Healthy Ageing And Yoga: What Mr Iyengar, The Yoga Doctors And The Research Say

Is it getting harder to get up off the floor, or out of a low chair? Most of us notice ageing first in small ways: a hand on the couch to stand, a wobble on the stairs, a stiff back after the car. Healthy ageing is about keeping the strength, balance and calm that let you live the way you want, for as long as you can. This guide brings together what Mr BKS Iyengar, Geeta S Iyengar and the medical doctors who worked with him say about ageing well, and what modern research has found. Last updated: 1 November 2026.

Get 2 Free Yoga Classes And 2 Free Ebooks

Does yoga help healthy ageing? The short answer

Yes. Yoga helps healthy ageing. In reviews of trials in people over 60, yoga improved walking speed, leg strength, balance and flexibility, and it lifted mood, sleep and quality of life. In one review of 22 trials, yoga did better than other active exercise for leg strength and flexibility. A Sydney pilot of Iyengar yoga improved balance, walking speed and getting up from a chair in 12 weeks. Mr Iyengar taught that it is never too late to start, and he practised into his 90s.

One thing to keep in mind as you read: most trials tested “yoga” of many styles, taught by teachers with very different training. The trials that tested Iyengar yoga specifically, taught by trained Iyengar teachers, found it helped too, and in our view well-taught Iyengar yoga is likely to go further than the average. Why the kind of yoga matters.

The bottom line: five key moves for healthy ageing

Our healthy ageing tips, in order of importance:

1. Go to a yoga class at your level, two or three times a week. The Sydney Iyengar pilot ran twice a week for 12 weeks. Most of the trials that worked ran 8 weeks or more, so give it time. More is better.
2. Stand on your own two feet. Standing poses build the legs, hips and ankles that carry you, and they train balance at the same time. Props such as a chair and the wall let you work strongly without fear.
3. Get down to the floor and up again, every day. It is one of the first skills to slip, and one of the easiest to keep if you use it.
4. Add breath work (pranayama). It calms the mind and brings stress down, and calm, rested people sleep and recover better at any age.
5. Start now. New to Flametree, or away 3 months or more? 2 free classes, then 10 at half price, in Darwin or LIVE online.

Iyengar yoga is the style we teach at Flametree. During the 20th century, Mr BKS Iyengar was the major person who codified traditional Indian yoga, through his seminal books and widespread teaching. He also pioneered the use of props, so poses can be adapted to almost any body. His style is sometimes called modern classical yoga. This guide is part of our encyclopaedia of yoga for health conditions.

This guide in short

• Mr BKS Iyengar: it is never too late to start. Keep the body irrigated with movement, go step by step, and never force.
• Geeta S Iyengar: yoga is a gift for old age. Accept the body as it is, then work to keep it young.
• Dr Timothy McCall: balance problems are on his list of conditions helped by yoga, and standing and balancing poses keep muscle and balance in later life.
• Dr Krishna Raman: yoga cannot stop ageing, but it makes it graceful. Be like the willow, not the oak.
• Other voices: Suza Francina, Dr Baxter Bell and Nina Zolotow, Mary Flaherty, Kelly and Juliet Starrett, and Andrew Steele on the biology of ageing.
• The research: 17 studies listed below, from small Iyengar trials to a review of 33 studies and 2,384 older people.
• For men: men lose muscle with age too, and do far less yoga.
• Take it further: a free ebook, Strong Bones, Steady Feet, our 2027 masterclasses, and classes in Darwin and online.

“It is never too late in life to practise yoga.”

What is healthy ageing?

Healthy ageing means keeping the abilities that let you live the life you want as the years go by: walking briskly, climbing stairs, getting up from the floor, keeping your balance, sleeping well and feeling steady in mind. Ageing well is less about the number of birthdays and more about what you can still do.

A few words you will see on this page:

• Frailty: a state where the body has less in reserve, so a small illness, a fall or a stay in bed knocks a person down further and for longer. Slow walking, weak legs and tiredness are its usual signs.
• Sarcopenia: the loss of muscle with age. Kelly and Juliet Starrett, in Built to Move, put it at 3 to 5% a decade from the 30s (their figure).
• Walking speed: how fast you walk a short distance. It is one of the simplest signs of how well the body is ageing, which is why so many trials measure it.

