Your Body Changes After 40. Your Yoga Should Too.
A friend asked me recently, “If you didn’t know how old you were, would it change anything?”
Because if I’m being honest, I didn’t need to know I was entering my forties, my body told me first. Not through a dramatic moment or sharp decline, but with a subtle shift in language.
There was a quiet stiffness in places I hadn’t noticed before. A sense of anxiety I couldn’t explain. A tiredness that stayed, even when I thought I should feel fine. These weren’t emergencies.
They were gentle signals, easy to miss, and easy to ignore, until we forget how to respond.
The Practice That Once Pushed Now Asks You to Listen
For years, I moved through yoga on autopilot. I followed every cue, pushed through resistance, and carried a nervous system wired to keep going.
My practice had become another place I performed.
But yoga, at its heart, has always been an invitation to pay attention. To pause. To notice.
In midlife, that invitation becomes louder. The cues our bodies send become more frequent, and more honest.
A hip that resists.
A breath that cuts short.
A heaviness that isn’t illness, just information.
The body isn’t falling apart. It’s asking for something different.
When You Slow Down, You Catch Things Sooner
There’s a shift that happens when you stop overriding discomfort and start responding to it.
Yoga stops being something you do to your body and becomes a way to communicate with it.
You start to notice your breath tightening earlier.
You feel your balance start to shift before it’s lost. You recognize patterns, where you grip, where you collapse, where you override what you feel.
And instead of pushing through, you pause. You soften. You listen.
That’s not giving up. That’s wisdom.
Over time, those small choices become the very things that keep you strong, stable, and resilient.
Not flashy. Not performative. Just sustainable.
Your Mat Isn’t Measuring Your Progress
Yoga in midlife asks you to release the scorecard.
Your mat doesn’t care how deep you once folded or how long you could hold a pose 10 years ago. It’s not comparing you to your younger self or grading today’s version of you.
It simply asks: What do you need today?
And the more you practice from that question, the more you start to recognize the difference between effort and strain, capacity and habit, self-awareness and self-judgment.
What looks like backing off from the outside often feels like deep presence on the inside.
That’s not decline. That’s a more mature practice, one that knows how to work with your body instead of against it.
This Is What the Yoga Sutra Meant All Along
Yoga isn’t just a movement practice. It’s a way of meeting your inner world. Sutra 1.2 teaches us that yoga is the quieting of the mind’s fluctuations.
Not shutting them down, but softening them enough to hear what’s underneath.
Later, in Sutra 2.33, we’re offered Pratipakṣa Bhāvanam, the practice of replacing unhelpful patterns with more supportive ones.
This is what yoga looks like in midlife.
You notice the urge to push, and you pause. You feel the pull to ignore, and you stay. You catch ourselves judging, and you choose to respond with compassion instead.
It’s not about going backwards. It’s about showing up honestly for the person you are today.
This Isn’t a Downgrade. It’s a Refinement.
People say yoga gets harder as we age. I don’t think that’s true.
Yes, it shifts. Yes, it may ask more of your attention, your patience, your creativity.
But it also becomes simpler. More direct. Less about shapes and more about connection.
You start to move not to impress, but to understand.
You learn to rest without guilt.
You see your practice not as a tool for performance, but as a place to return to again and again, for support, for steadiness, for relief.
Yoga doesn’t stop working as you age. It starts working differently, and more meaningfully.
The Support Your Body Actually Needs Now
So many people still see yoga as a feel-good option for stress or flexibility.
But it’s one of the most functional, intelligent, and body-honoring practices available in midlife.
It improves your balance at the exact time balance starts to matter more.
It supports the small stabilizers that protect your joints and spine.
It expands your breath capacity and teaches your nervous system how to come back to center.
These are not luxuries. These are the foundations of a steady life. And yoga offers them without pressure, punishment, or pretense.
So What Do You Actually Do on the Mat?
Self-awareness is only useful if it leads to action. So when you’re practicing, begin here:
Notice what shows up first. The shoulder that overworks. The knee that feels off. The breath that’s shallow.
Name what’s happening. Not dramatically, not dismissively, just clearly.
Then adjust. Not because you’re giving up, but because you’re tuning in. A smaller stance, a hand on the wall, a bent knee. These aren’t “less than.” They’re choices made with your future self in mind.
Finally, check in. Did something shift? Did your breath ease? Did effort feel steadier? These questions don’t take long to ask, but they change the entire way you move through practice—and through life.
On the Days You Doubt, Come Back to This
Some days you’ll feel like you’re behind. Like your strength, your ease, your mobility are slipping. Like your best days are in the rearview.
They’re not.
You’re simply in a new chapter. One that asks for different things, but still offers you everything that matters; presence, clarity, capacity, connection.
Midlife isn’t a loss. It’s a rebalancing. A recalibration.
Strength is still possible. So is flexibility. So is feeling deeply at home in your body.
And often, it all begins with something small: a breath you don’t rush. A pose you meet with gentleness. A moment when you stop and ask, “What’s true for me right now?”
That is not weakness. That is the beginning of a deeper trust in your body.
And trust, more than anything, is the foundation of lasting strength.
If You Want Support That Matches the Season You’re In…
I send a weekly(ish) letter for women in their 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond who want a yoga practice that actually supports the season they’re in.
Together, we explore what’s outdated in the yoga world, what’s actually helpful now, and how to move through practice in a way that feels steady, strengthening, and sustainable.
If you want support that honors your body as it is, not as it once was or as the industry says it should be, this is a good place to begin.
