Regular exercises are beneficial for physical and mental health, especially for seniors. Being physically fit can help you continue to do the things you enjoy and stay independent as you age. Discovering new activities and adopting healthy habits can add years of productive and functional living in your life. Following are the 5 concerned areas that you can improve by proper exercises.
1. To Improve Flexibility:
As we age, our muscles become shorter and lose their elasticity causing a decreased range of motion in the shoulders, spine and hips. Enhancing flexibility involves stretching exercises that provide you freedom of movement while reducing body stiffness. Flexibility workouts are generally of two types; static and dynamic.
Static stretching is referred as a low load prolonged stretch, which requires holding a stretched position for 10 to 30 seconds or more; for instance, Yoga exercise. Dynamic stretching demands oscillatory motions of a joint to increase its available range. It is usually carried outwhen you’re fully warmed up and can tolerate a bouncy pull on your joints. For example, Tai Chi is a martial arts inspired exercise that involves dynamic movements.
Nevertheless, static stretching is a much safer choice for elderlies.
2. To Improve Balance:
Keeping balance becomescrucial as you age. The nervous system weakens and results in the loss of body balance. Many old age deaths are caused due to severe injuries that occur due to falling, hence balance exercises could potentially be life-saving.
- Water exercises are perfect for maintaining a great posture and balance. Swing your arms and legs in the opposite direction of the water’s force and this struggle will help you develop more control over your body.
- Some household items can also be helpful in gaining balance. Perform stepping exercises using routine items like stuffed toys. Place a stuffed toy (6 inches high) below your feet and try balancing on it. You will start observing a huge difference with this regular practice. Do not get too ambitious and hop on a high item or you may end up tripping!
- Another simple practice is to sit on an armless chair. The absent support on both sides will give you more confidence while carrying out balancing exercises.
3. To Improve Strength:
Nutritious foods no doubt contain vitamins that rejuvenate your body strength. Andperforming strength exercises alongside will enhance overall metabolism. You don’t need to lift dumbbells for this purpose, you can start off with moderately weighing household objects. As your muscles begin to grow stronger, shift on to small weights and resistance bands. Strength training will also keep your weight in control.
Perform thesquats slowly to strengthen your lower body, so that you’re easily able to take stairs and pick up things off the floor. Similarly, wall push-ups help in strengthening your upper body.
4. To Improve Endurance:
Endurance exercises are basically cardio workouts that prevent your body systems from weakening. The activities include swimming, jogging, biking, running or even raking your leaves work perfect. These exercises enhance heart health, lower blood pressure, reduce breathing problems and increase metabolism.
In the beginning of these activities, you may experience excessive heartbeat rate, dizziness and breathlessness, but with regular practice, things will get better. Once your endurance level improves, you should go for cardio sessions that exceed 10 minutes at a time (30 minutes in total for a day).
5. To Improve Memory:
Just as your body requires movements, your mind needs to be exercised too. The best brain activity is to remember all the day’s tasks you achieved, as you lay down to sleep. This boosts your capacity to remember things without any struggle.
Other than that, solve puzzles and crosswords, do math in your head, learn a foreign language and take up a new hobby to advance your memory.