Thin bones, falls, memory and stiff joints are all part of ageing, and each has its own guide: bones, balance and falls, brain health and memory and stiff joints. This guide is the hub that ties them together, and adds strength, walking, frailty, sleep, mood and community.

What did Mr BKS Iyengar teach about old age?

In short: it is never too late to start. Keep the body moving so it does not dry out, go step by step, and let fear go.

Mr Iyengar gave old age its own chapter in The Tree of Yoga (pp 31 to 34), and came back to it in Light on Life. His main points, in our words:

• Never too late. His opening line is that it is never too late in life to practise yoga. He went on practising for hours a day into his 90s.
• Irrigate the body. He describes the body as a field that needs water. When movement stops, he says, the blood supply to the hands and feet falls and the body’s defences weaken. Poses, in his view, bring blood to the body’s depths. His words: “Why should you allow the drought to come when you can irrigate the body?” (The Tree of Yoga, p 33).
• The mind plays tricks. He says the mind tells an older person to go ahead, then to hesitate, then to be afraid. Fear of age, in his view, is the mind’s trick, and practice is how you see through it.
• Do not rush, do not force. Accidents, he says, come from impatience and weak teaching, not from yoga itself. “Yoga cannot be rushed” (p 34). Speaking to teachers about older students, he said: do not try force, correct little by little.
• A good pose at its minimum. In Light on Life (print edition, p 55) he writes that it is better to do a good pose minimum than a bad pose maximum. For an older body, that is the whole method.
• Right pain and wrong pain. Right pain is a gradual feeling of lengthening and strengthening. Wrong pain is sharp, sudden, or keeps getting worse. If today’s practice spoils tomorrow’s, it was the wrong practice (Light on Life, pp 47 to 52).
• Stiffness makes us brittle. He blames modern comfort, chairs above all, for stiff and brittle bodies, and writes that rigidity “causes us to lose our balance” (p 42). Standing poses, he says, build the ankles and knees (p 45).
• Growth, not retirement. He describes the last stages of life as a time of growth, not of winding down (pp 245 to 246).

“An iron gets rusted if it is not used.”

What did Geeta S Iyengar teach about later life?

In short: yoga is a gift for old age. Accept that the body has changed, then put in the effort to keep it young.

Geeta S Iyengar, Mr Iyengar’s daughter and one of the great teachers of the method, wrote Yoga: A Gem for Women as a course for women of every age. Her points on later life, in our words:

• A gift for old age. In the chapter on the milestones of a woman’s life (p 57), she writes that yoga is a gift for old age and that it is never too late to begin. Those who start when old gain, in her words, “freshness of mind”.
• The muscles tell your age. In a Sydney class in 1996 she told students that you may not disclose your age, but your muscles tell you what it is.
• Accept, then work. In a 2000 interview she said one has to accept that the body has become a little old, and then make efforts to make it young.
• Ropes for older bodies. Her book gives wall ropes (Yoga Kurunta, pp 252 to 260) for heavy, stiff or older women, so the body is held while it learns the pose.

Women going through menopause will find her approach set out in full in our menopause guide, and bones after menopause in the bones and balance guide.

“Yoga is a gift for old age.”

What does Dr Timothy McCall say?

In short: balance is on his list of conditions helped by yoga, and he sees standing and balancing poses as the way to keep muscle and steadiness in later life.

Dr McCall is a US medical doctor and yoga therapist, author of Yoga as Medicine and former medical editor of Yoga Journal. Ageing is not one of the 117 conditions on his June 2019 list, but several of its parts are.

