The impact of adding Yoga to my life is a marvel. I spent last Friday and Saturday at a yoga-intensive workshop and I’m again astounded by what a completely transformative experience a yoga practice can be….

I highly recommend 3 days a week of yoga for healthy aging.

I’ve only practiced yoga for 2 years and the anti aging impact is so profound that I know I’ve altered the course of my aging journey.  My musculoskeletal problems were taking away more and more of my functionality. From what I have experienced, yoga has uped the odds that I’ll age as a fit, functional, vital woman. I won’t join the ranks of the frail elderly without a fight and yoga is one of the powerful puzzle pieces I’ve found to help me.

Scientific study supports my observation of yoga’s benefits on my body and mind and has shown that yoga:

• Reduces low back pain
• Improves balance
• Straightens spinal kyphosis (the excessive hunching over that happens to people as they age)
• Improves muscle strength and reverses the muscle loss that happens with age
• Improves rheumatoid arthritis symptoms
• Improves menopausal symptoms including hot flashes, insomnia and mood swings
• Decreases anxiety and depression
• Improves control of type 2 diabetes
• Increases flexibility

Being the good doctor that I am, I did a medical literature search on the benefits of yoga and this is what I found:

I started doing yoga for my back pain and I can attest to it’s benefits so I wasn’t surprised when I saw The Harvard Women’s Health Watch recommending yoga to help people reduce back pain. Scientists have also found that yoga helps straighten the hunched over back that we get as we age (called kyphosis).  In my experience, this hunching over makes doing everything harder because it puts new strain and stresses on our body that we aren’t designed for, thus leading to more injury and disability.

Another study found that yoga decreased pain, improved balance and increased functionality for people with rheumatoid arthritis. Kaliji, the founder of Tri-yoga which is what I practice, notes that she is the only member of her large family not suffering from severe rheumatoid arthritis. She attributes this to her 30 plus years of yoga and her vegan diet.    It’s certainly worth a try for anyone suffering from  rheumatoid arthritis, since all the treatment alternatives have significant side effects and don’t really stop this debilitating disease.

Yoga also provides excellent total body resistance exercise training which slows the loss of muscle that we all experience as we age. The Buck Institute for Age Research demonstrated that resistance exercise training actually reverses a good portion of age related muscle loss, which is otherwise an inevitable consequence of aging for us all.   My yoga class give me the most total body resistance workout of my life; both small and large muscles work against gravity moving the mass of my body weight (which is heavier than any dumbbell or weight machine setting I ever used).  My strength continues to increase and I’m certain my yoga practice is serve me and my muscles well as I age.

The study that surprised me the most was that yoga-nidra helps control type 2 diabetes! I would have never of expected that, but in a study from India, people with type 2 diabetes had better blood glucose control when they added 30 minutes a day of yoga-nidra to their lives. Yoga-nidra is the meditative relaxation exercise done usually at the end of a yoga class.  This benefit of yoga is fascinating to me.

On the other hand, I’m not at all surprised that menopausal symptoms are reduced by yoga, mine certainly were.  Scientific evidence suggests that a yoga practice reduces hot flashes, insomnia and the lovely mood issues we women get with when we hit menopause.  It’s curious that I gravitated towards yoga during menopause and I’m glad I did  (Hmmm… survival instinct,inner guidance, guardian angel or just a coincidence?). Amazing!

Finally, yoga is great for us mentally and emotionally, even for the lucky folks who aren’t in menopause.  A study published in Behavioral Cognitiveve Psychotherapy showed that yoga increased mindfulness, which the authors define as attention to the present moment, having an accepting and open attitude toward experience, and insightful understanding.  The authors conclude that this indicates that yoga may help prevent the negative emotional states of anxiety and depression.  Again-fabulous!

There are different styles of yoga and different quality instructors.  I think the most important aspect to studying yoga is to pick the right instructor. In my experience, there are some great yoga instructors and then there are people with a yoga teaching certificate who have very little experience and knowledge and who don’t really know what they’re doing.  Until I found my present (and wonderful) yoga teacher, I actually managed to hurt myself in yoga classes. Yoga is an ancient practice that’s stood the test of time.  It’s the instructor that determines what you learn and therefore critical to your experience. I recommend that you follow your gut and search until you find a really good yoga instructor.

