I was chatting to a personal trainer this week who specialises in coaching the military. Naturally, I asked him what exercise we should all be doing for optimal health. His answer surprised me:
‘Walking, yoga and swimming,’ he said. ‘That’s the holy trinity of exercise and that’s what I always recommend.’
‘What about weights and resistance training and jumping and high intensity interval training,’ I spluttered into my coffee.
‘Fine, if that’s what you like, ‘ he answered. ‘But a combination of walking, yoga and swimming will give you the strength, balance, fitness and flexibility that we need as we get older.’
As it happens, I’ve been investigating research into yoga for the last couple of months.
I returned to yoga in January after a few years of not doing it. Why did I return? Because I read about an experiment that set out to find the most effective form of exercise for improving sleep. I assumed that running or something very intense (like hours of squatting or skipping) would be the most effective. Surely the physical exhaustion would lull you into deep and instant sleep?
But no. That’s not what the researchers found. Instead they found that regular yoga resulted in the best sleep. Within minutes of reading this, I had my yoga mat out. For five months I’ve been doing yoga every single day (with my favourite YouTube yogis – Kassandra, Charlie and Sarah Beth). My sleep has been transformed. As many of you know, I’ve struggled with my sleep for a long time!
More importantly, I’ve come to love my daily yoga sessions. Not as much as my daily walk, of course. But a close second. Needless to say, I kept wondering if my time would be better spent doing something a little more… well, hardcore. My yoga practice often felt hardcore, but it rarely appeared in studies of exercise. It was time to dig a little deeper.
My scrutinising eye fell first on a 2022 study that found Yoga reduces falls more than any other form of exercise (including aerobic and strength training.). As the researchers said: ‘These results suggest that yoga may be preferable for older adults seeking to reduce their risk of falls.’
So yoga will help us from falling over. That gets a tick from me as my Mum fell back in January, was in hospital for seven weeks, and is still recovering.
What about keeping our bones strong? Well, it turns out that while yoga doesn’t match weight training for building bone mineral density (BMD), it can and does maintain BMD. So if you’ve been doing yoga (I mean power yoga – like vinyasa yoga with dynamic, shifting poses) all your life, your bones should be as strong as they ever were.
What about fitness? Well, yoga (even power yoga) doesn’t appear to significantly increase our cardio fitness. But it does cause the body to produce powerful anti-inflammatory molecules. A mere six weeks of power yoga (60 minutes once a week) ‘significantly increased’ levels of anti-inflammatory proteins known as ApoA1 and adiponectin, in the blood of participants. And in case you’re wondering what these proteins do, other than being anti-inflammatory, they remove cholesterol from the blood helping prevent plaque build-up in the arteries. In other words, yoga is good for the heart (and might help if you have high cholesterol). Read the study here.
As for reducing stress and improving mood and serenity, yoga often wins hands down. And for those of you worried that doing yoga online won’t have the same effects, a 2026 study found that online yoga appeared to deliver the same results in terms of stress reduction and sleep improvement.
But when to do yoga? Is there a perfect time?
Interestingly, a study of morning and evening yoga groups found that Morning Yoga showed significant benefits over Evening Yoga. While both groups displayed improved quality of life, better psychological health and better sleep, the morning yogis had both more energy and even better sleep. As the researchers concluded: ‘Morning yoga yields superior benefits for sleep, chronotype, sattva traits, and dietary choices.’ Sattva traits are those traits associated with traditional yogis – serenity, clarity of thinking, calmness, compassion, kindness.
But to this, I say – do yoga whenever you can fit it in!
The optimum scenario appears to be exactly as my trainer-to-the-military decreed: add yoga into your mix of activities. A 2025 study found that adding yoga as an extra activity reduced mortality risk by 51%.
This study suggested that yoga makes the perfect complement to aerobic movement like walking, and to resistance movement like swimming or working with weights. As the authors pithily put it: ‘Yoga participation and meeting the combined [cardio and strength] guidelines may provide additional and independent protective mortality benefits compared with meeting exercise guidelines without yoga.’
Do you regularly practice yoga? Has it helped? We’d love to know. Yoga continues to be understudied so I’ll be watching this space carefully.
I’ve got several more public events coming up – both talks and walking masterclasses – including some new ones. I’ll be in conversation with Susan this Thursday (17 June) in Putney, London, and then at the following places at the following times. I’d love to see you there. And a huge thank you to every Age Weller who’s turned out to one of my events so far – it was an absolute joy to meet you!
Kings Cross, London 18 June, 5.30-7 pm, at the London Book Barge. Ticket here
Wimbledon, London 20 June, 10.30-11.30 am https://www.waterstones.com/events/a-wimbledon-walking-tour-with-annabel-streets/london-wimbledon
Fulham, London, Nomad Books, 2.30 – 3.30 pm. Ticket here.
Covent Garden, London, Stanford Books, 1.00-1.45 pm. Ticket here.
Newark Book Festival, 10 July, 7.30-8.30 pm. Ticket here.
Marlborough Literary Festival, 25 September https://www.marlboroughlitfest.org/tickets/
Annabel
Hi Annabel, I’m sorry to miss meeting you when you are in Fulham but we’ll still be in Greece. I’ve been doing yoga for the past 35 years and I too have discovered Kassandra along with various others after my amazing teacher moved to France.
