Top Five Tips for Healthy Aging
Each year Lenbrook joins with thousands of senior living communities and organizations across the country to recognize Active Aging Week during the last week of September. Established in 2003 by the International Council on Active Aging (ICAA), this campaign celebrates the positivity of aging, living well and living life to the fullest at every age.
Volumes of science and research today support the position that an active and socially integrated lifestyle contributes to healthy aging. The data is conclusive. And the amount of data out there can be overwhelming.
I’d like to share with you some of my favorite tips for healthy aging and, for that matter, “healthy living” too, regardless of age. These tips were covered in a recent ICAA The Journal of Active Aging1 article on brain science, lifestyle and healthy aging, featuring an interview with Dr. Henry S. (Harry) Lodge, MD, FACP. Dr. Lodge2 is a board-certified internist and the Robert Burch Family Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City.
- Do 45 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise three times a week. Getting your heart rate up, strengthening your muscles and improving your balance produces not only physical benefits but improves cognitive function as well. An oxygenated brain is a happy brain. I even call exercise an “exorcism” of sorts — it gets the demons out.
- Get outdoors daily. Whether it’s the sunshine, the fresh air or both, the outdoors provides benefits to your body and your spirit/peace of mind. I like the saying: “Air and water are nature’s tonic to the soul.”
- Learn something new and do so regularly. Crossword puzzles are fun and so is challenging your mind with a new class, task or endeavor. New activities and new behavior are shown to be more effective in keeping your brain in shape than something you have been doing for a long period of time because your body becomes efficient over time and needs a new challenge.
- Find a social group to connect with. Accountability to a social group is hard wired in humans, according to Dr. Lodge. “If we don’t include that aspect (into our lives), we’re not turning on all the mechanisms that could enhance cognition,” he says. And we miss out on opportunities to meet new people.
- Don’t buy into negative stereotypes about aging and embrace all of the positive realities instead. The actual experience of aging is improving for so many, yet the cultural narrative about aging still remains primarily negative. Dr. Lodge encourages us to be mindful of the present and take time to express gratitude for the relationships we have and things which bring meaning to us.
We invite you to “Explore the Possibilities” during Active Aging Week 2016. Sept. 23 through Oct. 1. Try something new, reach out to a friend and get moving.