Medically Verified By: Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Yoga is more than flexibility': Ministry of Ayush-certified expert reveals how meditation and breathwork may help you age better
When asked about the role of yoga in healthy ageing, Mayur Karthik, a certified yoga teacher evaluator with the Ministry of Ayush and a faculty member with The Art of Living and Sri Sri School of Yoga, said many people mistakenly associate ageing with an inevitable decline in energy, mobility and independence. According to him, yoga offers a holistic approach that can help individuals maintain vitality, mental clarity and overall well-being as they grow older.
Sharing a real-life example, Karthik spoke about one of his students, Sangeeta from Maharashtra, who took up Sri Sri Yoga at the age of 71. He recalled that after practising regularly for three months, she signed up for her first-ever trekking expedition in the Himalayas and successfully completed an 18-km uphill trek over nine hours.
Recalling the experience, Sangeeta had told him, "At 71, I was the oldest in the team. The rest were all younger than me. They were worried for me. But I completed the entire trek. It was my first trekking expedition."
According to Karthik, the story reflects how healthy ageing is not merely about adding years to life but about maintaining energy, purpose and physical capability. He explained that yoga addresses multiple aspects of well-being, including the body, breath, mind, emotions and spirit, making it a valuable practice for ageing gracefully.
The global spiritual master and humanitarian leader Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar says, "You see your children growing up and becoming adults, but you feel like you haven't aged at all. And that is true. There is something in you that doesn't change at all. Yoga unites you with that 'something' which never ages, and never changes. Yoga is a complete science that unites the individual spirit to the universal consciousness that is timeless and changeless, thereby making you like a child again. If you are on the path of yoga knowledge, and if you keep doing your meditation and the breathing exercises, your ageing reverses."
Yoga has shown me that healthy ageing isn't merely about adding years to life. It is about adding vitality, clarity, purpose, and fulfilment to those years.
The beauty of yoga is that it addresses every dimension of our being, the body, breath, mind, emotions, memory and spirit. This holistic approach makes it one of the most powerful tools for successfully facing the challenges of ageing and age gracefully.
Ageing brings its own challenges. Even good sleep, regular bowel movements, and performing daily chores independently can become difficult. More than anything, seniors value the independence they enjoyed in their younger years and wish to retain it. Emotional challenges also arise as children move away for careers, leaving many elderly parents anxious about who will care for them in times of illness.
With age, declining physical strength and vigour often lead to fear and loss of confidence. Patanjali Maharishi addresses this through the profound Yoga Sutras. "Heyam Dukham Anagatam" teaches that yoga prevents suffering before it arises, not by controlling external events, but by strengthening the body, mind, and emotions from within.
Yoga ultimately connects one with the Self, beyond body and mind. This inner strength dissolves fear and anxiety. This relaxed and confident perspective towards life promotes healthy ageing because more than a disability, the fear of a disability manifests it more quickly.
Many people associate yoga only with flexibility, but its benefits go much deeper. When we practise asanas, the muscles contract and stretch repeatedly. These movements stimulate the release of beneficial compounds known as myokines, and promote lymphatic movement which support brain health and cognitive function. People feel younger. Weight-bearing postures place healthy stress on the bones, encouraging them to remain strong and active.
Many yoga postures also improve blood circulation. Forward bends and inversions gently increase blood flow towards the brain, helping nourish the nervous system.
Deep breathing, which accompanies every movement in yoga, further enhances these benefits by improving oxygen delivery throughout the body.
Over time, these practices help maintain strength, mobility, balance, healthy body weight, and hormonal balance, which become increasingly important as we age.
In the yogic tradition, breath has always been regarded as a bridge between the body and the mind. One of the first things we notice when we begin observing the breath is how closely it is linked to our emotions. When we are anxious, the breath becomes shallow and rapid. When we are calm, the breath naturally slows down.
Gurudev often reminds us, "When you learn about your own breath, you know for every emotion there is a particular rhythm in the breath."