• The ageing conditions on his list: balance problems (no. 10), osteoporosis (no. 69), a rounded upper back, thoracic hyperkyphosis (no. 111), and stress (no. 108).
• Muscle and balance. In his menopause chapter he notes that muscle loss in later life feeds poor posture, arthritis and falls, and that standing and balancing poses build muscle and improve balance.
• Stress and bone. He notes that stress raises the hormone cortisol, which interferes with how bone is built, and that yoga’s calming tools work against it.
• Use it or lose it. In his arthritis chapter he explains that cartilage has no blood supply of its own and relies on movement to bring nourishment in, so avoiding sore joints starts a circle of weaker muscles and stiffer joints. He says yoga helps keep muscles and joints flexible with age. Marian Garfinkel, a long-time student of Mr BKS Iyengar, uses a raised platform in her studio so people who find it hard to get down to the floor can still do standing poses safely.
• The years ahead. In his afterword he expects people facing the conditions of later life to turn to yoga alongside medical care, and he imagines yoga taught in nursing homes, community centres and retirement villages.
• Sleep in older people. He reports a trial in a home for the aged in India in which people who did yoga slept about an hour longer. It is listed in the research below.

The US Iyengar association’s research page lists four Iyengar yoga studies under the heading “Aging”: the Sydney pilot (Tiedemann 2013), Vogler 2011, Zhu 2021 and DiBenedetto 2005. All four are in the research section below.

What does Dr Krishna Raman say?

In short: yoga cannot stop ageing, but it makes it graceful.

Dr Raman is a Chennai physician who trained in yoga under Mr Iyengar. His question-and-answer book on yoga and medical science covers older students. His views, in our words:

• Graceful ageing. In his view, yoga cannot stop the body ageing, but it can make ageing graceful.
• The willow, not the oak. He tells older students to be like the willow, which bends in the wind, rather than the oak, which snaps. Props, he says, give older people confidence and an easy way in.
• Prepare, do not leap. An older person who wants to learn a harder pose, such as headstand, prepares for it first with simpler poses. In his experience, harm from yoga usually comes from a condition the person already had, not from correct practice.
• Joints that last. He holds that correct, long-term practice does not wear the joints out.

“You may not disclose your age but the muscles tell you what your age is.”

Other yoga voices on ageing well

• Older beginners do well. Suza Francina, in The New Yoga for Healthy Aging, tells of Eleanor Williams, who was afraid of exercise all her life and went to her first Iyengar class at 51. In her seventies she was still studying, and learning tennis and golf. Read more in exercise for over 60s.
• Calm and restorative practice belong in an older body’s week. Dr Baxter Bell, a physician and yoga teacher, and Nina Zolotow, in Yoga for Healthy Aging, set out calming, restorative and supported inversion practices that sit closely with the Iyengar approach, such as resting with the legs up a wall for 5 to 20 minutes.
• The risk sits with practising alone, so learn with a well-trained teacher. Mary Flaherty, in Does Yoga Work?, reports that people 65 and over have the highest rate of emergency visits for yoga injuries, and that practising alone, without a teacher, carries more risk. She rates the evidence for yoga on strength, flexibility and balance in adults at five stars.
• Company counts. Mary Flaherty also reports a review of 148 studies and 308,849 people in which strong relationships went with 50% higher odds of living longer, and that moving together builds cooperation. A class is company as well as practice.
• Keep the floor in your life. Kelly and Juliet Starrett, in Built to Move, make getting down to the floor and up again their first test (p 29), and suggest building up to 30 minutes a day of sitting on the floor (p 40). They suggest writing down what you want to be able to do at 75 and 90, such as lifting a bag into an overhead locker or getting up after a fall, and working back from it (p 88). They call yoga a “fantastic” movement practice (p 50), and say it works best alongside moving more through the whole day.
• The biology of ageing. Andrew Steele, a scientist, explains in Ageless that the ageing immune system becomes both weaker and more inflamed, which researchers call “inflammaging”, and that working muscles calm inflammation while still muscles stoke it. In his telling, people in their nineties nearly doubled their strength in two months of training. He does not write about yoga; we use him for the biology. More in our immune system and inflammation guide.
• Bones. Dr Loren Fishman, a rehabilitation physician who studied with Mr Iyengar, wrote a whole book on yoga for osteoporosis. His work is set out in the bones and balance guide.

