5 Best Yoga Poses for Parkinson's Disease

People with Parkinson's disease often have trouble moving their body. However, yoga can help them relieve Parkinson's symptoms and improve their physical strength and flexibility.

Yoga has been proven to improve flexibility, balance, strength, and overall well-being in people who suffer from Parkinson's. Here are a few yoga poses for people with Parkinson's disease:

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Best yoga poses for Parkinson's Disease

Here's a look at five such poses:

#1 Mountain Pose

Standing in the Mountain pose is one of the best ways to begin your practice and prepare for other poses, such as Warrior I. This pose can help you connect with the earth while strengthening your legs, ankles, and feet.

To do this pose:

• Stand with your feet together, with your heels slightly apart.
• Place your hands on your hips, and spread your fingers wide.
• Bend your knees slightly, and tilt your pelvis forward so that it’s parallel to the floor. That will help open up the hips.

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#2 Knees to Chest Pose

It's great for opening up the entire body.

Here's how you can do it:

• Lie on your back, with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor.
• Bend your right knee into your chest, and grab hold of it with both hands.
• Alternately, you can place a pillow between the backs of your legs and lower back as support for the pose.
• Breathe deeply for several minutes till you feel relaxed and comfortable.
• Repeat on the other side.

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#3 Sun Salutation

Sun salutations should be performed at both the start and end of your practice, as well as during any other time you find yourself feeling stiff or tired. It's a great way to warm up, build strength and flexibility, destress, and find focus for your yoga session.

The sun salutation can be done at any time during your yoga practice — before you begin standing poses like triangle Pose or warrior II, at the start of seated meditations, after savasana (corpse pose) when you're ready to get up from laying down. It can also be done before bedtime and anywhere that makes sense for where you are in your practice.

Sun Salutation is a sequence of postures performed with synchronized breath control (pranayama). The flow starts with some simple standing poses followed by some challenging ones, like triangle pose, virabhadrasana I, virabhadrasana II, adho mukha svanasana, and urdhva mukha svanasana.

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#4 Chair Pose

The chair pose is a great way to test your flexibility and open up tight muscles in your body.

Here's how to do it:

• Stand with your feet together, with your knees slightly bent.
• Bend forward from the hips; place your hands in front of you, and bring them together. Keep your feet shoulder-width apart.
• Exhale as you lift up into an inverted 'V' shape by stretching both arms at once, reaching towards the ceiling with arms extended overhead.
• Hold for 15 seconds before returning slowly back down onto all fours for ten breaths.
• Repeat on the other side.

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#5 Cat-cow Pose

In this pose, you will be on all fours, with your knees directly below your hips and wrists below your shoulders. The spine should be in a neutral position when looking straight ahead.

Do it as follows:

• Begin on all fours by inhaling and lifting the head, chest, and upper spine off the mat while tucking your tailbone down towards the floor.
• Exhale as you round through your spine while gently pressing into your hands to move into the cow pose. The opposite movement of cat-cow (the name is pretty self-explanatory).
• Repeat 5-10 times before transitioning back to the cat pose by moving deeper till you are able to place both hands either side of one foot for support.
• Return to the original pose, and repeat 5-10 times before switching sides and repeating the sequence twice more for a total of three sets on each side.

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Takeaway

Yoga offers many benefits for those with Parkinson's disease. The practice offers stress relief, improves balance and coordination, and can even help reduce depression and anxiety.

These poses should be performed slowly at first to allow your body time to adjust before increasing the intensity of the movement. If you have any questions about whether or not these exercises could be right for you, consult your doctor.