For my local Sonoma County readers, I study with Kashi at the Devi Yoga Center.  Kashi has practiced a form of yoga called Tri-yoga for over 20 years.  Her experience, judgment and the authenticity of her yoga makes for an extraordinary yoga class.  I’ve also found that the Tri-yoga style of yoga practice is the perfect fit for me.  The Hatha yoga poses are choreographed into slow and continuously moving routines (flows).  This constant movement not only works the big muscles, but also works the small muscles around the joints as we move repeatedly between the postures.  This also creates a nice meditative state during the entire ‘workout’ that crosses two things off of my ‘to do’ list-meditation and resistance exercise. Add to that the stretching poses which fend off old age stiffness, and I’m in ‘self-help multi-tasker’ nirvana! There’s also some crazy breathing exercises and funny finger workouts that my body seems to benefit from as well.  I just love my yoga class!

The final benefit I’ve found with my class at the Devi Yoga Center is the social camaraderie and mutual support of  people who share my interest in health and well being.  We’re on the same paths, trying to take good care of our bodies and minds.  Sharing that with compatible people reinforces the efforts I’m making in my own life.

I highly recommend that everyone interested in healthy aging add a yoga practice to their life!

Wishing you all the best.

If you found this information helpful, you may want to read:

Post Holiday BMI Shocker Gets Me Serious About My Middle Age Belly Fat

Why I Do A Detox Cleansing Fast To Improve My Health

Cynthia Bailey MD’s Recommendations For The Alkaline Mediterranean Diet

References

Resistance exercise reverses aging in human skeletal muscle, Melov S, Tarnopolsky MA, Beckman K, Felkey K, Hubbard A.( The Buck Institute for Age Research, Novato, California, United States of America) PLoS One. 2007 May 23;2(5):e465.

Yoga therapy helps relieve chronic lower back pain, Harv Womens Health Watch. 2009 Nov;17(3):4

Effect of yoga-nidra on blood glucose level in diabetic patients,  Amita S, Prabhakar S, Manoj I, Harminder S, Pavan T. Indian J Physiol Pharmacol. 2009 Jan-Mar;53(1):97-101.

A pilot study measuring the impact of yoga on the trait of mindfulness, Shelov DV, Suchday S, Friedberg JP.  Behav Cogn Psychother. 2009 Oct;37(5):595-8. Epub 2009 Sep 15.

Yoga decreases kyphosis in senior women and men with adult-onset hyperkyphosis: results of a randomized controlled trial. Greendale GA, Huang MH, Karlamangla AS, Seeger L, Crawford S. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2009 Sep;57(9):1569-79. Epub 2009 Jul 21.

Exercise to reduce vasomotor and other menopausal symptoms: a review, Daley AJ, Stokes-Lampard HJ, Macarthur C,  Maturitas. 2009 Jul 20;63(3):176-80. Epub 2009 Mar 13.

A pilot study of a Hatha yoga treatment for menopausal symptoms,  Booth-LaForce C, Thurston RC, Taylor MR, Maturitas. 2007 Jul 20;57(3):286-95. Epub 2007 Mar 2.

Functional and physiological effects of yoga in women with rheumatoid arthritis: a pilot study, Bosch PR, Traustadóttir T, Howard P, Matt KS, Altern Ther Health Med. 2009 Jul-Aug;15(4):24-31.

Photo attributions:

This morning the Laguna De Santa Rosa was a glorious burst of color from the office reception room.  Spring is around the corner and it’s a lovely time to be in Sonoma County!

Dermatologist Dr. Cynthia Bailey answers your questions about skin care and skin problems

Hi Dr. Bailey,

I am 49 years old. I use Tretinoin 0.5% for sundamage and aging purposes. Is it possible to add Glycolic acid to my routine also?  I am wondering if there is a Glycolic face cream I can add?During the day I am currently using Glycolix Fortified Facial Cream for Dry Skin and the Citrix Antixodant SPF30 sunscreen.

