Suza Francina

AARP Bulletin Today, June 27, 2008
Yoga: At the Heart of Fitness?

Yoga Journal, July/August 2008
Yoga for Seniors
A look at the growing trend and benefits
of bringing yoga to seniors
www.yogajournal.com
Contents http://www.yogajournal.com/media/YJ_Top10_0708_nat.pdf

Healthy aging expert Andrew Weil MD, recommends The New Yoga For Healthy Aging in the June 2008 issue of Dr.Andrew Weil's Self Healing newsletter. www.DrWeil.com

Press Releases

Book Publication - The New Yoga for Healthy Aging
March 1, 2007

Print/Web Publications

Ojai Valley Visitors Guide, Winter 2007
Light on Ojai: A Visit with Suza Francina
Ojai's First Lady of Yoga Instruction
By Earl Bates
Suza Francina is welcomed around the world as a teacher and author, and an instrumental spirit in bringing yoga to seniors.
Read Part 1 and Part 2 of the profile.

LAYoga, Ayurveda and Health Magazine, September, 2007
Teacher Profile: Ojai’s First Yogi — Suza Francina uncovers the secrets of healthy aging with yoga. By Felicia M. Tomasko
http://layogamagazine.com/issue38/departments/teacherprofile_ojais_first_yogi.htm

ELDR Yoga, a column on yoga solutions for healthy aging appears in:
eldr magazine, Premiere Issue, 2007
eldr magazine, Winter Issue, 2007/2008
eldr magazine, Spring Issue, 2008
eldr magazine, Summer Issue, 2008
eldr magazine, Fall Issue, 2008
To read recent ELDR Yoga columns see http://www.suzafrancina.com/articles.shtml

Stay Young With Yoga..Can it reverse aging?
By Louise Rafkin, WebMD Feature

8 Natural Ways to Ease Menopause Symptoms
By Joan Starker, MSW, PhD
WebMD Answers to Questions

Hinduism Today | Sep 1999
Suza Francina specializes in classes and workshops for people over 50 at her Ojai Yoga Center in California...

Johns Hopkins: Back Pain | Osteoporosis on Iyengar yoga
In addition, a number of certified Iyengar instructors have written books, among them Suza Francina, Mary Pullig Schatz, M.D., and Patricia Walden...

Taking Care of Yourself Too!
The New Yoga for People Over 50," Suza Francina, Health Communications, Incorporated, April 1997...

Yoga Journal: How much and what type of yoga should a septuagenarian practice?
Older students who have the discipline to practice on their own and/or attend a class three times a week for an hour to one and one-half hours generally make the most noticeable progress, according to Suza Francina...

Townsend Letter: The Examiner of Alternative Medicine,11/1/2007

A natural prescription for baby boomers:
The New Yoga for Healthy Aging

Book review by Irene Alleger

Yoga, it turns out, is an ideal form of exercise for older people. Consisting of mindful movements, slow, deep breathing, and stretching, yoga postures (asanas) are rejuvenating, "moving each joint in the body through its full range of motion--stretching, strengthening, and balancing each part."

Suza Francina's latest book, with astonishing and wonderful photos of people in their 60s to their 90s in yoga postures, is inspiring, to say the least. She has been a leader in teaching yoga to older people, with amazing results. These people retain their agility, even growing stronger and more flexible. The photos should inspire anyone over 50 to look for a yoga class and investigate for themselves the benefits of yoga.

This more than two-thousand-year-old discipline views a healthy body as the proper environment for spiritual awakening and aligns with most cultural ideas of the later stages of life being used for the pursuit of wisdom or enlightenment. This is the true gift of yoga--transformation--both physical and spiritual. And the gift of health is great: regular exercise, such as yoga, can help some diabetics come off insulin and some hypertensives get off their high blood-pressure medication. Yoga can lower cholesterol, ease arthritic pain, lift depression, relieve anxiety, and help asthmatics breathe better without medication. Yoga can strengthen muscles and preserve bone, even in the frail elderly, "allowing some in their 80s and 90s to double and even triple their strength to the point where many are able to walk and perform other tasks without assistance." These are proven benefits--a low-cost, low-risk, effective way to retain independence with age.

In fact, the healing power of movement is so effective that a report from the National Institute on Ageing states: "If exercise could be packed into a pill, it would be the single most widely prescribed and beneficial medicine in the nation." Even though yoga has penetrated the fitness mainstream, its full potential as a preventive and rehabilitative element in holistic gerontology is just beginning to be explored. In the last ten years, research has documented the effectiveness of yoga for improving many health conditions. "As 78 million baby boomers enter the time of life when chronic conditions combine with long-term wear and tear on their bodies, more and more of them will turn to yoga for both prevention and rehabilitation."

The over-50 reader is immediately relieved to read in the opening chapters how the innovative props, walls, and chairs are used to help older students achieve almost any posture. Standing poses are practiced with the support of props, using the wall, windowsill, or blocks and chairs for support. Using yoga props makes postures safer and more accessible. Props allow older students with balance problems to practice the weight-bearing standing poses, helping them to remain independent and out of wheelchairs. They also allow older students to practice inverted postures safely and to reverse the downward pull of gravity, slowing down the aging process. Inverted poses also have a powerful effect on the neuroendocrine system by allowing fresh, oxygenated blood to flow to the glands in the head and neck.

Many of the asanas are photographed with accompanying text about the teachers and practitioners--all in their 60s, 70s, and even 90s! The reader can see for herself how these movements can be done by older people and can see too the many benefits to be had. My favorite chapter in The New Yoga for Healthy Aging is "Learning the Ropes," in which yoga is practiced with wall ropes (new to me, but I live in a small town). The photos are exhilarating, showing dozens of poses using upper and lower wall ropes. Suspended by ropes like puppets, practitioners look ecstatic as they hang upside down in the downward poses. These wall rope systems can be located with the help of an appendix provided by the author.

There are specific sections on Osteoporosis, Arthritis, Hip Replacement Surgery, a Healthy Heart, and Parkinson's. Detailed information is given on postures relating to these subjects, as is information on how the postures benefit these specific health problems. After these sections, the author presents a series of postures specifically for healthy aging. And let's not forget the stress reduction achieved with yoga--not a small thing in the modern world. Stress is considered a primary health problem by physicians today.

Ms. Francina writes great books on yoga. (Yoga and the Wisdom of Aging was reviewed in these pages in January 2004.) The New Yoga for Healthy Aging may be the best prescription around for the growing population of baby boomers.