For men: ageing well is your business too

Men lose muscle and balance with age just as women do, and many do not notice until a stumble or a struggle to get off the floor. Men also do far less yoga: in a national survey, 85% of Australian yoga practitioners were women. Yet the trials show men gain when they start. The rounded upper back trial below took in women and men aged 60 and over, and the Iyengar trials of older Australians included men too. Standing poses, weight on the hands and balance work suit men just as well. About a third of the people in Flametree’s classes are men. Bring a mate or come alone, but give it 12 weeks. More for men in yoga for men and our free men’s ebook, Stay In The Game.

“I want every one to stand on their two feet till the last breath.”

What does the research show on yoga and healthy ageing?

In short: yoga makes older people stronger, steadier and faster on their feet, and it lifts mood and sleep. Most of these studies tested yoga in general, of many styles. The Iyengar yoga trials are listed on their own below. Why the difference matters.

Strength, walking, balance and frailty: yoga in general

• Yoga improved walking speed and lower-leg strength and endurance in people 65 and over. The certainty for walking speed and leg strength was rated moderate, the best in this field. Loewenthal 2023, a review of 33 studies and 2,384 older people living at home, in nursing homes or with long-term illness, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Iyengar and chair-based yoga were the styles used most. Read the study.
• Yoga improved balance, lower-body flexibility and leg strength, and did better than other active exercise for leg strength and flexibility. It also improved depression, mental and physical health scores, sleep quality and vitality. Sivaramakrishnan 2019, a review of 22 trials in people aged 60 and over without a particular illness. Read the study. Note: this review pooled many styles of yoga and teachers. It shows what yoga in general does against exercise; Iyengar yoga, taught by teachers with six or more years of training, has not yet been tested against exercise on its own. Why it matters.
• Yoga improved balance and mobility in people aged 60 and over. Youkhana 2016, a review of 6 trials and 307 people, from Sydney researchers, in Age and Ageing. Read the study.
• Yoga improved quality of life in older adults, and that result held firm under every check the authors ran. Leg strength and balance on the move improved in the main analysis too. Guo 2026, a review of 21 studies and 1,471 older people. Read the study.
• Adapted mind-body classes improved mobility, flexibility, wellbeing and quality of life in people 60 and over. Tanhamira 2024, a review of 18 studies. Yoga was pooled with other slow mind-body methods, so this is not a yoga-only result. Read the study.
• Mind-body exercise improved balance in frail and nearly frail older people, most consistently at 2 to 4 sessions a week for 13 weeks or more. Chen 2026, a review of 10 trials. Yoga was pooled with other mind-body methods, so this is not a yoga-only result. Read the study.

Iyengar yoga studies

These trials tested Iyengar yoga specifically, taught by trained Iyengar teachers, with props and adapted poses.

• Iyengar yoga improved standing balance, getting up from a chair, walking speed and one-leg balance with the eyes closed: the main risk factors for falls. Twelve weeks, twice a week, mostly standing poses, against a group given a falls booklet. Attendance was 83%, with no serious adverse events. Tiedemann 2013, the Sydney pilot, 54 people living at home, average age 68. Read the study.
• Iyengar yoga improved muscle strength, range of movement and wellbeing in inactive older adults. Eight weeks, twice a week. Vogler 2011, an Australian trial of 38 physically inactive adults aged 55 and over, average age 73. Read the study.
• Iyengar yoga improved muscle strength, balance and confidence in balance, and did best of the programmes tested for standing and moving balance. Sixteen weeks. Zhu 2021, a trial of 48 people aged 60 and over, compared with another mind-body programme and a control group. Read the study.
• Gentle Iyengar yoga lengthened the stride and opened the hips, and more home practice went with bigger changes. Eight weeks, two 90-minute classes a week. DiBenedetto 2005, 23 healthy adults aged 62 to 83 new to yoga, measured before and after with no comparison group. Read the study.

Posture and fear of falling

• Yoga reduced the curve of a rounded upper back. Hour-long classes, three days a week, for 24 weeks. Greendale 2009, a trial of 118 women and men aged 60 and over with a rounded upper back. Read the study.
• Fear of falling eased, balance improved, and lower-body flexibility rose by 34%. Twelve weeks, twice a week, poses sitting and standing plus breathing. Schmid 2010, 14 adults over 65 who were afraid of falling, measured before and after with no comparison group. Read the study.

