Staying Safely at Home—Forever
By John Kindred, Right at Home, Indianapolis South LIVING WELL Magazine
Everyone wants to stay in their homes. We have great memories and we feel comfortable there. Several problems get in the way of staying at home. As we age, our bodies tend to lose balance, mobility, strength and vision. We also become hard of hearing. In other words, our bodies don’t cooperate with staying at home. We need to stay as healthy as possible, but not all of our health makeup can be controlled. This includes our genetic factors. Genes impact our susceptibility to such diseases as diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s disease. We cannot control the genetic factors, so let’s work on the things we can control such as diet and exercise.
As we talk about diet and exercise, think about how they will impact not only your parents, but impact you, your children, and your grandchildren, too. Our nation has turned into a fast-food/sedentary job society. Our diets have deteriorated, as have our exercise habits. We eat on the go, then go to an office, talk on the telephone and work on computers. Jobs that involve any semblance of physical labor (exercise by any other name) have become fewer and fewer.
The fix is simple. Eat better and incorporate physical exercise into your life. That eating part… We all generally know what is good for us; we just need to decrease our portion size and try to wean ourselves off of those foods that are not healthy. You don’t need to give up everything right away. Just start going in the right direction.
And now the exercise part… Consult with your physician prior to starting an exercise program if you have health issues, but any exercise is better than nothing. Find something you enjoy doing and start doing it. Don’t try to undo years of neglect in two weeks. If you enjoy doing something, you are more likely to continue doing it, so pick something you enjoy. Do you enjoy skiing, biking, hiking or just walking? How about swimming? The list is endless for getting your heart rate elevated.
Great news! The more you exercise, the more you can eat. And paradoxically, the more you exercise, the less you want to eat.
Staying healthy will not only keep you in your home longer, it will also save you money by reducing your medical bills, your pharmacy costs and quite possibly your insurance bills. There is no doubt the correlation between being healthy and diet/exercise.
What’s the most important part of exercise? Just getting started. So put three exercise periods on your calendar for this week and make it happen!
Right at Home provides non-medical home care. These services can oftentimes keep people safely at home instead of going into assisted living or nursing homes. John Kindred opened his office over nine years ago and is the longest tenured, non-medical provider on the south side of Indianapolis. He ensures that only top quality, trustworthy and compassionate caregivers are assigned to keep your loved ones safely at home. John is a retired naval officer whose goal is to be a part of the umbrella that cares for our seniors and helps them enjoy unsurpassed quality of life.
