of health that date back thousands of years and come from the world of Ayurveda known as the medicine of yoga. 

The Six Pillars are meant to be incorporated into your daily life to help you stay healthy, vibrant, and maintain your independence. After all, this is the time of life to travel, play with grandkids, volunteer in your community, and enjoy quality time with family and friends. 

The human body/mind has some pretty basic requirements to maintain energy, proper elimination, and stress resiliency. These practices are simple and easy and will support you to feel great!

Breath is life force and essential to supporting all the functions and systems in our bodies, thereby regulating health. As we age and go through the trials and tribulations of life, it is common that we adopt patterns of breathing that are not optimal. Some of those patterns include mouth breathing, erratic breathing, breath-holding, and even reverse breathing. 

All of these patterns affect how much the diaphragm, our primary breathing muscle, is able to contract and release, corresponding to vagus nerve stimulation, the brain-gut connection, and our body’s relaxation response.

The vagus nerve is the longest in the body, running from the brainstem to the gut. Simulating the vagus nerve activates the body’s relaxation response, reducing heart rate and blood pressure.

So, how do we stimulate the vagus nerve? By first bringing attention to our current breathing pattern, and then beginning to activate the diaphragm as we breathe, taking slow, deep breaths.

Sleep is vital when growing up, and the same is true as we age. However, for older adults, sleeping patterns frequently change. Often, older adults begin experiencing trouble falling asleep or waking up. Others struggle to reach a state of deep sleep. That said, when this happens, don't assume it's a normal part of aging. These could be symptoms of insomnia or other sleep-related conditions. Therefore, ensuring you receive a good night's sleep is important and needs to be consistent, just like when you were younger.

Through a good night's sleep, your mental health and memory improve. Your body can repair worn-out cells and tissues, and your immune is refreshed. With this, your body can better fight diseases and stay healthy. On the other hand, a poor night's sleep can make you susceptible to memory problems, attention issues, and even depression. Further, it leads to a sense of fatigue during the day and worsened focus.

Best Sleeping Positions for Older Adults

If you want to enhance your sleep quality and health, your sleeping position may be a great place to start. For a full and restorative sleep, consider changing to one of the following recommended sleep positions:

Resolve Pain Guru has been teaching classes called SomaYoga Nidra. It is a blissful combination of somatic movement re-education (moving meditation) followed by a deeply restful guided Yoga Nidra practice. It really is an intelligent combination to support nervous system recharge.

As mentioned in our recent blog post, Six Ingredients to Optimal Healing – it is important to counteract chronic nervous system over-stimulation and the effects of stress in order to stay healthy.

Turning our Attention Inward

The most recent class was on clearing the external clutter and excessive sensory stimulation that occupies our minds, leading to agitation, tension, and pain in our somas. The class practices shifting our sensory awareness from external to internal.

As we practice turning our attention inward, sensing, and feeling (known as Pratyahara in yoga), we begin to release the accumulated sensory impressions that show up in our somas. This process results in a quieting of the mind, a calming of the nervous system, and a release of muscular tension that keeps our brains racing with agitation and dis-ease.

Our physiology has equipped us with the ability to fight, flight, or freeze in the face of imminent danger. This natural autonomic response served us well in prehistoric times. After the danger was over, we settled back into a rest and digest, nervous system response. But today it’s a different story. Today’s stress creates dis-ease and sickness in mind, body, and spirit. Today, our stress-filled lifestyles, work schedules, poor postural habits, and weakened resiliency mean that the threats to our nervous system health are exponential. This leaves us chronically overstimulated and out of balance, causing tension and pain. Ask yourself these questions:

Generally speaking, your nervous system can be in overdrive just from the demands of your busy life and many responsibilities. Then, when an illness or injury occurs, your nervous system is stressed even further. These circumstances are less than ideal for optimal healing. 

A nervous system in overdrive causes anxiety, insomnia, poor digestion, muscles tense up, shallow breath depriving cells of much-needed oxygen. Blood pressure and heart rate increase as the body prepares itself for fight or flight. Stress hormones, adrenaline, cortisol, and noradrenaline are released into the blood system. Also, the brain-gut relationship stress triggers pain and bloating in the digestive tract, causing a foggy mind and lower mood. Stress weakens the immune system and increases blood sugar.

Imagine trying to recover from an illness or injury under these conditions? At a time like that, what the body really needs is time to rest and digest.

All movement should make you feel great during, after, and days later. You might feel that you have worked hard, but you really should not be in pain. Keeping your muscles strong is essential. Muscles are meant to be able to contract and release well to do their jobs effectively and efficiently. Does your workout routine create pain in your body?

The strongest muscle in the body, based on its weight, is the masseter (jaw muscle). With all the muscles of the jaw working together, it can close the teeth with force as great as 55 pounds (25 kilograms) on the incisors or 200 pounds (90.7 kilograms) on the molars. Amazing! And no wonder a tight jaw can so painful when it is locked tight! The truth is that your tight jaw and hip flexors are related through Red Light Reflex.

Should we accept pain as a normal part of aging?

Chronic tension/pain has become an epidemic across North America and the industrialized world. The US Department of Health and Human Services estimates that pain affects more Americans than diabetes, heart disease, and cancer combined. The question is, why?

Persistent or recurring pain is defined as pain lasting more than six months after the original tissue damage has healed. The research on chronic (persistent/recurring) pain is compelling. The annual cost to industrialized countries in health care resources and lost productivity is increasing every year. In 2017, the University of Michigan Health reported that the annual cost of treatment and lost productivity due to chronic pain in the USA was $635 billion.

How well do you listen to your body? And how do you talk to your body? Did you know that the language you use and how you relate to your body really matters?

Dr. Joe Dispenza describes thoughts as electric. Your thoughts create feelings that affect the electromagnetic field around you.