Longevity Chair Yoga Series with Karen O’Neil

Longevity 3-Week Series: Chair Yoga for Bone Health

A diagnosis of Osteopenia or Osteoporosis can leave you feeling uncertain about what movement practices are safe going forward. Yoga can be a great partner, but you worry about the up and down. A chair yoga practice can allow you to work with elements that reduce your fracture risk without needing to get down on the floor. We will work seated and standing to accomplish your goals and use the chair as a tool to build a practice that works for you.

Karen O’Neil, Yoga Instructor

I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes in 1977, and from that day forward I knew that daily physical exercise would be part of my treatment plan. In the early years, I went from being a runner to a cycler to doing step aerobics, always going to the max. Yoga floated in and out of my life, but wasn’t a regular thing. Then, I fractured my spine in a horseback riding accident, and after a year of pain, I had surgery and slowly began to recover. Yoga was the perfect companion, never too demanding, always letting me get my own way and yet healing me in ways I didn’t expect. The mind-body-spirit connection really resonated with me, and became a blueprint for my daily life that continues today.

As a senior myself, I want to be able to do the things I love and remain independent for as long as I can. Isn’t that what we all want? I want people to know that lack of movement causes aging, not the other way around. There really is something we can do to make our later years more mobile, and that thing can be yoga. My hope is that I can be a part of someone’s discovery that this really is possible in their own life.

I am a 200-hour registered vinyasa yoga teacher certified to teach Yoga for Osteoporosis, and have done extensive additional training in Senior Yoga, Chair Yoga and Yin Yoga.