Falls themselves are covered in full in our bones, balance and falls guide and in falls and yoga studies.

Mood, sleep and quality of life

• Older people who did yoga slept about an hour longer, fell asleep about 10 minutes sooner and woke feeling more rested. The groups given a herbal remedy or nothing showed no real change. Manjunath and Telles 2005, a trial of 69 residents of a home for the aged in India, over six months. Read the study.
• Yoga improved quality of life in older people, including thinking, sleep, anxiety, depression and stress. Subalakshmi 2025, a review of randomised trials in older adults. Read the study.
• Chair yoga lowered anxiety and depression in care-home residents aged 80 to 101, including people living with dementia. Twice a week for 8 weeks. Frampton 2024, 33 people. Read the study.
• Yoga was among the approaches that lowered stress in older adults, and the stress hormone cortisol fell overall. Zhu 2025, a review of 23 trials. Read the study.

Meditation and mindfulness

This trial tested a chanting and finger-movement meditation, not pranayama or poses. It is encouraging for the cells as well as the mind.

• A short daily meditation lowered depression, improved mental health and thinking, and raised telomerase activity by 43%, against 3.7% with relaxing music. Telomerase is the enzyme that looks after the protective caps on our chromosomes. Twelve minutes a day for 8 weeks. Lavretsky 2013, 39 family carers of people with dementia, average age 60. Read the study.

Breathing practice (pranayama)

No trial has yet tested pranayama on its own for healthy ageing. Breathing practice was part of several of the programmes above, such as the fear of falling trial, though the papers rarely say which techniques were taught, or how. Not yet studied is not the same as not working. The pranayama we teach (staircase, ocean, alternate nostril, humming and a gentle shining skull breath) is slow, nasal and taught step by step. Why the kind of breathing matters.

“In old age fear comes and it is the worst enemy.”

How does this come together in a Flametree class?

Everything above points the same way, and it is how we teach yoga for elderly people, and for anyone who wants to age well, in Darwin and online.

• Standing poses first: they build the legs, hips, ankles and balance that carry you through later life.
• Props in every class: chairs, the wall, blocks, belts and blankets, so an older body can work strongly with confidence.
• Classes adapted to the people in them. No one-size-fits-all. Tell your teacher about your joints, bones and balance, and the poses are changed for you.
• Down to the floor and up again, in nearly every class, with support until you do not need it.
• A practice for every kind of day: our gentle yoga, 50s Plus Focus and restorative yoga classes go at an easier pace.
• Breath and calm: every class ends in rest, and our pranayama classes go further.
• Company: a room of people working on the same things, which keeps you coming back.

Read more on ageing well

• The guides this one ties together: bones, balance and falls; brain health, memory and dementia risk; stiff joints and flexibility; inflammation and the immune system; sleep and energy; arthritis; vertigo and dizzy spells.
• Starting later in life: exercise for over 60s; yoga for over 50; chair yoga for seniors; yoga for seniors.
• Strength and getting up: yoga for strength; sit to stand exercise; how to get more flexible after 50.
• Balance and posture: loss of balance after 50; falls and yoga studies; yoga for posture; our guide to a rounded upper back.
• Heart, circulation and movement: heart health; high blood pressure; hip and knee pain; Parkinson’s and MS.
• Mind and memory: how to improve memory after 50; Mr Iyengar and Geeta Iyengar on ageing, in their own words.

“Health is not a product that can be bought in a medical store.”

Take it further

For the ageing brain, see our free ebook Sharper For Longer, and for men, Stay In The Game.

• Classes, in Darwin or LIVE online: new, or away 3 months or more? 2 free classes, then 10 at half price. Already practising yoga? See the non-beginner half price pass. See every class time.
• Masterclasses: our 2027 Sunday Arvo Masterclasses with Chris Lalor, Certified Senior Iyengar Yoga Teacher and certified Yoga Therapist, run from January to April and cover arthritis, sleep and energy, pelvic floors, backs and more, all common in later life. Bookings open soon.
• Retreats: a week of daily, adapted yoga in Bali. See the retreats.

