It’s always important to take care of yourself, but as we age, it becomes increasingly necessary to establish healthy daily habits. It’s never too late to adopt healthy habits – here are our favorite 5 daily healthy habits for seniors to help you get started.
1. Physical Exercise
Staying active and exercising daily is often first on everyone’s recommendations regarding senior health, and there’s a reason for that. Exercising daily has many benefits, from reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes to soothing chronic pain to boosting your mood. In order to foster this first daily health habit, we suggest finding activities you love to do such as taking walks with friends, gardening, or doing an exercise class.
For more ideas about different exercises you could do daily, check out our activities calendar – there are a variety of exercise classes for any resident to join!
2. Proper Nutrition
Another important daily healthy habit is fostering proper nutrition. Ensure your diet is well-rounded and high in fiber, and includes vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and lean protein. Proper nutrition will aid in maintaining energy levels as well as ensuring you’re obtaining all of the nutrients you need to support your body.
To help you navigate what foods you should include in your diet, we developed A Healthy Eating Guide for Seniors. Check it out!
3. Supporting Brain Health
While developing habits to improve or maintain your physical health is important, ensuring your brain is healthy is a great addition to your daily routine. While there are currently no cures for genetic causes of cognitive impairment, research has shown that certain activities and lifestyle choices may lessen your risk of developing age-related mental decline.
However, there is a lot of misinformation out there regarding brain health, which is why we created a guide to help you lower the risk of developing memory loss as you age. Download it now!
4. Finding Gratitude
Being grateful each day is a great way to stay healthy and positive as you age, although, we know at times it can be difficult. We recently wrote about how important it is to find gratitude every day; it can improve not only your mood but also your physical health. We offer some simple tips that you can incorporate into your daily routine.
By finding ways to be grateful each day, such as keeping a gratitude journal, you can ensure that you’ll be happy and healthy as you age.
5. Improving Sleep
Our last daily healthy habit you can incorporate into your routine is the last thing you do each day – sleep! A good night’s sleep is imperative to allow the body to recover and rejuvenate so you can wake up feeling refreshed and prepared for the day. However, there are many factors that change our sleeping habits as we age. One of our blog articles outlines a few of these factors and how they can impact your ability to fall and stay asleep, for instance, changing your sleep times.
In order to improve your night’s rest, try doing the same activities before bed each night. Develop a nightly routine that includes activities such as reading, eating, and bathing at the same time each night before bed. That will help to signal to your brain and body that it’s time to sleep for the night.
As we age, it becomes especially important to take care of our mental and physical health. Moving daily and fostering proper nutrition, as well as supporting brain health, finding gratitude, and improving sleep are great healthy habits to incorporate into your daily routine. These 5 daily healthy habits for seniors will help ensure that as you age you remain in the best health you can.