A new study has shown that specific yoga programs may be able to assist older people in improving their balance and stability.

The area of poor balance and falls risk is a very important one, and one which is gaining prominence in the fitness industry as a whole. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that nearly a third of older adults suffer a fall of some type each year.

Twenty-four elderly females who took part in a nine-week Iyengar yoga program designed specifically for senior citizens, were found to have a faster stride, increased flexibility in the legs, improved single-leg stance and more confidence in walking and balance.

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The first ever Australian Yoga Week, which ran from 8 to 14 October, was a great success in terms of both participation and charity fundraising. The initiative built on last year’s Yoga Expo and incorporated a number of activities throughout the week, culminating in the 2007 Yoga Expo on Sunday 14 October.

As part of Yoga Week, the Yoga Aid Challenge took place in studios and at locations across Australia with the main event occurring at Sydney’s Botanical Gardens from sunrise until 9am on 10 October. Over 300 yoga practitioners took part in a challenge which saw them performing 108 sun salutations to raise money for two Australian children’s charities, Barnardos and Save the Children.

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As China’s economic dragon continues roaring, standards of living are improving and people are spending more time and money on their fitness and wellbeing. The increasingly affluent Chinese middle class in particular appears to be drawn to yoga, and classes in the mind body practice are springing up throughout China’s cities and more developed regions.

Beijing yoga teacher Mimi said, ‘Yoga is getting more and more popular among rich young professionals. Five years ago when I started to teach yoga, my students were mostly coaches at gyms or sports schools, but now white-collar workers dominate’.

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A New York company is helping to increase worker productivity by taking its mind body practices to the workplace.

It sounds like a typical New York story, but this one makes a lot of sense and the success of the business model speaks for itself. A recent poll showed that only one in four employees in the US deemed themselves to be ‘truly engaged’ at work. With such high rates of worker stress, dissatisfaction and its associated loss of productivity, founding her company Balance Integration Corp to deliver yoga and on-site stress relief in office blocks across Manhattan and beyond seemed like a natural remedy to ‘Work-life satisfaction guru’ Tevis Gale. ‘We create employees who thrive. All our programming is intended to unleash employee productivity, and happiness’ she said.

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Scientists in India claim to have proved that yoga can help relieve the pain of pre-menstrual tension.

Dr Ratna Sharma, a physiologist at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, informed the World Congress of Neuroscience in Melbourne that for the first time, scientific evidence has been gathered proving that yoga helps PMS; ‘It is widely understood in India that yoga works (for PMS) but we’ve never shown it’ she said.

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