5 Crucial Healthy Living Tips for Seniors
When a senior has a healthy lifestyle, they inevitably have a stronger body – strong enough to prevent illness and injury.
A healthy body also gives us the energy we need to do the things we love!
Today, we’re sharing some essential healthy living tips for seniors. By implementing these tips, you will feel your absolute best while maintaining your regular routines!
Healthy Living Tips for Seniors
While it’s true, we tend to slow down with age, that doesn’t mean we need to sit around and twiddle our thumbs.
Here are some healthy living tips for seniors that can help them stay strong, happy, and healthy.
1. Prevention Is Key
It doesn’t take a lot of time or money to keep our muscles, bones, immune system, and mind healthy.
Focusing on prevention can help you prevent a plethora of problems in the future.
Preventative care should include:
- Regular check-ups and screenings are extremely important for many reasons. During your check-ups, your doctor can talk to you about ways to stay healthy. Some important factors to note in your check-ups include:
Your height and weight to screen for overweight or obesity.
Blood pressure
Cholesterol screening
Colorectal cancer screening
Age-specific immunizations
If you’re a woman, Breast cancer screening (mammogram), Cervical cancer screening and Bone density test should also be included
- Proper medication management can be a difficult task for some seniors. Our caregivers at All About Seniors offers medication assistance provide all the reassurance and assistance that you might need. With the right assistance and proper management, unfortunate mishaps can be avoided. You should also take note of any symptoms you might experience on certain medication including drowsiness, nausea, loss of appetite, etc.
- Keeping up with vaccines is additionally crucial for seniors. As we age, our immune system weakens, putting us at higher risks for certain diseases. Without proper vaccinations, a number of diseases can cause significant illness, hospitalization, disability, and even death.
- Maintaining a proper diet and exercising often is good practice for any ages. Many illnesses can be prevented with the right diet and an active lifestyle. These include heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure and more.
All About Seniors can help with these preventative goals, in addition to focusing on fall prevention. Our caregiver will carefully assess your home for fall hazards and provide recommendations on the changes needed to make it a safe and secure space.
2. Eat Healthy Foods
With a few simple changes in dietary, you can boost your immune system and reduce the risk of serious illnesses, lethargy, and depression.
Nonetheless, there’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all diet.
Every single person has different needs based on their current level of health, genetic predispositions, and even their environment.
Here are some basic dietary recommendations that will fit the needs of people with diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and hyperthyroidism.
- Eat complex carbohydrates (fruits, vegetables, whole grains)
- Reduce or eliminate simple carbohydrates (candy, soda, cake, cookies)
- Drink plenty of water and limit your alcohol intake
- Reduce intake of saturated fat and cholesterol (meats, oils, and high-fat dairy products)
- Try to avoid excess salt, eggs, and dairy products
3. Commit to Staying Active
Exercise keeps our heart, lungs, and bones healthy.
It increases lung capacity, endurance, balance, and metabolism, too.
Some safe-for-senior exercises include:
Walking
Swimming
Yoga
Playing with the grandkids
Tai Chi
Gardening
Light house cleaning
Grocery chopping
For the more adventurous, you can also take up dance classes or water aerobics
4. Mental Health Is Just as Important as Physical Health
It’s not unusual for people to focus more on their physical health than their mental health.
Although, you should keep in mind that the two go hand-in-hand.
Taking care of one can lead to improvement in the other.
The book The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge includes a collection of real stories about people who were able to overcome serious brain diseases through dedicated brain exercises. They were able to overcome chronic disorders like blindness and stroke complications.
Besides regular physical exercise, regular exercises that help with cognition and memory are highly recommended.
Play games that challenge your cognition like Scrabble, Sudoku, crosswords and puzzles
Sing songs and play instrument use a distinct part of the brain. There’s a reason why music therapy is one of the treatments to help patients who suffer from memory loss. Music can help strengthen memory and restart a decaying brain.
Sign up for a class to learn a new language, cooking, group fitness, arts and crafts or a book club. This will keep your brain active and a great way to exercise your mental capacity.
Meditation is another great exercise for the brain.
You should also incorporate more brain foods into your diet to help preserve memory and promote healthy cognitive functions. These foods are ones that can help support your mental wellness by nurturing the heart and blood flow to your brain.
There is no one-size-fits-all brain food list. You should always consult with your physician prior to making changes to your diet. Some common brain food categories include:
Dark, leafy greens like kale, spinach and broccoli
Dark fruits like blueberries, blackberries, plums and cherries
Good fats are broken into 2 main categories
- Mono-unsaturated fats are commonly found in nuts, cold-press olive oil and avocado
- Poly-unsaturated fats such as omega 3 are found in oily fish like salmon, flaxseeds and chia seeds.
Anti-inflammatories like coffee, dark chocolate, turmeric, cinnamon, tomatoes and beats.
5. Seniors Should Spend Time Doing What They Love
When we do what we love, we feel better, and experience increased energy, better sleep, and overall mood improvement.
Seniors who have hobbies should stick with them! Additionally, spending time with family and friends regularly can keep seniors in good spirits.
Having a Caregiver Can Make It Easier to Implement Healthy Lifestyle Changes
Family and friends are great helpers when it comes to creating healthy goals.
So can the caregivers at All About Seniors.
Our caregivers can help seniors implement these healthy living tips – and they will help them do so in a fun and safe manner.
With the help of a friendly caregiver, seniors are one step closer to living a happy, healthy, productive, and thoroughly enjoyable life.
Contact us today to find out more about how our senior caretakers can help you live the happiest, healthiest life possible.