Cantissimo Senior Living Blog

We’d love to share with you six pillars of health that date back thousands of years and come from the world of Ayurveda known as the medicine of yoga. 

The Six Pillars are meant to be incorporated into your daily life to help you stay healthy, vibrant, and maintain your independence. After all, this is the time of life to travel, play with grandkids, volunteer in your community, and enjoy quality time with family and friends. 

The human body/mind has some pretty basic requirements to maintain energy, proper elimination, and stress resiliency. These practices are simple and easy and will support you to feel great!

Breath is life force and essential to supporting all the functions and systems in our bodies, thereby regulating health. As we age and go through the trials and tribulations of life, it is common that we adopt patterns of breathing that are not optimal. Some of those patterns include mouth breathing, erratic breathing, breath-holding, and even reverse breathing. 

All of these patterns affect how much the diaphragm, our primary breathing muscle, is able to contract and release, corresponding to vagus nerve stimulation, the brain-gut connection, and our body’s relaxation response.

The vagus nerve is the longest in the body, running from the brainstem to the gut. Simulating the vagus nerve activates the body’s relaxation response, reducing heart rate and blood pressure.

So, how do we stimulate the vagus nerve? By first bringing attention to our current breathing pattern, and then beginning to activate the diaphragm as we breathe, taking slow, deep breaths.

Sleep is vital when growing up, and the same is true as we age. However, for older adults, sleeping patterns frequently change. Often, older adults begin experiencing trouble falling asleep or waking up. Others struggle to reach a state of deep sleep. That said, when this happens, don't assume it's a normal part of aging. These could be symptoms of insomnia or other sleep-related conditions. Therefore, ensuring you receive a good night's sleep is important and needs to be consistent, just like when you were younger.

Through a good night's sleep, your mental health and memory improve. Your body can repair worn-out cells and tissues, and your immune system is refreshed. With this, your body can better fight diseases and stay healthy. On the other hand, a poor night's sleep can make you susceptible to memory problems, attention issues, and even depression. Further, it leads to a sense of fatigue during the day and worsened focus.

Best Sleeping Positions for Older Adults

If you want to enhance your sleep quality and health, your sleeping position may be a great place to start. For a full and restorative sleep, consider changing to one of the following recommended sleep positions:

All movement should make you feel great during, after, and days later. You might feel that you have worked hard, but you really should not be in pain. Keeping your muscles strong is essential. Muscles are meant to be able to contract and release well to do their jobs effectively and efficiently. Does your workout routine create pain in your body?

Should we accept pain as a normal part of aging?

Chronic tension/pain has become an epidemic across North America and the industrialized world. The US Department of Health and Human Services estimates that pain affects more Americans than diabetes, heart disease, and cancer combined. The question is, why?

Persistent or recurring pain is defined as pain lasting more than six months after the original tissue damage has healed. The research on chronic (persistent/recurring) pain is compelling. The annual cost to industrialized countries in health care resources and lost productivity is increasing every year. In 2017, the University of Michigan Health reported that the annual cost of treatment and lost productivity due to chronic pain in the USA was $635 billion.

How well do you listen to your body? And how do you talk to your body? Did you know that the language you use and how you relate to your body really matters?

Dr. Joe Dispenza describes thoughts as electric. Your thoughts create feelings that affect the electromagnetic field around you. 

Stress is a fact of life. We have all experienced it at some point in our lives. Stress can be a great motivator when you have a big project to deliver, and when your stress response is well-managed, stress ebbs and flows naturally with life circumstances. When sustained over an extended period, stress becomes dangerous and can lead to illness and disease. According to the Mayo Clinic, prolonged stress can lead to pain and tension, anxiety, poor sleep, fatigue, anger, depression, chest pain, and headaches.

Have you ever considered that how you use your five senses can have an impact on your health?

Your five senses are taste, touch, sight, smell, and hearing. These five senses support your ability to experience your life and the world around you. These include feeling the wind on your face, smelling the flowers in your garden, and communicating through speech and learning through reading. The senses are constantly providing you with input so you can experience yourself and navigate the world around you. They also provide a mechanism for self-regulation to maintain a healthy and balanced life.

We don’t realize how important our feet are until they start to cause us problems. Pain on the soles of the feet can make wearing shoes and walking challenging. It destroys our motivation to get active and go out for that walk to take in the beauty of the outdoors. Staying active is paramount to staying healthy as we age. Don’t let foot pain become the reason you are not out there walking, jogging, hiking, and having fun!

Pain has big shoulders and deep roots. Our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects all influence pain. Yoga practitioners believe that all pain is rooted in spiritual discord.

It is common for patients with persistent pain to make statements like:

• “I have always had tight shoulders.”
• “My pain worsens when I am stressed.”
• “My elbow gets sore after I golf, so I ice it after I play.”
• “Do you think there is a connection between the loss of my late wife and the pain I am experiencing all over my body?”