anti-agEing yoga

By yoga guru Barbara Currie (that’s her here) — she’s 75 with a 26in waist!

yES, I can do the splits. Stand on my head? I can do that, too. In fact, I can do the splits while standing on my head. I should also mention that I’m a 75-year-old grandmother of two. Yes, that’s right: 75.

I might have just celebrated my golden wedding anniversary, but I like to think that my body is as toned, slender and strong as it was in my 20s.

So, what is my secret? It’s simple: yoga. You’ve probably rolled your eyes at that. Surely, you might think, there’s got to be more to it. How can a bit of stretching keep a 75-year-old as lithe and energetic as a teenager?

Well, let me promise you, it can. I am living proof of the marvellous anti-ageing powers of yoga. What’s more, it is never too late to start.

And when you do start, just watch the clock turn back. Even if you’re stiff or have a stubborn spare tyre around your middle, you can do yoga.

You may not have touched your toes since your school days but, with a little help from me, you can improve your flexibility, strength and vitality and rediscover your youth, all by following my simple guide to antiageing yoga.

Starting in today’s Mail on Sunday, and continuing in the Irish Daily Mail from tomorrow, I will show you how to lose weight, improve your looks and become more flexible in as little as ten minutes a day.

So many youngsters espouse the powers of yoga, and Hollywood stars including Gywneth Paltrow and Jennifer Aniston put their fabulous figures down to their daily practice.

BUT what’s less well known is how yoga can help those of us of a certain age — keeping joints supple, stopping muscles wasting away, improving balance and raising energy levels.

Indeed, the list of age-related conditions yoga can alleviate or prevent is legion: osteoporosis, arthritis, weight gain, sciatica, poor circulation, dips in libido, mind fog, menopausal symptoms, backache, hearing problems, fading eye-sight, heart disease, constipation, hormonal imbalance, weakened pelvic floor, headaches, anxiety, sleeping trouble and more.

Add to this the fact that regular yoga practice can rejuvenate our skin and hair and even conquer cellulite — all that deep breathing and stress relief provides an almost instant youth boost to our skin — and you can begin to see why I attribute my figure and glowing complexion to yoga.

Until I fell in love with yoga, I had an entirely average life. I was born in 1942 in Nottinghamshire. My mother was a nurse and my father a headmaster, before he went off to war. There were no special privileges for my brother and me: we were brought up on rations, had no toys and occupied ourselves walking and exploring the world around us.

Life may not have been luxurious, but it was idyllic in its own way. Exercise was the usual school gym class, and that was about it.

Later, as a State Registered Nurse, I worked at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, London, before becoming an air hostess for BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation, later British Airways) when I was 22. It was a very glamorous time — waterskiing in Bermuda, massages in Tokyo, swimming in the Caribbean — and working life was lovely.

We had to stay trim, though, as there were very strict grooming rules for air hostesses, which was a nice discipline to get into. The food on-board was tremendous: lots of fresh salads and delicious, healthy main courses.

My work even led to romance: on a trip to Gibraltar, I met my husband Gordon, a hotelier, now 79. We married in 1967 and I had to leave my job, as all women did in those days. I had two children, a girl and a boy, now 49 and 46, in pretty rapid succession.

Then we had to move to Scotland from our home in Surrey for my husband’s work. Both children were under three, I was frazzled, stiff and in pretty awful shape.

Profoundly lonely, I didn’t know a soul. Back then, there were no playgroups or anything like that, so I decided I had to join something just to meet people.

The ads in the local paper revealed two options: curling or yoga. I decided against curling (too much like housework with all that brushing!). I was 29 when I went to my first yoga class and didn’t really know a thing about it. This was the Seventies, and I suppose most people thought it was a bit weird, so I didn’t have any expectations. But as I walked into the room, the teacher at the front radiated health. From behind, she looked like an 18-year-old. While I never discovered her real age, she must have been well into her 60s.

She moved into every position with effortless grace. Puffing with effort, and with my body almost totally rigid, I thought: ‘Whatever she’s doing, it works.’

And it’s as simple as that. Yoga works. I left that first class walking on air and have never looked back. That marvellous teacher taught me to become a teacher and I have been a yoga instructor ever since. Some of my pupils at my classes have been with me for more than 40 years. My youngest student is 15, my oldest 86.

I hold 13 sessions over five days a week and each lasts for around an hour. I do my own yoga exercises on Saturday and Sunday and leave time for a walk in the

country with my husband most days. It all combines to keep me happy and trim: indeed, I managed to keep the 24 in waist I had when I was 18 into my 60s. It has expanded a little in the past decade or so, but only to 26in, so I can live with that.

Thanks to yoga, I don’t bother with pricey face creams. A bit of Dove soap and body lotion does me well, and I use L’Oreal Revitalift creams. These, combined with my exercises, mean I haven’t needed Botox!

And while my back, knees and hips are pain-free, others have not been so lucky.

Yoga has also helped me to avoid the triple threat suffered by so many older women: bingo wings, cellulite and a mum-tum. Even the most gentle yoga can help weight loss, because certain postures stimulate the thyroid gland, which is responsible for regulating hunger, cravings and controlling your metabolism.

Plus, yoga gives your health an overall boost, which naturally makes you not want to indulge. It has certainly kept me on the straight and narrow — no cakes or biscuits to cure my blues.

In tomorrow’s paper, I’ll explain more about how yoga can help you to shift the pounds and transform even the stockiest figure into a more slender one. I’ll also share some of my favourite recipes to help boost your yoga practice. By now, you might be wondering why every woman doesn’t do yoga. But I

understand why so many think they can’t commit to it. When you have children, and have experienced years of juggling a tight schedule, your body goes on the backburner. There comes a time, however, when you have to put yourself first once more.

Even if you feel you have spent so long neglecting yourself that you’ll find it hard to change, I promise it doesn’t have to be that way. Indeed, yoga can help with all of life’s worries — as I will show you.

It can give you the skills to cope with stressful times, increase your positivity when old certainties are vanishing and provide failsafe support to take you through the menopause and beyond.

For when you start moving your body, you feel better about it and yourself. And once you feel good and people start telling you you look well, your self-esteem will rocket.

Yoga can also provide a new, social side to your life. My students, of all ages and walks of life, often head for a coffee after class. Some are now friends for life. After all, in my experience, I have found more truth in a yoga class than at any cocktail party.

Yoga has helped me stay youthful. I have joints and a spine like a woman half my age. I’m relaxed and sleep like a log. Much more than that, yoga’s profound teachings and techniques have helped me through life’s many challenges.

So, that’s why I do it — now it’s time for you to join me and experience the amazing antiageing power of yoga.