Breathing Life into Aging Bodies

 Routines for senior citizens aimed at enhancing vitality, strengthening resistance to disease and accidents, bolstering the spirit and improving self-esteem.

Aging necessarily involves the gradual loss of strength, energy and coordination; bones become more brittle, muscles lose their tone and the physical decline affects mental attitudes. However, the effects of these degenerating effects can be retarded by breathing drills and physical movements oriented around the use of core energy.

Standing more erect, moving more effortlessly, raising our chin and eyes, improving our equilibrium and enhancing the perception of the world around us improve our image of self and redirect our minds towards positive thinking patterns. Every person is endowed with a charge of inner energy which can be likened to the electric current in a battery. We can “recharge” that energy by doing daily routines. Many of our maladies are due to bad circulation. The solution we propose in these encounters is to use breath and soft physical drills to reactivate the circulation of energy in the body.

The pains in the extremities, in the joints, the elbows, the knuckles, the toes, the head aches, the stiffness in the back and in the neck are all signs of a short-circuit in the circulation of inner energy. We complain about them and in doing so we activate negative thought patterns which worsen our suffering; the doctor prescribes pain killers—but the essence of the problem persists.

Proposal: As an initial step we propose two weekly encounters of two hours each during which we will practice relaxation techniques, breathing drills, gentle physical movements of all parts of the body, imagination and visualization exercises and games aimed at stimulating creativity and self-esteem.