What I Learned From Giving Up Yoga
We can continue our favorite activities as we age, but we may need to find new ways to do them
By Anne Kreamer
Advertisement
- Listen to your body. If it hurts, stop. Try not to feel embarrassed by it – we’ve all been there. Sit with the awareness.
- Experiment to find what works for you. If yoga feels too vigorous, speak up and share your concerns with your instructor and, together, devise a practice tailored to your needs. Or explore other disciplines, like some of the less demanding forms of tai chi or qi gong.
- Learn to let go. Clinging rigidly to “what you’ve always done” isn’t healthy. The cliché is true: It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.
- Embrace change. We are different at different times of our lives and what was perfect at 20 might not be perfect at 50.
Anne Kreamer In the late 1970s and early 80s Anne Kreamer was part of the team that distributed and co-produced Sesame Street around the world. Kreamer was part of the team that launched Spy magazine, about which has been said, “It’s pretty safe to say that Spy was the most influential magazine of the 1980s.” In the 1990s she was the executive vice president, worldwide creative director for Nickelodeon and Nick at Nite, where she oversaw the consumer products divisions, including the creation and launch of Nickelodeon magazine.
At the turn of the century, Kreamer switched careers, becoming a columnist for the business magazine Fast Company, after that creating the monthly “American Treasures” column for Martha Stewart Living. In 2007 she published her first book, "Going Gray, What I Learned About Beauty, Sex, Work, Motherhood, Authenticity, and Everything Else That Matters," and wrote a Yahoo blog, “Going Gray, Getting Real.” "It’s Always Personal," a book exploring the new realities of emotion in the workplace was published April 2011.
Kreamer is a contributor to the Harvard Business Review. She graduated from Harvard College and lives in Brooklyn with her husband, Kurt Andersen, the novelist and host of public radio’s Studio 360, and their two daughters, Kate and Lucy.
Read More
