When your aim is staying active when elderly, you need to have a good mix of aerobic, strength-building, creative, and social activities. Focusing only on physical exercise won’t lead you to a fulfilling retirement.
With regular activity, you’ll be more likely to maintain a healthy weight, fight off preventable conditions, and even reduce your risk of falling.
Located only a little under 7 miles north of Davidson, our Mooresville community is here to help all seniors find joy in staying active. Listed below are the top ways to add productive activity into your lifestyle while still having a lot of fun in Mooresville, NC.
Aerobics
Active retirement in NC should always begin with aerobics. These are the kinds of activities and exercises that get your heart pumping and your blood flowing. This type of activity will also help:
- Cardiovascular condition prevention
- Weight maintenance
- Flexibility
- Balance
- Cognitive stimulation
- Mood regulation
With such a wide variety of benefits, aerobics needs to be the foundation for all of your fitness goals. The good news is that there are many ways to achieve aerobic exercise, so you don’t have to feel stuck with something you dislike.
Swimming, for instance, is both a fun pastime and a wonderful aerobic workout. It’s also easy on your joints, which means you can keep swimming for a long time.
Strength-Building
As we age, strength-building feels like a thing of the past. However, the truth is that we always need to be working on our muscles to achieve healthy aging, even if only a little at a time.
If your muscles are unable to support your weight, you’re more likely to suffer a potentially dangerous fall. You won’t have the ability to do certain activities that you love.
While you may not be doing reps with a heavy barbell anymore, you can adjust all kinds of exercises to suit your current strength level. Chair squats, arm curls, and wall push-ups are only the beginning of the possibilities.
Meditation
Do you often find yourself feeling stressed or frazzled? The best kind of activity to tackle these emotions head-on is something based on meditation, such as:
- Yoga
- Tai Chi
- Mindful breathing
- Guided meditation
- Pilates
All of these activities give you the chance to find a sense of calm. You’ll reconnect with your body instead of letting those stressed thoughts take over.
It can be rewarding to do a meditation-based activity and then try to find a solution to a current problem with a new mindset. It’s common to realize you’re seeing the problem with a whole different perspective that makes the solution seem simpler than before.
Lifelong Learning
Another way to keep active is to learn something new. It doesn’t matter if you choose to learn dancing or woodworking. The benefits of your brain making new pathways and connections while learning will have lasting effects on your life.
Reach out to local communities or senior centers and see what kind of classes they offer. At TerraBella Lake Norman, for example, we try to set up classes of all types to give our residents plenty of choice when it comes to lifelong learning during their retirement.
Creative Pursuits
Keeping your brain active means you need to give it plenty of ways to interact with the world. Diving into creativity can not only be a joyful activity, but it also gives many benefits for your mental and cognitive health:
- Lower stress
- More confidence
- Improved fine-motor skills
- Opportunities to express emotions
- Improved memory and recall
- Strengthened problem-solving skills
It can be intimidating to do something creative if you’re not familiar with the arts.
The best advice is to throw away your inner critic and let yourself enjoy the process. A beautiful result is rarely the point of any creative exercise.
The act of creating art will automatically translate your personal and emotional insights into color, shape, or texture. All you need to do is begin creating without fear, and you’ll soon find that the process comes more naturally than before.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Staying Active Help With Aging?
All of the above activities and similar mobility routines are exactly what every senior needs to achieve a vibrant retirement.
These activities will give you a wide variety of exercise, and will help boost both your physical and mental well-being. Since they are also great social opportunities, staying active this way will help you avoid the traps of loneliness.
Putting in the effort to stay active can lead to healthier aging and better well-being.
Should Seniors Walk Every Day?
If your mobility and strength levels allow you to do so, then it’s always a healthy choice to walk every day. Even a short walk can have lasting benefits, such as:
- Increase energy
- Improve mood
- Improve circulation
- Better sleep
- Reduced stress
However, you should listen to your body at all times. If walking every day doesn’t work for you, that’s okay. Offset the missed exercise with other independent living activities that aren’t so demanding, like swimming or yoga.
Can a Senior Do Too Much Exercise?
When senior fitness in Mooresville leads to problems like joint pain or unexplained inflammation, it’s time to stop and figure out what’s going on. There’s no shame in bowing out of an activity when necessary.
Pushing yourself to new goals is only beneficial if it doesn’t lead to injury.
Some discomfort is expected when working out or doing something new, but remember to evaluate how you’re feeling before continuing. If these problems persist, make sure to contact your doctor and listen to their advice on how to continue.
Staying Active When Elderly Is Easy With TerraBella Lake Norman
With staying active when elderly being such a key element to a healthy retirement, it’s vital to find a senior community that supports you every step of the way.
At TerraBella Lake Norman, we help members of our pet-friendly senior community lead an active lifestyle by offering a variety of activities, events, outings, games, and socials. Our individual care programstake care of the hassles of everyday living so you can choose to do what interests you most.
To learn more, contact our Mooresville community today!
