Anyone over 50 years know that being healthy and maintaining a healthy lifestyle is important. As you age, your body may not respond as it was did especially when it comes to injuries. Here are 4 ways to avoid injuries for people over the age of 50.
Our Changing Diet
One key to living a good and healthy life well beyond the age of 50 is through diet and exercise. Eating habits changes and so do our bodies. Our metabolisms slow down. So eating habits acquired in our earlier years take on a whole different role on weight and nutrition. As we age, our bodies need added vitamins and minerals. Choices of foods should reflect that as well. There are benefits to living longer by choosing lean meats, increasing fruits and vegetables and watching intakes of salt and refined sugars.
Carrying extra weight isn’t a good thing for anyone at any age. For every pound of fat, four pounds of extra pressure is placed on the knees. And that isn’t good especially since aging also increases the risks of joint damage and bone density. Maintaining a healthy weight and eating the right foods is a vital necessity of a long and healthy life.
Exercise Regimen
A person tend to slow down with age. Whether it’s because of aches and pains, our reflexes become slower and our ability to do physical things more challenging. To fight the battle of age, an exercise regimen is important.
If you’ve always worked out then you have a jumpstart on many people. Exercise is an important way of keeping healthy and your body fit. It is always a good way to avoid injuries in the later years. As age begins to take some sort of toll on the body, exercising can keep those age symptoms at bay.
Joint pains and the loss of cartilage can lead to sprains and even bone fractures. Exercising helps keep the body fit, maintains good muscle tone and keeps your joints limber. Like most people, you probably already have some form of arthritis, but exercise can definitely help decrease your chances of injury and suffering from joint aches and pains.
Good Rest
Some studies show that as a person ages, the hours of sleep needed decrease. There is probably some truth to that especially for those that wake up several times in the night. But more likely it really isn’t the number of hours you sleep but the type of sleep you get in those hours.
As you know, tossing and waking up several times during the night can leave you tired in the morning. You don’t feel refreshed or may be don’t even feel as though you’ve slept at all. That’s when home accidents and injuries can occur.
The best way to keep from injuring yourself is to get a good night’s sleep and stop worrying about the night of hours you think you need. Diet and exercise can be greatly increase the quality of your sleep and help you wake up more energized and alert.
Support Devices
Even the healthiest person will still get occasional aches and pains. Whether it is sleeping wrong or over doing it at the gym, no one is immune to it. So to decrease your chances of injury, use support devices. One item is compression devices like those from Copper Wear.
Using compression sleeves as added support for your joints is a proactive way of avoiding injuries. They are comfortable and can be worn all day long. They give you added support, help with blood circulation and keeps your muscles limber.
