The really simple answer, which many academics might not like… wait for it… is the one we enjoy the most and more importantly, the one we will do very regularly, for a very long time!
Over the coming months and years, I will write blogs about specific types of physical activity or exercise that the evidence shows is the best type to do for say cognition or brain health, for preventing falls or to reduce your chances of becoming frail. I will also talk about how older people tell me that they don’t want to be active or can’t be active and we can go through some potential reasons for this happening. But today is about what we could be doing now to help us to stay living in our homes for as long as we choose.
The World Health Organisation and many Governments around the world have physical activity guidelines. They tell us when we hit 65 years of age and over, if we want to gain substantial health benefits, we should participate in physical activity on a regular basis. This means 150-300 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic physical activity or 75-150 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity each week. Aerobic activity includes things like walking, running, bike riding, bush walking and swimming. Many sports are also aerobic, like tennis, soccer, football and netball. Moderate intensity is where you feel a rise in your heart rate and a little sweating too. This is due to the activity, not due to living in Australia in summer where temperatures reach 40+ degrees so simply going outside creates a sweat!
The guidelines also suggest older people do muscle-strengthening activities two or more days a week at moderate or greater intensity, and other exercises that highlight functional balance and strength training on three or more days a week, these are to enhance functional capacity, which is really important for independent living and balance training is also great for preventing falls.
I have a caveat now. If you have been active all of your life or are meeting or exceeding these guidelines currently, then simply keep going and enjoy the ride. The more you do, the more health benefits you will gain. The suggestions I have are not here to help people who are already really physically active. They are to help others to get more active so they can live their best life.
For those not meeting these guidelines, please don’t stress, doing some kind of physical activity or movement every day is better than doing none and you can still gain health benefits as long as you do something.
So, if you are interested in getting more physically active, improving your health, and aiming to stay living at home for longer, where can you begin?
I would start with making a list of all the things you enjoy doing across the week. Have two columns, one column is the physically active column, and one column is the not physically active column. Physically active things could include going out and doing the food shopping (carrying bags of food is awesome for maintaining strength, challenge yourself to carry the heavier ones), housework (we all hate it but it is such a great all body work out), gardening (more about this later), walking around the neighbourhood, the shopping centre (pick up the pace if you can) or even better at places like along the beach or river or somewhere in nature.
Non-physically active things we do might include reading, watching TV, doing puzzles or crosswords, looking on your ipad or computer, craft, chatting with people on the phone, having a coffee or meal with friends. Things that are often good for our brain health or make us happy but give different benefits to what physical activity gives.
From the list of physically active things you do, now add things you might like to do or that you enjoyed previously but for some reason no longer do. When looking at these things that are in the physically active column do they come close to 150-300 minutes of aerobic activity (e.g. walking, swimming, cycling) or strength training twice a week or functional balance three times a week? If not, that’s ok, you can consider building up slowly or at least do something daily.
I’ll give you an example. One of the best gardeners I know is my Mum. She loves to garden. Mum doesn’t really like sport, has tried going to the gym at a few different times in her life, enjoys swimming, but she now enjoys gardening…every…..single ….day. This is not my jam, but I love that she does it every day when the weather permits. After many discussions I would say Mum is out in the garden 4-5 hours a day (it’s a large property) and even better, she will be 80 this year. There is weeding, which is awesome because that means Mum is on the ground, no back bending, it’s about being on her knees (great for strength and balance), then pulling-out weeds (good for grip strength). Mum then gets up, moves again, goes back down and pulls some more weeds. So, I know should Mum have a fall and not be injured she can get herself up again no problem, all due to her gardening. She digs holes, plants new plants and vegetables every autumn after the summer heat kills half of them, prunes roses (great for grip strength again). It really is a full body work out every day!
Mum also doesn’t have the greatest balance in the world, so we worked out five years ago some balance exercises she could do. Unless she is on holidays, she does them every morning and has built them into her routine. The time she struggles most with her balance is a few weeks into her holidays when she notices it is starting to get worse and she looks forward to getting home and starting the exercises again. A big reason she keeps them up and that many people keeping being physically active is they can feel a positive difference. When you start something try to make it just hard enough and do it for long enough (at least 8 weeks) to start to feel a difference, then you are more likely to keep going with it.
Doing something physically active every day is good for your health.
Choose things you enjoy and build them into your routine, doing this regularly and over the long term is the key. The first centenarian I ever interviewed did 20 minutes of exercises on her bed every morning before she got up, she said it got her going and she was then ready for the day!
If you’re already meeting the guidelines, keep going.
If you hate exercise but love socialising and meeting friends for coffee or lunch, meet somewhere away from the café and walk together to the café, have a great catch up then walk back. You won’t notice the physical activity because you will be too busy chatting.
Live the good life!
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