Exercise is important to improve your health and well-being, but in elderly people and older adults it can be much more important. Although, the health benefits of an active lifestyle greatly outweigh the risks when exercising for senior citizens. Seniors can take longer to heal and recover from injury, but mild levels of practice are good for individuals of all ages.
Regular activity and healthy habits for the elderly provide a host of health advantages that go beyond the apparent, including blood pressure changes, cholesterol, lipids, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, and neurocognitive abilities.
There are many reasons why senior citizens lead an active lifestyle, from physical injury reduction to improved mental health. The ten big health benefits for the elderly interested in exercise and healthy lifestyle, are easy to obtain.
- Manages body weight — Training assists individuals of all ages retain or lose weight of the body. Our metabolism inevitably speeds goes down with age, however, which increases the value of exercise. In addition to aerobic exercise, muscle mass is created and in turn the metabolization increases and more calories are burned to facilitate positive weight loss.
- Exercise improves fitness and strength — Regular exercise builds healthy bones and helps keep the bone intact for the elderly. Training works on bones much like muscles — through reinforcing them. Since the bone is a living organ, it shifts in response to its powers. If you consistently exercise, the bone can adapt and become denser by forming more cells.
- Being active encourages a good heart system — Frequent physical exercise lowers the risk of cardiovascular problems and increases your fitness. Adding a combination of cardio and strength training will give the cardiac fitness overall an energy boost. However, it may not require exercise to get away from existing cardiac and genetic problems but being healthy can help you sustain a better standard of life.
- Being active promotes good mental health — Living and working in an active manner also leads to multiple benefits to mental health. Exercise helps alleviate depression as improving muscle mood is active and stress is found to be minimized. Maintaining levels of activity can also delay the growth of brain diseases, such as Alzheimer’s.
- Feeling stronger to prevent falls – Falls can be extreme at any ages, but the elderly is more vulnerable if bone strength and density are poor. Active lifestyle allows you to keep upright and avoid accidents by the growth of muscle strength and health changes later through clearly low-impact workouts. Your doctor must also monitor your bone density to consider your osteoporosis risks.
- Being active assists in a better sleep — Sedentary people tend to find quality rest more difficult, but an active lifestyle will allow you to relax. By incorporating daily aerobic workout during the day, you will raise the temperature of the central body and facilitate relaxing as the body begins to cool down.
- Doing aerobics reduces anxiety — If you are a hypertension elder, exercising has been known to reduce your blood pressure medically. Five days a week, a mild physical workout takes 30 minutes or longer to reduce blood pressure, discomfort, and the possibility of any cardiovascular issues.
A study conducted by the Anxiety and Depression Association of America showed that,” … exercise has been shown to decrease overall levels of tension, elevate and stabilize mood, improve sleep, and improve self-esteem.”
- Working out promotes social wellness — It can be daunting for many older people to maintain an active social life. Any older adults improve their social well-being by doing a friendly group outing in their neighborhoods. If it is a walking party or an aerobics course, socializing during activities hold people in mind and in the center.
How To
Fitness gyms and community centers offer classes. Being a part of a social community center, gyms offer not only specialty classes for seniors, but often offer other amenities, like a swimming pool. Familydoctor.org reports that adults, age 65 and older, should aid to do at least 2.5 hours of moderate aerobic exercise every week.
This rounds out to approximately 30 minutes per day. Studies have shown that even a simple exercise, like stretching for 30 minutes per day helps with overall good mental and physical health.
The pandemic may prohibit such venues, and in this case, there are plenty of online and DVD fitness classes to be taken advantage of.
Final Thoughts
Remaining active and social in your retirement years, keeps you looking forward to each day. Your mental and physical health will thank you. Eleanor Roosevelt said it best, “Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.”