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AARP has partnered with Older Adults Technology Services (OATS) to take advantage of the power of online learning. Senior Planet has hundreds of online classes in multiple languages including English and Spanish which can help you broaden your horizons. Among the classes are weekly fitness and health classes, all taught by a live instructor on Zoom and can be found at www.seniorplanet.org/fitness
The odds of getting cardiovascular disease in our 60’s are 77.5% for males (females are lower with 75.4% between the ages of 60-79), according to the American Heart Association. Taking care of your heart means reducing obesity, high blood pressure and cholesterol, managing diabetes if you have it, and limiting alcohol. Common symptoms of a heart attack are chest pain or discomfort, shortness of breath, feeling faint or weak, and pain in your jaw, neck, back, arms or shoulder. You also need a good exercise regimen to stimulate blood flow. “Even as little as a 5-10 percent decrease in your body weight can have a huge effect on your blood pressure and other risk factors,” Dr. Donald Lloyd-Jones, president of the American Heart Association, or AHA, told AARP Bulletin.
If you are a senior citizen at risk of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, you should do more aerobics and stretching, according to a new study from Wake Forest School of Medicine. “There’s just more understanding of the underlying biology and what potential treatments can impact the disease, which actually includes exercise,” Maria Carillo, Chief Science Officer of the Alzheimer’s Association, told USA Today. For the study, researchers recruited those with a sedentary lifestyle and assigned them to two groups. One group regularly engaged in moderate to high intensity aerobics while the other group did less rigorous exercise. All participants had mild cognitive impairment, but not enough to be diagnosed with dementia. This is great news for a disease which researchers have had little success in finding drug treatments for. Regular readers of my blog know that both my father and my grandmother had this terrible disease when they passed away. There is a wonderful group of people at the Alzheimer’s Association in Monterey. They also have a 24-hour hotline if you just need some support at 800-272-3900.
In a 2021 review of 16 studies, researchers found that just 30 to 60 minutes per week of muscle-strengthening or “resistance” exercise increased life expectancy by 10-17%. These activities range from calisthenics, to Pilates or yoga and can even include carrying the groceries or your grandchild! Eating protein can also help strengthen your muscles. Women 50 and older need at least 25 grams of protein per day (30 grams for men). Studies have shown that seniors combining this style of eating with resistance exercise, their bodies responded like they were in their 20’s.
There are so many national parks and other beautiful places in America that you can visit for little to no cost (ignoring the outrageous cost of gas now, of course). For ideas on taking a road trip, turn to the AARP who just posted a great video on this topic at www.aarp.org/roadtrips.
At Family inHome Caregiving, we stress the fact that exercise, social interaction and a good diet are keys to longevity for our senior clients, most of which are in their 90’s or even 100’s. The most difficult of the three in the current COVID-19 environment is social interaction, but this doesn’t have to be in person. Keep in touch with your friends and family with a zoom or facetime call. A good diet isn’t hard to do either. Do a google search on the Mediterranean diet—it is delicious. There are a number of quick and healthy ways to cook salmon, which is very good for you. Paired up with some vegetables and a nice salad and you will enjoy it. Exercise is not that hard to keep up with either. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise each week which means taking a brisk walk of 20-30 minutes per day. Some physicians suggest that you mix it up so that you don’t get bored and you use different muscle groups. That means doing a bit of biking, swimming or yoga.
At Family inHome Caregiving, we stress that seniors should get the proper amount of exercise, plenty of social interaction, and eat a healthy diet. Many of our clients are in their 90’s and some even over 100 and most have led very healthy lives which resulted in their longevity. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity each week. Just over 20 minutes of brisk walking each day can get you there. “But changing it up could have more benefits,” Jordan Metzl, M.D., a sports medicine specialist at New York City’s Hospital for Special Surgery, told AARP The Magazine (April/May 2022 Issue, page 35). “Doing a variety of activities, particularly as you get older, will challenge your body, lead to greater fitness and help you avoid injuries. He advises swapping in alternatives, such as weight training, swimming or biking, and yoga.
At Family inHome Caregiving, we stress that seniors should get the proper amount of exercise, plenty of social interaction, and eat a healthy diet. Many of our clients are in their 90’s and some even over 100 and most have led very healthy lives which lead to their longevity. It’s difficult at that age to develop an exercise routine, but if you don’t have the energy, try going for long walks. You can go to the beach, many of our public parks, or just walk around the neighborhood. You might even make some new friends. Being sedentary, with low overall fitness, raises your mortality risk as much as or more than smoking, high blood pressure and heart disease. An analysis of studies on people ages 54 to 65 found that binge-watching TV for four plus hours per day may make you 35% more likely to develop blood clots in the thigh and lower leg.
At Family inHome Caregiving, we always encourage our clients to have good nutrition, plenty of social interaction and exercise to help them live a healthier and longer life.. Everyone is different, and not all seniors can tolerate a lot of exercise, but try the best that you can. One simple way is just walking more. There are all kinds of devices that can track how many steps you take each day, with 10,000 a goal. But start easy by walking around the block and you can work your way up to this. Walking at a constantly brisk rate can also get your heart rate up. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to estimate your maximum age-related heart rate, subtract your age from 220 and this is the maximum beats per minute. The American College of Sports Medicine recommends for moderate-intensity physical activity at 64% to 76% of your maximum heart rate (Source CNN.com).
Two studies now agree that the secret to longevity is getting in about 7,000 to 8,000 daily steps per day, which equates to only 30-45 minutes of walking per day! An alternative to walking is getting into a sport like tennis, cycling, swimming, jogging or badminton for about 2.5 hours per week. The two studies followed more than 10K men and women for decades, and found that this type of physical activity reduces the risk of premature death by as much as 70%. The study also said there may actually be an upper limit to the longevity benefits of being active, and pushing beyond that is unlikely to add years to your life span, and, in extreme cases might even be detrimental