Little known finger exercise that can boost your health after age 50 – Health Digest

It can be easy to focus on health problems that affect someone over the age of 50. We address high blood pressure, weight gain, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hearing loss, vision problems, bladder problems and even. Dementia. Choosing healthy foods, exercising regularly, keeping your mind as stimulated as possible, and making healthy lifestyle choices like limiting alcohol consumption and quitting smoking can go a long way in combating these health problems. If you’re 50 or older, there’s a healthier way to eat pasta.

Your feet, as it turns out, can give you TLC in the form of exercise to ensure you age healthily. Your fingers can affect your quality of life and ability to do things like walk distances, climb stairs, and reach to grab something from a high shelf. Tou yoga, in particular, can be especially beneficial for older adults, according to experts. As you age, the intrinsic muscles in your fingers can weaken, explained Jane Anderson, MD, a North Carolina pediatrician and spokeswoman for the American Pediatric Association (via Real Simple). “As you age, the muscles between your toes weaken, so stretching them slows the deterioration.”

Tao Yoga can be a useful practice in this regard. However, before getting into it, let’s find out what toe yoga is and how it can benefit your feet and overall health.

As the name suggests, toe yoga is a series of yoga poses for your toes. More specifically, it includes exercises that target your toes, such as toe presses, toe extensions, toe lifts, and toe curls. If you google this term, you will find several different exercises recommended by yoga practitioners. Adrienne Mishler, yoga teacher and founder of Yoga with Yoga, shared that foot-centered yoga can be a helpful way to send some love to your feet, a part of your body that often gets overlooked or mocked as you age. .

Tou yoga can improve balance, coordination, strength, stability, flexibility, range of motion, joint health, and posture—factors that are most important to the over-50s. Additionally, flexing your toes can improve blood circulation in the area; Help with pain associated with conditions such as arthritis; and combat foot problems that become more common with age, such as hyper-pronation (flat feet), bunions, hammer toes and plantar fasciitis.

Conditions like bunions are irreversible with finger yoga, and some experts think you can slow the progression. With something like plantar fasciitis, an inflammation of the tissue that runs along the bottom of your foot to the heel, toe yoga can help with pain arising from the position. As physical therapist Tracy Baker (via Sharp) explains, it’s important to get yourself checked out by your doctor first. “Toe yoga exercises help retrain the small intrinsic muscles of the feet to accommodate a more normal gait,” the expert said.

It’s important to emphasize that health conditions affecting your feet, whether age-related or not, should be checked by your doctor first. The last thing you want to do is exercise that could make the pain or condition worse. After you get the all-clear from your physical therapist or doctor, you can try some of the toe yoga exercises recommended by the experts.

Yoga instructor Ann Grace McMullen told the New York Times that you can start with something as simple as standing up and keeping all of your toes on the floor. Spread them wide and gently lift from the floor towards the ceiling with the rest of your feet on the floor. Hold this position for about five seconds before relaxing and bringing your toes back down to the floor. Next, do the same with your big toes only, keeping the rest of your feet and other toes on the floor. Hold for 10-15 seconds and relax. Finish by lifting your little toes, keeping your big toes and the rest of your feet on the ground. Hold for 10-15 seconds and relax.

There are other toe yoga exercises that include using your toes to grip the floor, holding your toes that way for a few seconds, and lifting one toe at a time (on both feet) to improve your balance and control. toes To make sure you are doing the best exercises for older adults, consult an experienced yoga practitioner or physical therapist who specializes in treating this age group. It is important that you do the postures correctly.