Personal Fitness

Fifty-Plus Fitness Library

Library : Year 2 | Session: Strategies to maintain and enhance your life

Strategies to Maintain/Enhance Your Life

Notes from “Successful Living”, John Rowe, MD and Robert Kahn, Ph.D.

Personal Fitness

Fitness boosts strength, cuts risk of death, improves mood, reduces the impact of other health risks.

Strategies:

A. Stay in shape
Without exercise, muscles weaken and shrink, we lose sense of balance, breathing is harder, and oxygen doesn’t nourish us as much.

B. Aerobic exercises
Calisthenics, rapid walking, jogging, dancing, hiking

C. Do weight training
Build strength – consider individual health problems. Consult a doctor or fitness trainer.

D. Practice nutrition
Count calories, maintain water balance, monitor fat intake (no more than 30% of calories), and understand carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins, and minerals.

Mental Vitality

How worried should you be? Most people worry excessively.

Only 5% of 65+ live in nursing homes.
95% of those who don’t, take care of themselves.
10% of people 65+ may have Alzheimer’s.
30-50% of people 85+ may have Alzheimer’s.

Strategies:

Take education seriously – brain activity
Be physically active – stimulate all cells
Have good lung function – element of fitness
Have high self-esteem – “Can do”
Train, practice memory improvement
Give, receive social support
Participate in mental exercises.

Memory:

Many older people lose some explicit memory, ability to recall a name on demand. Older people are more distractible, are better focusing on one project. With age, the speed of processing information declines.

Conclusion:

In general, the aging mind is sound, flexible and useful.

Social Connectedness

Meaning of connectedness – talking, touching, and relating to others is essential to our well being. This applies from birth to death.

Strategies:

A. Maintain a social support network. Size may vary, networks change.

B. Recognize the kinds of support; confiding, reassuring, providing sick care, expressing respect or affection, talking about problems or health.

C. Participate in social relationships. The more, the better your health. Conversations with friends, visits to friends, neighbors. Participation on religious activities, attend meetings, give of yourself.

Productivity

Active engagement in life means: close personal relationships with family and friends, continued involvement in productive activities.

Productive behavior: any activity paid or unpaid that generates goods or services of economic value; housework, home maintaince, volunteer work in the community or a paying job.

Strategies:

A. Maintain high mental, physical functions.

B. Continue relations with others.

C. Recognize the education – productivity relationships.

D. Be productive as much as you can as long as you can.

People who have higher mental functions are also more likely to retain physical functions than others. Frequency of emotional support is a strong predictor of enhancing physical functions over time.