Exercise for Seniors
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/ Categories: WELLNESS, 2022

Exercise for Seniors

When combined with a healthy diet, quality sleep, an active social life, and preventative medical care, there nothing is more powerful than exercise to keep us feeling younger, stronger, mobile, and independent. But incorporating exercise into our daily lives can be challenging for some. Here are six key concepts to get you started or reinvigorate your exercise routine.

Put exercise on your schedule. As they say, failing to plan is planning to fail. So, consider the best time for exercise, and work it into your day. Many people find it beneficial to make exercise the first thing they do in the morning. Doing so holds many important benefits, including improved sleep, mood, focus, and more.

Start low and slow. Deciding to be more active, and thinking about all of the rewarding aspects of a healthy lifestyle, can be really exciting. Those thoughts can lead people to do too much too soon, which can cause soreness or injury and derail healthy efforts altogether. Instead, start slow. Consider your current activity level and add 15 minutes a day or increase the degree of intensity by a small amount.

Those who are not active at all could begin with 15 minutes of low-impact exercises a day. Low-impact exercises—like swimming, cycling, walking, and chair yoga—allow you to move without putting a lot of added stress on your joints. As you become stronger, you can move on to longer or more intense exercise sessions.

Upgrade with some variety. Once you have a routine of a few weeks, add exercises that improve strength, mobility, balance, and flexibility. Yoga and Tai Chi are two excellent opportunities to combine these concepts into a single workout. You might walk three days each week while doing a yoga video on three other days.

Increase the duration. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, we should build up the duration of our workouts until we have reached at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity exercise per week. Aim for at least two sessions, on different days, of strength-building exercise. Remember, some exercise is better than none.

Make it fun and enjoyable. The best workout is the one you will consistently do. There are so many ways to make workouts fun. Invite friends along, join a class, or dance to your favorite music. You can also cultivate an active outdoor hobby, like hiking, cross country skiing, or snowshoeing. (Be sure to follow safety recommendations.)  Outdoor workouts include extra benefits, like reduced anxiety, improved sleep, and strength-building terrain.

If it hurts, adjust or stop. Pain is not gain; it’s an indication that something could be going wrong. If you run into pain, do a less intense modification or stop. Choose an exercise that is more comfortable for you. Ask your doctor if you might be able to see a physical therapist to get you off to a good start.

As long as you continue to try new things and slowly and safely increase the intensity and duration of your workouts, you will be experiencing the major benefits movement has to offer.

Nina Nunes, PTA, is a physical therapy assistant who works at SVMC Outpatient Therapy and in Southwestern Vermont Medical Center's inpatient units. SVMC is part of Southwestern Vermont Health Care. 

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How to Maintain a Healthy Immune System

There are so many things that we have little control over. We can't control what genes we get, how old we are, or what viruses are circulating in our environment, but there is a lot we can do to prevent illness. Remarkably, many of the same habits that protect you from diseases like diabetes, cancer, and heart disease also help your immune system fight infections.

Most viruses can't hurt you until they get inside your body. So, we can help our immune system if we avoid viruses and cut off the ways they travel. Viruses can spread through the air, but not usually for very far. Keep your distance—at least 6 feet—from others, and be a good neighbor by wearing a mask in all public areas.

Viruses that cause the most common illnesses—respiratory infections, including the common cold, flu, and the new COVID-19—travel into the body through your mouth, nose, and eyes and make their way to the areas they infect, like the lungs. The best way to break this chain is to clean your hands frequently, and don't touch your face with hands that have touched anything else. In addition, you can reduce the number of viruses in your environment by cleaning frequently touched objects with a bleach- or alcohol-based cleaner.

Vaccinations are your next line of defense. Immunizations, like the flu shot, introduce a small and harmless part of a virus or bacteria. The vaccine gives your immune system an opportunity to make antibodies against the virus. A vaccinated immune system responds more quickly and effectively when illnesses are introduced. What's more, when we all get vaccinated, we decrease the likelihood that anyone will get sick. If you are unsure about whether you or your children are up to date on their vaccinations, call your primary care provider’s office.

Your third line of defense is living a healthy lifestyle. It is clear that the same things that help the rest of our bodies function also improve the strength of our immune response. Likewise, things that hinder our bodies' ability to function compromise the immune system.

Regular exercise might be the most powerful way to maintain a healthy immune system. By increasing heart rate and blood flow, we allow the cells and substances of the immune system to move through the body freely and do their job efficiently. Similarly, things that slow the movement of cells and substances, like smoking or drinking alcohol in excess, may decrease the body’s ability to function and decreases the immune response, as well.

Getting adequate sleep may also positively affect the immune response. Chronic sleep deprivation has been shown to decrease the beneficial boost in immunity from vaccinations.

Our emotional state, too—whether we are stressed, lonely, or depressed, for instance—affects our immune response so much that a relatively new specialty called psychoneuroimmunology now studies the connection. One pioneering study, conducted in the early 1980s, found that college students operating within a stressful 3-day exam period had fewer of the cells that fight tumors and viral infections. In simple terms, the students almost stopped producing immunity boosters and infection fighters.

Finally, physicians have concluded that eating a mostly plant-based diet—including fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts, whole grains, and lean protein—supports overall health and may also support immunity. Nutritious foods include important vitamins that the immune system needs to function, such as beta carotene, vitamin C, vitamin D, and zinc. Note, however, that supplements that claim to improve immune function have not yet been shown to do so to the extent necessary to protect against infection and disease. It is better to eat whole foods that are rich in vitamins rather than take supplements.

Always consult with your provider before making changes to your exercise plan or trying a new supplement and if you have any medical concerns. Physicians and the other professionals working in their offices also provide help for developing a plan for a healthier life. Call your primary care office or 802-447-5007 to find a primary care provider.

Healthy habits, like those that protect your body from disease and infection, are not always easy to adopt or maintain. Perhaps knowing just how important they are to maintaining a healthy immune response will provide the extra motivation necessary to make them a priority.

Kim Fodor, MD, is an internal medicine physician at SVMC Internal Medicine.

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