🦴 “I walk every day, so my bones should be fine.” This is one of the most common things I hear from students over 50. And I completely understand why, because we have always been told that weight-bearing exercise is good for bones, and walking is weight-bearing.
🔬 But here’s what the research actually tells us. Walking is beneficial for overall health in many ways, and it does provide some degree of weight-bearing stimulus for the bones. However, 1) impact exercise (walking/running/dancing) only stimulate up to the first one or two vertebrae, and 2) the body adapts to walking very quickly. Once it becomes a familiar, repetitive movement at a consistent intensity, it stops creating the kind of progressive challenge that bones need to maintain and build strength.
💡 Think of it this way. The first time your students started walking regularly, their bones responded. But after weeks, months, and years of the same walks at the same pace, the stimulus has become background noise. Bones, like muscles, need progressive overload, increasing challenge, variety of direction, and novel stimulus to keep responding.
🔍 What bones actually need alongside walking is resistance, strength training, varied movement, and balance challenges. These are the things that create the kind of muscular demand that protects bones from fracture, reduces fall risk, and supports long-term independence.
✅ This is exactly where a well-designed yoga class can make a real difference, not by replacing walking, but by adding what walking alone cannot provide.
💬 Teachers, comment BONES below, and I’ll send you a free 30-minute bone health yoga class to see this approach in action!
Yinstinct Yoga
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Yoga I have been teaching Yoga for 15 years. I also hold an Advanced Diploma in Nutrition Coaching and a Pilates Mat teaching qualification.
I support people one-to-one in nutrition and exercise. I hold weekly classes and occasional workshops in Greystones and online. I train other Yoga teachers around the world in my Certificate in Teaching Yoga for Menopause, and run a CPD in Menopause Awareness for Wellness Professionals. Teaching retreats a few times a year, which are very popular, I also love offering a blissful immersion into all
🦋 Here’s a pelvic floor exercise that works beautifully in the stages of menopause — and that you can weave into any class without it feeling clinical or awkward.
In Supta Baddha Konasana (reclining cobbler’s pose), with the soles of the feet together:
👣 Press the heels together — notice where you feel engagement in the pelvic floor. Most people feel this toward the perineum and a**l sphincter.
👣 Press the balls of the feet and toes together — notice the shift. Most people feel this more toward the va**na and urinary sphincter.
👣 Press the outer edges of the feet together — notice where that lands. Often felt at the sides and inner groins.
👣 Press all surfaces of both feet together equally — and hold, breathing into the ribs rather than the belly.
This works because the feet have neurological connections to different areas of the pelvic floor. Different pressure activates different regions — allowing for a much more nuanced, complete pelvic floor practice than a standard squeeze-and-release.
And the beauty of it? Your student just looks like she’s resting in a yoga pose.
🎓 If you want to go deeper and learn how to genuinely support your students through the stages of menopause, my 40-hour Certificate in Teaching Yoga for Menopause and Beyond starts September 4th.
Places are limited — comment MENOPAUSE YTT below and I’ll send you all the details.
25/08/2026
🌿 Testimonial Tuesday!
Here’s what yoga teachers are saying after completing the Yoga for Menopause & Beyond Teacher Training with Niamh Daly...
“I recently completed the Yoga for Menopause training with Niamh Daly, delivered live via Zoom over the course of two months, and honestly the course exceeded my expectations in every way. The reason I initially signed up was because, after recognising some perimenopause symptoms in myself, I became much more aware of the needs of many of my own members – most of whom are women over 40. Before starting the course, I already considered myself fairly knowledgeable on the topic. I’d done plenty of my own research along with a few shorter trainings, so I wasn’t coming in completely new to the subject. However, from day one it was clear that both the course content and Niamh’s approach were operating on another level entirely. Every aspect of the training – from cognitive function and nervous system support to bone health, strength, mobility and emotional wellbeing – was evidence-based, intelligently presented and delivered with genuine care and depth. Many of the techniques are surprisingly simple to weave into a regular yoga practice, yet potentially life changing. One of the biggest benefits of the training is that I’ve been able to integrate these tools into my teaching in a way that benefits all of my members, regardless of age or stage of life.”
— Paula Roberts, Yoga Teacher, North Wales
🌿 Our next training starts on September 4th — and we’d love for you to be part of it!
Comment MENOPAUSE YTT below and I’ll send you everything you need to know to decide if this is the right fit for you and your teaching. 👇
It’s fun, frustrating and factual!
Static balance training like yoga poses is ticking only ONE part of what research tells us MEANINGFULLY improves balance!
What’s in this video is another part. And there are yet more!
🔬 These are the facts.
😫 And it’s frustrating to know that.
🤗 But it’s fun to train properly.
And I can’t say this loud enough: FRACTURE PREVENTION MAY BE EVEN MORE IMPORTANT THAN BONE DENSITY INCREASE once osteoporosis is present.
AND! Avoiding falling matters no matter your bone density: Falling even without breaking a bone is a leading cause of death in our elder years. 😳
What can you do? Meaningfully train your balance, and that of your students if you are a teacher.
For starters, try to perturb what you find easy.
Stay safe of course, but meaningful improvements come from challenging your balance enough that you have to take a step to catch yourself!
You can join my live/recorded online classes in Yoga-Plus for Bone Health with a new class each week with fresh ideas.
Yoga teachers, you can train with me this October or November.
Comment WOBBLE and I will send you details of the training.
21/08/2026
🌿 Weight gain and body shape changes during the stages of menopause are among the most distressing experiences many women report — and also some of the most misunderstood. The advice they receive is often oversimplified, and sometimes actively counterproductive.
🔬 What’s actually happening is complex: muscle mass may decline for cascading reasons, the way the body processes fats and blood sugar shifts, cortisol rises, sleep deteriorates. And when women respond by restricting food and pushing harder in exercise, they can inadvertently increase cortisol further — making the very thing they’re trying to address more difficult to change.
💡 As yoga teachers, we are not nutritionists or doctors. But we are in a position to offer something genuinely valuable: movement that builds strength and supports metabolism, practices that lower stress hormones over time, and a space where a woman can reconnect with her body without judgment. That last one matters more than most of us realise.
🎓 In my 40-Hour Certificate in Teaching Yoga for Menopause and Beyond, we look at weight, body image and movement through an informed, evidence-based lens — so you can support your students with honesty, compassion and real skill. The next cohort opens September 4th, and it’s the last one of 2026.
💬 Comment MENOPAUSE YTT below and I’ll send you all the details directly.
17/08/2026
There are so many signs from earlier than we expect of the changing care our bodies, hearts and brains need.
The reality is, of course, that the sooner we respond, the better.
For some, life is too busy to address what they are noticing.
Some notice but push it to the background.
Others notice but don’t understand what they are experiencing or what might help.
These signals come BEFORE perimenopause and can give us an opportunity for a better journey ahead, if we know how.
But many are confused or frightened by what they feel, and have no answers, and no idea how to feel better now, or create anticipatory care for their health and wellbeing through perimenopause and into the decades beyond.
Yoga for Menopause and Beyond uses the information support method to provide enough knowledge and support for women to navigate their journey, free from the polarised misinformation they are trying to make sense of all over the media.
But it also uses yoga principles and psychology to deliver the information responsibly, in empowering ways that reduce distress.
Our bodies in menopause are not to be feared. Staying connected with our body is the route to wellbeing on so many levels. It can be instinctual, but must be nurtured. Yoga for Menopause and Beyond uses tools to do that.
Understanding what is being spoken and what will address the needs being expressed takes learning. Yoga for Menopause and Beyond clears that up in bite sized achievable form.
Join me this September.
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