Other conditions are in our encyclopaedia of yoga for health conditions.

Healthy ageing and yoga: questions people ask

What is healthy ageing?

Healthy ageing means keeping the abilities that let you live the way you want as you get older: walking briskly, getting up from the floor, keeping your balance, sleeping well and staying steady in mind. Ageing well depends less on birthdays than on what you can still do. Yoga trains most of these at once, which is why so many trials of older people use it.

What did Mr BKS Iyengar teach about old age?

Mr Iyengar taught that it is never too late in life to practise yoga, and he practised for hours a day into his 90s. In The Tree of Yoga he describes the ageing body as a field that dries out without water, and movement as the irrigation. He warned against rushing and forcing, and told teachers to correct older students little by little.

Can yoga help with frailty?

Yes. Frailty shows as slow walking, weak legs and little reserve. A 2023 review of 33 studies and 2,384 people aged 65 and over found yoga improved walking speed and lower-leg strength, and a 2026 review found mind-body exercise, yoga included, improved balance in frail and nearly frail older people when practised 2 to 4 times a week for 13 weeks or more.

Is yoga as good as other exercise for older people?

In a 2019 review of 22 trials in people aged 60 and over, yoga did better than other active exercise for leg strength and flexibility, and it also lifted mood, sleep and vitality. That review pooled many styles of yoga. Iyengar yoga has not yet been tested against exercise on its own, but its own trials found better balance, walking speed and strength.

Does yoga help older people sleep better?

Yes. In a six-month trial in a home for the aged, older people who did yoga slept about an hour longer, fell asleep about 10 minutes sooner and woke feeling more rested, while groups given a herbal remedy or nothing did not change much. A 2019 review of trials in people over 60 also found better sleep quality with yoga.

Can meditation slow ageing in the cells?

There are early signs it helps. In a 2013 trial of 39 family carers, a 12-minute daily chanting meditation for 8 weeks raised the activity of telomerase, the enzyme that looks after the protective caps on our chromosomes, by 43%, against 3.7% with relaxing music. Depression scores fell and thinking improved too. The authors call for a larger trial.

Why do a teacher and a class matter more as we age?

Because the risk in yoga sits with practising alone. Mary Flaherty, in Does Yoga Work?, reports that people 65 and over have the highest rate of emergency visits for yoga injuries, and that practising without a teacher carries more risk. A trained teacher adapts each pose with props. A class also brings company, which goes with longer lives.

Where can I do yoga for healthy ageing in Darwin or online?

Flametree Yoga Studio teaches Iyengar yoga at Woolner and Coolalinga in Darwin, and LIVE online across Australia, with chairs, walls, blocks and blankets in every class. Beginner, gentle and 50s Plus Focus classes suit people in their 60s, 70s and 80s. New, or away 3 months or more? You get 2 free classes, then 10 at half price.

Where this comes from: BKS Iyengar, The Tree of Yoga, Old Age (pp 31 to 34); Light on Life (print edition); Astadala Yogamala, volumes 3 and 6; Yoga Rahasya (1999 and 2002); his talk on teaching older students, from the Spratt therapeutics compilations. Geeta S Iyengar, Yoga: A Gem for Women, her Sydney classes of 1996 and her 2000 interview in Yoga Rahasya. Timothy McCall MD, Yoga as Medicine (Bantam), including his arthritis chapter and afterword, and his June 2019 list of health conditions helped by yoga. Krishna Raman MD and S. Suresh MD, Yoga and Medical Science: FAQ. The research page of the Iyengar Yoga National Association of the United States. Suza Francina, The New Yoga for Healthy Aging. Baxter Bell MD and Nina Zolotow, Yoga for Healthy Aging. Mary Flaherty, Does Yoga Work?. Kelly and Juliet Starrett, Built to Move. Andrew Steele, Ageless. Studies as linked above. Everything is summarised in our own words.

This page is general information, not medical advice. Flametree Yoga Studio, Darwin and LIVE online.