Exercise is one of the best things that you can do for yourself. Not only does it help you to keep yourself at a healthy weight, but it fights multiple diseases across the board. One of the benefits that often goes unmentioned, though, is the fact that it helps with mental health as well. Exercise helps fight depression, and it helps prevent diseases like Alzheimer’s, too. And if you have a loved one that already is suffering from Alzheimer’s, exercise can actually slow down the spread of the disease’s progress.
The obvious problem is that for some elderly folk, exercise can be quite difficult. It should never be strenuous since a simple 20 minute walk has a lot of benefits to it if done on a daily basis. For someone confined to a wheelchair, walking is impossible, though. Simple arm exercises, like moving your arms in circles of different sizes for a few minutes, is an easy way to get the heart rate up and still get the benefits of exercise. For a healthy and fit adult not in need of in-home care, this might seem like it will do nothing for you, but it will actually accomplish quite a bit if done with regularity.
That is the key word right there: regularity. It doesn’t matter if you do the same exercise every day, but you do need to do something several times a week to get benefits out of this. Going for a walk once a week, lifting light weights once a week, and going for a leisurely swim on the weekend is a great week of exercise. It gives you all of the health and mental benefits that are so important, plus it adds variety so that you will not ever get bored with what you are doing. For many, this is an important part of creating a routine and keeping it going for an extended period of time. A lot of people give up on exercise because it becomes monotonous, but with variety, this cannot happen.
Variation is also good for your health. Doing the same exercises every day is great, but it doesn’t give you the same overall fitness that you would find from a varied routine. Even professional athletes cross train on a regular basis. A marathon runner gets a lot out of lifting weights and swimming once in a while, and if a pro that isn’t competing in those other areas gets a benefit out of it, you can be assured that you will benefit from variation, too. Lifting weights strengthens muscle and bone in the elderly, which is an important part of reducing the risk of injury from a fall or something like osteoporosis. In fact, exercise for the elderly is a great way to stay healthy and injury free. Just find something that works, add a few different routines into the mix, and the quality of life for your elderly loved one will often begin to improve. And for those that are not yet in need of senior care, getting in better shape now will help you to live a longer and happier life.
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