Exercise Benefits for the Elderly
Our media is crammed with advice on why exercise is good for people. In the news, many diseases and conditions can be, at least in part, attributed to lack of exercise and its connection with diet. The evidence for it is overwhelming and it becomes particularly important as you age.
The benefits just come keep coming as well. It’s not just the case that being fit improves your health and wellbeing, the advantages go well beyond that too. We’ve broken down the plus sides so you can see all the bonuses to exercising regularly. Some you may know, some you may not and there are far too many to list in once place!
Prevent Diseases
Not a miracle cure by any means but regular exercise and a fit lifestyle helps with preventing all sorts of illnesses and diseases. A steady work-out regime that is within the bounds of what you are capable of has been proven to help prevent such conditions as heart disease and diabetes among others. As someone ages and the body becomes more fragile or frail, keeping it in the best shape to prevent debilitating conditions is so important.
Improved Mental Health
It’s long been known that exercise helps with mental illness. There are a number of reasons for this and research into it is ever ongoing. The main reasons though include being a stress relief, time to think and mull, time to refocus, improving sleep cycles and just having time away from the day-to-day grind. It becomes all the more important in later life where things like loneliness, loss and often a feeling of lacking purpose can be prevalent. Exercise can be an amazing outlet to cope with these things.
Decreased Risk of Falls
Falling over is a real fear and concern for many older people. Most, if not all, of us are aware of stories of people falling over and their life being downhill from there on. There’s a simply solution to try and minimize this however; exercise. Not only does this maintain your strength and flexibility but your balance and reaction times too!
Social Engagement
We discuss social engagement and interaction a lot here, it’s a pride of what we do as you’ll see from Signature’s activity programme for all residents. Combining this with exercise is a double whammy of benefits however. Not only are you stimulating and fine-tuning the mind by being around and interacting with other people but you gain the benefits of exercise as well. Older people’s sports clubs area great place to start.
Better Brain Power
This one combines a few other points into one glorious entity. Exercising not only does wonders for your physical wellbeing but does great things to the mind as well. Keeping it fresh, stress-free and engaged in activities carries over into all other parts of your life as well and it all starts with keeping fit. Ageing is a balance between keeping your mind and body in as good shape as possible and exercising really does both.
There are limitations to what exercise you can do in later life, naturally. However that doesn’t mean it’s a lost cause or something that doesn’t apply to everyone. Nomatter you limitations, there are exercise routines out there that possible for everyone and once you get into the habit, you reap the benefits.