‘Gentle Yoga’ Relieves Seniors Pain

After decades of “hard livin’ ” – football and baseball as a young man, 23 years as a Marine pilot, serving in the Vietnam War – Bill Nichols suffers from chronic back pain. But if it weren’t for yoga, the Liberty Lake resident said, he’d be a lot worse off. Nichols, 65, credits his regular “restorative” yoga classes with keeping him on his feet even after a couple of back surgeries and a daily regimen of pain medication. He’s not alone as a person coming to yoga later in life. Because it can be practiced gently, and its exercises, or “poses,” altered according to students’ limitations, yoga can be an effective form of exercise for people into their 90s – even, as in Nichols’ case, helping to relieve their ills/ Adrian Rogers , SR. More here. (Jesse Tinsley SR photo: Bill Nichols gets some direction from yoga teacher Jan Long, left, before class Wednesday at The Mat, a studio in Liberty Lake)

Question: Do you do yoga exercises?