Everyone ages. When we do, there are shifts away from the life that we have become used to, and these changes can cause a range of reactions in how we feel and behave. It's not always easy to accept the realities that come with aging. These feelings can cause a lack of optimism and hope for the future. Fortunately, there are some ways to maintain an optimistic point of view and to see the best of the years to come.
Aging is an inherently frustrating process. Changes in our physical appearances and abilities can be psychologically complicated to process. Between hearing changes and the fast-changing culture, it can be hard to communicate with people. Gracefully as we may age, our knees, feet, and joints might get stiff or achy. These things can be intensely frustrating.
However, we don't want to spend our retirement years in frustration. We've endured enough of that in the workplace. No, we want to spend our retirement enjoying ourselves. It is, therefore, crucial to find ways of coping with frustration to keep your retirement smooth. Here are ten tips to help you manage your frustrations as you age.
According to the Migraine Research Foundation, over 4 million adults suffer from chronic migraines. Migraines are defined as severe throbbing pain, typically on one side or area of the brain, with additional symptoms such as sensitivity to light and sound. However, this description seems to only scratch the surface of something that can be so debilitating.
Migraines aren't just painful; they're also dangerous, as they cause visual impairment, muscle weakness, and fainting. Dealing with migraines can be an uphill battle, especially for older adults, but that doesn't mean that they're impossible to overcome. Conquering your migraines will become simple if you follow the steps listed below.
Pain is the body’s way of communicating to us that something is unbalanced. Yet, the places we often experience pain are not necessarily at the location of the movement limitation.
Let’s consider the body and muscles as an elaborate system. When one area of the body is stuck short and tight, it is plausible that this area of tightness can tug, pull, or restrict movement, which inhibits proper functioning in other parts of the body.
Somatics explains that muscles become habituated tight and short in response to repetitive strain, injury, and stress. Muscles essentially fail to function properly - which means they stop fully contracting and stop fully releasing. This is known as Sensory Motor Amnesia - loss of the brain’s voluntary control over the muscles.
The importance of our bath time varies and changes throughout our entire lives. We go from babies being bathed in the kitchen sink to children who refuse to take baths at all. As young adults, we require daily grooming to remain healthy, but this becomes even more crucial as we become more advanced in years. After retirement, hygiene and cleanliness are significant factors in living our best lives.
The most important aspect of a sound bath is health and safety. As reported by the CDC, accidents near the bathtub, shower, toilet, and sink caused an estimated 234,094 nonfatal injuries in the U.S. in 2008 among people 15+ years old. Approximately two out of every three accidental injuries happen in the bathtub or shower. To maximize safety, place non-slip mats or stickers on the bottom of the tub, which will keep your feet from slipping while entering and exiting the tub. It's equally important to ensure that your tub is clean and sanitized to have the best experience.
Posture refers to how we position our bodies when sitting, standing, or laying down. Your overall health relies on good posture. It keeps your bones aligned with the rest of your body, and the tension in your muscles, ligaments, and tendons adequately spread. It even improves your blood flow.
Maintaining a good posture means that you hold your body in the best position possible to place minimal stress on your back and spine. Since our spines begin to change as we age, good posture becomes even more critical for older adults. Have you ever heard that as we age, we get shorter? Well, this is, in fact, true. The cushions between our bones start to break down and thin over time, plus the cartilage and tissues connecting our spines lose their elasticity and are not as thick. But, having good posture can help with this.
Falling is the number one reason for broken bones and injuries among older adults. The high number of falls means that learning how to be more aware of good posture is needed to improve balance and decrease falling chances. Good posture is also an osteoporosis preventative. It lowers heart attack and stroke risk, makes you feel happier, helps sustain memory recall, and helps with digestive issues.
Below are the ten tips we highly recommend for older adults to improve their posture.
Meditation has benefits for all ages but may be especially helpful for older adults. Increasing the brain's focus makes it possible to boost activity throughout the brain and activate areas that are not always used in daily tasks. This can help improve the brain's functioning in many ways and help maintain growth and mental health.
There are many forms of meditation, and they all help to calm the thought process, ease the racing thoughts that pass through the mind, and increase the health and functions of the brain. Color meditation, guided meditations, and using a picture or decoration as the focus can help maintain healthy eyes and train the mind to focus on one thing and calm thoughts in the moment. It also increases memory by concentrating on memorizing the details of the meditations and slowing down the processes that interrupt focus. Meditation also slows the effects of aging on the brain to keep it healthy and younger for longer.
Believe it or not, we all have pain. It is inevitable that we will cycle into and out of pain – what matters the most is what we do about it.
Even Pain Resolution Therapists experience pain. One more time, let me stress that it is what you do about it that counts. Do you mask it with drugs for temporary relief, or are you willing to correct the imbalance and dive into the root cause?
Do you often wake up feeling stiff or aching? Do you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning because of your sore and stiff muscles? This is very common and often referred to as morning stiffness. Even though it is common, many people don't understand the causes of morning stiffness or how to avoid it. Many people think it solely has to do with getting older and the aging of the body. While this can certainly be a reason and a normal occurrence, aging is, more often than not, unlikely to be the reason for morning stiffness.
The most common cause of morning stiffness is tight muscles or worn and tired joints. Muscle tightness can often be mistaken for joint pain. These symptoms can also be an indication of arthritis or inflammation, but that is not always the case.
The fact is that joints do not always age at the same rate as the rest of the body. They can age faster due to wear and tear, or they can age more slowly if they are taken care of properly. Typically, overweight people are more subject to having worn joints and feeling stiff in the morning. Cartilage works as the cushioning of your joints. As your joints age, cartilage dries out and stiffens. As cartilage dries out, your joints also lose necessary lubrication, which also contributes to morning stiffness. This leads to tightness in the morning, stiff tendons, and weakened muscles. It is very difficult to reverse the symptoms of aging joints. Still, there are different things that you can do to reduce morning stiffness and the aging of your joints.
Tightening your abdominal muscles to strengthen your core does not relieve chronic back pain. It is possible that this approach will even make things worse!
When you take the approach of strengthening or tightening the abdominal muscles in order to counterbalance tight back muscles, you are working against your body. It results in a co-contraction of both the front and back body muscles. This then creates a braced-liked situation that creates more layers of problems than solutions.