By Manmohan Singh | Posted: December 23, 2018

Unlike other exercises, age and yoga have a harmonious connection.

Whether you are in your prime, feeling virile, or in the dusk of your red-blooded years of youth, it is never too late to begin practicing yoga. While high-impact training such as bench presses, weightlifting, and running can considerably damage aging joints, yoga is a low-risk and revitalizing exercise option after crossing 40.

In this twilight phase of youth, the metabolism begins to slow, and bone health declines. To keep active and moving with the same agility as always, and keep your energy up through the day, yoga can be a gentler, comparatively risk-free, and restorative way to go. The finer rewarding aspects of the practice during this age include better sexual performance, enhanced body coordination, and the ability to fully concentrate.

While spending an hour on the mat might be the last thing on your mind after 40, you might change your perception when you read these 7 great benefits of yoga:

1. Improved breathing and detoxification

Studies suggest people only breathe 10-20 percent of their total lung capacity. As a result, most people fail to flush their systems of toxins with oxygenated blood flow. It’s no wonder that by the time one reaches 40, a multitude of health issues begin to arise. However, it’s never too late to start breathing fuller and heartier with Pranayama breathing. Diaphragmatic breathing, which stimulates the lower lung to distribute greater parts of oxygen through the body, will detox your body, boost your immunity, and enhance your vitality like never before.

2. Greater stability in body and mind

It’s always challenging to cope with a change as invasive as aging. In this context, the balancing and restorative function of yoga practice can help ease the transition enormously. While all other exercise routines push you to overcome boundaries and meet a benchmark, yoga only asks you to focus, turn the gaze inwards, and simply accept your body and mind as they are. While you ease into an asana, perceive yourself as you are in the moment. Release all your fears and anxieties regarding what the future might be holding for you. Simply accept yourself as you are now, today. Cultivate gratitude!

3. Improved heart health

The 40-year landmark is a cue to look analytically at your heart health. An unchecked diet, a lack of aerobic or cardiovascular activity, and a sedentary lifestyle will ring loudly all the signs of poor heart health. But yoga will get you back on track! Raise your heart rate by consistently practicing flow-style yoga exercises, known as ashtanga yoga, and shed extra pounds, lower cholesterol levels, and welcome a healthy lifestyle and better diet by controlling bad cravings with your new yogic mindfulness.

4. Improved sleep quality

Acute sleep disorders intensify after 40, thanks to various unavoidable financial, familial, and life anxieties. You may find that your biological clock has gone haywire, and that sleep eludes you at night. Meditative sessions of yogic mindfulness practice positively help in restoring the calm needed to sleep peacefully. The practice of Yoga Nidra meditation and other relaxing asana sequences are recommended by medical practitioners today for insomnia and other sleep disorders.

5. A spiced-up sex life

Yoga is known to revitalize sex lives through improved performance and greater erection and ejaculation control in men. While your libido might calm as you age, you can still make the most of your vitality. Yoga both increases body awareness and reduces anxiety, and ensures a healthy blood flow to your genitals, helping keep everybody satisfied in the bedroom.

6. Injury prevention

Yoga is known to increase flexibility and range of motion by lengthening muscles and eliminating muscular tightness, thus minimizing the chances of injury. Whether you’re athletic, or you live a sedentary lifestyle, stretching it out with yoga every once in a while will be helpful in keeping injuries away.

7. Reduced healthcare costs

Not all men of 40 and counting have a lavish healthcare plan. In that case, yoga promises to keep you out of the doctor’s office by ensuring your health and vitality on both a physical and metal level.

To sum it up, yoga will give the man of 40 a challenge that is worth every bit the effort and makes aging an opportunity for growth.

Manmohan Singh is a passionate Yogi, Yoga Teacher and Teacher Trainer, and a Traveller. He loves writing and reading books related to yoga, health, nature, and the Himalayas.