Thanks so much!

Heather

Dear Heather,

I love both tretinoin and glycolic acid for sundamage and anti aging skin care.  Tretinoin and Glycolic acid are both powerful anti aging skin care ingredients that make very noticeable improvements in the appearance of the skin by:

• Lighten age spots
• Smooth and exfoliate the skin giving it a more luminous character
• Work to reverse wrinkles by building new collagen just underneath the surface of the skin.

The ultimate anti aging skin care product combo is to use both of these and throw in a strong professional level vitamin C product every 4th day. Each of these ingredients works to rejuvenate the skin by a different mechanism, and thus combination therapy yields more age reversal that using just one alone.

Unfortunately, all these highly effective anti aging ingredients are irritating.  Only people with really tolerant skin can combine tretinoin and glycolic acid therapy.  People with sensitive skin (especially people with rosacea, eczema or facial seborrheic dermatitis) typically have to pick either tretinoin OR glycolic acid.  People who can’t tolerate using tretinoin with glycolic acid can sometimes tolerate using just one of these ingredient with a topical vitamin C product.  This is because the vitamin C is not exfoliating.  Vitamin C is, however, irritating to exfoliated skin so it’s still a little tricky.

The reason that it’s tricky to combine these wonderful and effective anti aging ingredients is that the glycolic acid and the tretinoin are both very exfoliating.  Exfoliated skin has a more refined and luminous appearance, but also  absorbs things faster.  Because the glycolic acid and the vitamin C both have an acid pH, they can be irritating to exfoliated skin.  In addition, tretinoin causes a ‘break in’ rash (called retinoid dermatitis) when a person first starts using it.  The skin adjusts in about a month and the retinoid dermatitis typically goes away, but skin with retinoid dermatitis gets really irritated from the acid pH of the glycolic acid or the vitamin C products.

When people want to try to combine anti aging home therapy, my favorite method is to start them on the tretinoin at night for at least 2 months. When their skin has adjusted to the tretinoin, we add professional level glycolic acid during the day as I describe below.  When the combination is tolerated and can be applied every day, then we throw in the CRS Vitamin C at least twice a week in place of the glycolic acid.  To help the skin tolerate this powerful anti aging treatment, I add Replenix CF cream twice a day.  I’ve found Replenix to really increase a person’s ability to handle more anti aging skin care products than it otherwise would.

When a person wants to try combining glycolic acid and tretinoin therapy I recommend they start with one first, let the skin adjust for a month or two, then add the second. They use the second product a few days a week to begin with.  Gradually, as their skin adjusts to the new second product, they work up to using the second product every day.  If parts of their face do well with the combination but other areas become irritated, then they don’t put the second product on the sensitive areas.  When their skin gets irritated for any reason, they need to stop both products until the skin is back to normal, at which point they repeat this process over a shorter period of time.

Of course, any exfoliating anti aging treatment means that a person MUST wear a 5% or more microsized zinc oxide sunscreen like Citrix every day, all year, regardless of their planned activities.  Because exfoliated skin allows more damaging sun rays to enter the skin, I also want people to wear hats and try to keep their face out of direct sunlight as much as possible.  This is important for skin cancer prevention, and it’s also critical for their anti aging skin rejuvenation to be effective.

Because combination therapy is complicated and involves layering products on the skin, I write out the order of product application for my patients.  The typical product application regimen that I recommend is:

Morning

1. Wash with a gentle cleanser (eg. Noble Zinc Soap or Toleriane Cleanser)
2. Replenix CF Cream
3. Glycolic acid product (choose based on your skin type) or CRS Vitamin C Cream
4. Moisturizer if needed (eg. Glycolix Ultra Lite or Fortefied, or your favorite non copper containing moisturizer)
5. 5% or more micro sized zinc oxide sunscreen (Citrix is the most popular)

Night time

1. Wash with a gentle cleanser as above
2. Replenix CF Cream
3. Moisturizer of choice if needed
4. Wait 15 minutes then Tretinoin (begin every 3rd night and gradually work up to every night)

If a person finds that they are unable to tolerate both tretinoin and glycolic home therapy, then I recommend they try combining tretinoin at night, CRS vitamin C during the day and have occasional glycolic acid peels done carefully by a skin care professional.  Again, the exfoliation achieved with tretinoin makes the peels tricky and the skin care professional needs to be experienced with this situation.  The risk is that the peel may be go too deep and injure the skin, potentially causing scarring.  Remember, professional skin care is capable of creating powerful skin rejuvenation, but there are risks; professional anti aging skin care products have to be strong in order to overcoming nature, it’s not like buying some fluffy, ineffective products at the department store.