I’ve found yoga to have been so beneficial in a myriad of ways, balance for sure but mainly for my all round take on life. This has been Hatha yoga as I’m not drawn to other styles. The concentration and focus required apart from being relaxing in the real sense of the word has helped hugely with being mindful. This I wasn’t expecting. In the past 7 years I’ve added Pilates to my mix and I love the combination.
I wonder if you’ll be back in SW London or maybe you do live in the area? It would be fun to meet up. I have an allotment in Fulham Palace area so could show you around!
Thank you for your always interesting emails, this one particularly resonated with mentioning Kassandra and Yoga!
Best wishes, Namaste,
Lalu
Oh that’s a shame but enjoy Greece! Yes, I think Kassandra is excellent. And I think you can now do yogalates – a melange of the two. Fulham Palace is one of my favourite places. Lucky you, having an allotment next door! Keep going with the yoga and the gardening!
This post really resonates with me! I’ve enjoyed your books , Annabel and am also keenly interested in the work that both you and Susan Saunders do for the Age Well Project and Brain Health.
Yoga ,walking and swimming . My 3 faves! I try and walk 5 miles a day around parks and South London hills , have recently returned to swimming regularly and do a couple of weight training sessions . But I’ve practiced yoga off and on for most of my life and when I turned 60 (68 now)and retired from my job as an English teacher in Further Ed, I trained to be a Kundalini Yoga teacher and I can certainly say the daily practice and also teaching classes and workshops have helped me enormously.
Everyone has their own preferred yoga style and Kundalini suits me. It’s very holistic , varied and completely accessible for all age groups. During COVID I taught on Zoom and one participant who was in her early 70’s and had never practiced any form of yoga before , took to it like a duck to water. She used a chair and modified poses to accommodate her requirements.
Kundalini has also been the subject of medical research, looking at the benefits of a regular practice to support memory function in older women with mild cognitive impairment. A 12 week programme showed significant improvement in memory performance, focus and concentration.
My own practice has completely eradicated lower back pain , keeps me calm and grounded in times of stress and overwhelm , has given me strong arms, legs and core and developed interoception ,the ability to pay close attention to the internal experiences in the body which is a very useful skill to have as we age!
Thank you, Ruth, for this considered reply. I don’t know Kundalini and shall investigate. So glad this resonated – and thanks for the research insights too!
https://alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/alz.073853
This is one of the trials that Helen Lavretsky , a psychiatrist at UCLA , performed.
Kundalini has had a chequered history and has the reputation of being a bit cult like(its founder Yogi Bhajan certainly did not live by the principles he advocated) but as a practice it really can be transformative.
Thanks so much for your kind words Ruth. I regularly practice Kirtan Kriya meditation which I understand to be part of the Kundalini yoga tradition. But have never tried this form of yoga. How does it differ from Vinyasa or Hatha?
Hi SusanSo Kundalini Yoga(KY), does have some similarities with other yoga styles, some postures in common and breath( or mantra) is almost always synchronised with movement. There are however an enormous( reputedly 5000)number of different sequences in KY, often using exercises and postures that are not present anywhere else.It contains movements and body shapes that may not have been executed since early childhood , if at all!
Some of the exercises are dynamic and repetitive and can continue for many minutes at a time. Kirtan Kriya does reflect how other Kundalini Kriyas ( Kriya means continuous activity or movement) work in that it combines mantra , movement and visualisation.
There are Kriyas for every eventuality, physical, psychological and spiritual .
As I mentioned in my previous comment , Kundalini can appear cult like , with the chanting of standard mantras in every session , the wearing of head coverings and white clothing, and for some the adherence to a specific ( slightly Sikh derived ) lifestyle. None of these are necessary for the practice to be beneficial .
To see what a Kundalini session is like I’d recommend Yogigems( Gemma Bliss) YouTube channel. She has produced many free videos of different Kriyas and is a really lovely accessible teacher. She doesn’t play very much music( music is used to support rhythmic movement in the practice and is very helpful) but otherwise I think she’s a wonderful introduction the Kundalini experience.
Sorry for lengthy reply, as you can see , I’m passionate about it!
Ooooh this is so interesting Ruth, thanks so much! I’ll have a look at Gemma Bliss
Really interesting post, thank you. I think it will bring me back to yoga
Which are the most important posed to include in a daily practice for us oldies to improve health and sleep?
I mix up my classes to get a range of movements. Balance movements (all those one legged poses) are good to protect against falls. If you’ve got osteoporosis (or osteopenia in the spine) you might need to avoid certain poses – demanding twists and fast-paced forward folds, for instance. Your body will tell what it doesn’t like! Or search online… Good luck!
Just off to one of my twice-weekly yoga classes in a minute! I took up yoga in the year 2000 when I was 46, and was almost always the only man in the class. I’m pleased to say that more and more men are taking it up and classes are now 35-50% men. I have always walked, but added weights in winter/swimming in summer about 5 years ago. That triple combination seems to offer everything – strength, balance, flexibility and lots of mental benefits including, as you say, good sleep. Got to go!
You seem to be doing all the right things – Bravo! It’s great to see men embracing yoga… (and women embracing football etc!)
Thank you Annabel, I think yoga is just what I need!
Give it a go – free and easy online! Good luck…
Thank you for an interesting article. Would Pilates act as a good substitute for yoga, or does it provide other, inherently different, benefits?
I absolutely think Pilates offers many – if not all – the benefits of yoga. Certainly for balance, flexibility and strength. I’ll take a look – maybe I’ll write up a new piece if the data is interesting. Watch this space!