Outline Yoga Moves for Parkinsons By Tina Pressley

Movement based on chanting, playing music, listening and moving to music

• Can be done sitting or standing

• Start with a warm up — 3-5 minutes

• Move with the music for Music therapies can be effective in gait training by providing a steady rhythm for gait and stride

• Simple rhythmic movements around a room, or shifting from one foot to the other, and alternating arm swings while sitting in a chair are staples of PD yoga classes

• Movement with music to improve endurance, range of motion, strength, and hand coordination; these effects are enhanced when the movements cross the midline of the body (think eagle arms or self-hugging, touching opposite ear, or crossing hand to opposite knee in a seated twist), due to the brain hemisphere coordination required in these actions

• Rhythm awareness (working with breath ratio, moving to the rhythm of the breath, orkriyas - yoga actions with specific intention, usually performed to repetitively prescribed tempos)

• End with a cool down using balance moves

• Then sing your breath to use the voice as much as possible; this might include alternate nostril breathing with a 3:3:3 ratio (inhale 3, hold 3, exhale 3); work your way up to 6 or 7 seconds, or moving the arms up for a count of ​four, out for a count of four, and down for a count of four

Tina Pressly is CEO of Mobility City of Upstate SC
​