I wish you the best of luck.  Be sure to talk with your tretinoin prescribing doctor about what you’ve learned here. This information is general information and I can’t promise it is appropriate for your specific skin.

I hope you found this helpful and informative.  Thanks for sending me your question.

Warm Regards,

Cynthia Bailey MD, Dermatologist

For more information on anti aging skin care you may want to read:

Dermatologist’s Own Personal Tricks to Control Age Spots, Sun Spots and Uneven Pigmentation

Now Between Fall and Early Spring is the Best Time Of Year To Reclaim Soft Skin and Treat Age Spots

To send me your skin care questions or to ask me to address a specific dermatology topic, please use the  ‘Contact Dr. Bailey page’ on the left sidebar or click here to load the page.

Disclaimer: Please realize that availing yourself of the opportunity to submit and receive answers to your questions from Dr. Bailey does not confer a doctor/patient relationship with Dr. Bailey. The information provided by Dr. Bailey is general health information inspired by your question. It should not be a substitute for obtaining medical advice from your physician and is not intended to diagnose or treat any specific medical problem (and is not an extension of the care Dr. Bailey has provided in her office for existing patients of her practice). Never ignore your own doctor’s advice because of something you read here; this information is for general informational purpose only.

This is my fight against my middle age bulge.

I’ve been blogging about my personal diet and exercise programs and want to update my readers on how they’re going.  I’m experimenting on myself, as usual.  I’m having good results and want to share what I’m learning.

My post holiday BMI shocker kicked me into a frenzy to send the new  belly fat packing; having my lifelong pear get joined by an apple, forming what I call a papple, isn’t something I’ll take lying down.

Diet Program

In a January blog post I outlined the Alkaline Mediterranean Diet that I created.  This is the diet I feel best on and have aimed for over the years.  Aiming doesn’t always mean I hit the mark so I fortified my resolve after the holidays when my BMI tipped up to 25.

On my Alkaline Mediterranean Diet, a minimum 60% of foods that are eaten should be alkaline forming foods and a maximum of 40 % of what I eat are acid forming foods.    This is a primarily vegetable and fruit based diet with low glycemic whole grains, lean meats and dairy, and some fish, nuts and oils. I’ve been good at making sure that  60% of my food is low calorie alkaline foods. I also limit the dairy, and protein food portions to 6 oz. serving sizes. I eat all the veggies and fruit I want.  I mostly keep the 40% acid foods healthy, low calorie choices.

The low glycemic, low calorie food choices went well for 5 weeks, steadily sending the papple packing. Valentine’s Day weekend was a bust, however, and for the next 2 weeks decedent gourmet foodie treats became my 40% acid forming foods. I was holding steady weight wise, but boy those foods are hard to kick once they make their way into my diet.  Chocolate, wine even a piece of a lemon tart-argh!

Time for an intervention.  To reset my metabolism for weight loss I decided to use my March week off to do another detox cleansing fast. A detox cleanse also quickly fixes my food driven musculoskeletal aches and pains.   Bodies however have inherent alarm bells that go off when calorie intake falls below calorie usage; a primitive survival mechanism held over from the days of famines, obsolete and not useful in our modern land of abundance.

During the first day of a cleanse my body always complains. I’m hungry and fantasizing about foods. By day 2 I’m in the groove.  Belly fat obviously melts on a cleansing fast, and at day 4, melting it is.  I feel great, pain is just about gone, and Iplan to keep it up for 7 days this time.  After 7 days I’ll taper off the cleanse by slowly going back to the Alkaline Mediterranean diet.