This understanding forms the basis of pranayamas or breathing exercises.
Pranayamas involve consciously controlling and expanding the breath. Modern science increasingly confirms what yogis have known for centuries- slow, deep breathing activates the parasympathetic nervous system, stimulates the vagus nerve, reduces stress, and improves overall health. In fact, there is a complete yogic tradition dedicated to 'shwasha' or the breath. It says that on average, a human being breathes around 23,000 times a day which comes to around 15 breaths per minute.
When the breath becomes slower and steadier, the mind also becomes calmer. This reduction in physical and mental restlessness contributes significantly to healthy ageing. Hence, when we compare the rate of breathing of a tortoise and a dog, we find that the former breathes slower and lives longer than the latter. The oldest living tortoise is believed to be 193 years old!
One of the greatest threats to healthy ageing today is chronic stress. Many people spend decades carrying mental tension, worrying about the future, brooding over the past, and constantly stimulating the mind. Over time, this takes a toll on both physical and mental health.
Meditation offers a powerful antidote. Gurudev says, "Many people think yoga is just physical fitness and stretching. But yoga is never complete without meditation. So if you do proper yoga and add meditation to it, you can eliminate stress and bring out the beauty in you." He often describes meditation as the art of doing nothing. Not merely sitting idle, but allowing the mind to settle into a state of profound rest beyond its usual stream of thoughts.
When we meditate, stress hormones such as cortisol reduce significantly. The brain gets an opportunity to recover and rejuvenate itself. Research has shown that regular meditation can support cognitive function, memory, attention, and emotional well-being.
The combination of practices such as yogasanas, pranayamas, Sudarshan Kriya (a powerful rhythmic breathing technique), and meditation have also attracted scientific interest for their potential influence on telomeres, the protective structures at the ends of our chromosomes associated with biological ageing. While ageing cannot be stopped, supporting cellular health may help slow certain aspects of the ageing process. Scientific research now says that just 3 days of Sudarshan Kriya practice increases telomere length by 22%. That could mean adding 2 whole healthy years to your life.
Peer-reviewed research papers have also proven the beneficial impact of Sudarshan Kriya to reduce the levels of cortisol in regular practitioners.
Perhaps this is why long-term meditators often appear younger, more energetic, and more vibrant than their chronological age.
One aspect of yoga that is often overlooked is knowledge. As we grow older, it becomes increasingly important to nourish the mind with wisdom. Reading scriptures such as the Bhagavad Gita, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, or listening to Gurudev's commentaries can profoundly expand our understanding of life.
These teachings remind us that life is not confined to the body alone. They encourage us to see ourselves in a larger context and help us discover a deeper relationship with existence itself.
In yoga, knowledge and practice go hand in hand. One without the other remains incomplete.
People often think yoga begins and ends with an hour of practice. In reality, the mat is only a training ground. Whether we are practising an asana, a breathing technique, meditation, or simply going about our daily activities, yoga invites us to act with awareness.
The real transformation happens when this awareness accompanies us into everyday life, into our relationships, our work, our service activities, and the way we respond to life's challenges.
This is why yoga isn't merely an exercise routine. It is a way of living.
Recent scientific researches have proven that a sense of purpose adds healthy years to life. Hence, it is very important to ponder upon that biggest question that eventually arises in every human being: 'What is the purpose of my life?'
Gurudev beautifully says that just as a flower bud carries the potential to blossom fully, every human being carries the potential to blossom to their fullness. Yoga is the process of that blossoming. Healthy ageing, from a yogic perspective, isn't about resisting ageing. It is about evolving gracefully through every stage of life.
About the expert: A Certified Teacher evaluator with Ayush Ministry, India, and 500H E-RYT, RCYT with Yoga Alliance USA, Mayur Karthik is a globally-renowned faculty with The Art of Living and Sri Sri School of Yoga since 2012. He is a disciple and student of the global spiritual master and humanitarian Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.