A detox cleansing fast isn’t for everyone.  Anyone in fragile health or with a tendency for diabetes or other metabolic diseases needs to do this under their doctor’s supervision.  There are a number of residential programs that help people do a cleanse. I don’t have time for that so I created my own program and integrated it into my life.  Patients ask me about it so I posted my program in my blog.

Exercise

Adding 150 minutes of cardio per week back to my life boosted my vitality and kept me loosing belly fat in spite of the Valentines diet slide. I added three 50 minute cardio workouts a week to my 4.5 hours of yoga and 3 hours of ballroom dance.  This made a huge difference to  shrinking the papple as well as to my overall quality of being.

Consistent cardio exercise, done every week is a must for anyone working on maintaining good health.  I’ve done regular cardio my entire life until last year when my back forced me to quit my cardio dance class.  I never filled the cardio void and this probably has something to do with the appearance of the papple.

I’m not pushing myself with the cardio while on the cleansing fast.  I do a power walk every other day and continue with yoga, but the spinning and swimming will wait a week.

So…….

My do-it-yourself physical health rehab program.

Created by a doctor and aimed at the middle age obesity and  belly fat that’s become an American way of life.

If you found this information helpful, you may want to read:

Post Holiday BMI Shocker Gets Me Serious About My Middle Age Belly Fat

Why I Do A Detox Cleansing Fast To Improve My Health

Cynthia Bailey MD’s Recommendations For The Alkaline Mediterranean Diet

Photo attribution:

Dermatologist Dr. Cynthia Bailey answers your questions about skin care and skin problems

Dear Dr. Bailey,

I love the information in your blogs.  I have a question about white spots that are on my arms and legs.  They don’t tan, are they a form of skin cancer?

Thank you, looking forward to reading more info on your blog,

Vicki

Dear Vicki,

The most common cause of white spots on the arms and legs is guttate hyopmelanotic macules.  This long name actually refers to a very simple condition-the flat little white spots that start showing up around middle age.  They are smooth surfaced, slightly shiny and don’t itch or hurt.  They are entirely benign and don’t become cancer or anything other than a decorative nuisance.  They don’t tan and they still show up when a person uses fake tanners.

Guttate hypomelanotic macules are usually seen on the outside of the arms and the legs.  They are especially likely to be seen in people who have had a lot of sun exposure during their lifetime, leading us to believe that they are somehow a part of sun damage.  I usually also see the brown sun spots (the age spots that are actually sun freckles due to sun damage) on a person’s skin when I see guttate hypomelanotic macules.

Doctors don’t know why people get these little spots and they are impossible to fix.  They can’t be burned off, scraped off or lasered.  I recommend that people exfoliate their skin with my Anti Aging Body Kit because in my experience it helps a little. I discovered that it seemed to slow how quickly I was developing guttate hypomelanotic macules on my own skin and now I recommend that patients use the kit for the same reason.

Not seeing your white spots I can’t be certain that you have guttate hypomelanotic macules.  The information I’ve just given is inspired by your question, but you need to see your doctor for an exact diagnosis.  There are other causes of white spots on the skin, some are common and some are rare, some have important health implications and others don’t.

Even though I can’t guarantee that this information fits your specific situation, I hope you’ve found it interesting and helpful.

Warm Regards,

Cynthia Bailey MD, Dermatologist

To send me your skin care questions or to ask me to address a specific dermatology topic, please use the  ‘Contact Dr. Bailey page’ on the left sidebar or click here to load the page.

Disclaimer: Please realize that availing yourself of the opportunity to submit and receive answers to your questions from Dr. Bailey does not confer a doctor/patient relationship with Dr. Bailey. The information provided by Dr. Bailey is general health information inspired by your question. It should not be a substitute for obtaining medical advice from your physician and is not intended to diagnose or treat any specific medical problem (and is not an extension of the care Dr. Bailey has provided in her office for existing patients of her practice). Never ignore your own doctor’s advice because of something you read here; this information is for general informational purpose only.

If you found this information helpful, you may also want to read:

Early Skin Cancer Detection Saves Lives; You Need An Annual Full Skin Exam