It’s no secret that physical activity benefits the body. Exercise improves your balance, overall mobility, strength, and gets your heart rate up. But, as you age, just as important as your overall health, is continuing to engage with others and staying socially active. However, with the coronavirus, family and friends moving away, and more, in order for older adults to connect with others, it can be challenging, at best. Add to that the fact that it’s harder to get out and about if mobility issues come into play.
Before you know it, loneliness and isolation can be a problem. These can and do have an extremely detrimental effect on a person’s emotional, mental, and physical health. What we are saying here is this: The key to healthy aging is – among other things – social wellness.
Retirement Age Adults Benefit from Social Activities
A variety of benefits can be experienced, as you age, by staying socially connected including the following:
- Increases longevity
- Provides a sense of belonging
- Better sleeping and eating habits
- Improves physical health
- Boosts your mental health
How Can a Person Increase Socialization?
If you don’t know where to start, you might feel overwhelmed when thinking about how to connect with others. To find new relationships, consider the following activities:
- Attend a church service.
- Do volunteer work.
- Increase and/or maintain family involvement.
- Find something that interests you. Join a club that involves gardening, reading, or some other interesting/fun activity.
- Use games, puzzles, etc. to keep your brain busy.
- Try your hand at social networking.
- Find a friend whose health you trust/has been vaccinated and go have coffee together.
- Attend an exercise class that practices social distancing or takes place out of doors.
Eight Dimensions of Wellness
In your everyday life, it is essential that the eight dimensions of wellness are present. Your involvement in dining programs, social activities, and more will help fulfill each dimension.
The dimensions we refer to here are as follows:
- Proper health services
- Environmental
- Social (which we dealt with here)
- Physical
- Emotional
- Intellectual
- Vocational
- Spiritual
Be sure you are keeping up with as much socialization as your health and the health of others allows.
Remember that if social distancing is not practical, the Internet is a great place to get together with friends. It is even possible, today, to have a group chat together with others to pursue interests such as book clubs, movie clubs, and more. Each person’s picture can appear on the computer screen, so they can actually see the people they are interacting with. (Check out “Group Zoom Meetings” online, just as an example.)
Stay Socially Active with the Opportunities Presented at Discovery Village At Dominion
Discovery Village At Dominion offers several distinct options for retirement living: SHINE® Memory Care, assisted living, and independent living.
Courtesy of our Celebrations Activities, you will live an enriched lifestyle, staying as active as you would like to be. There’s always something going on with the events and activities regularly scheduled. To make sure you are always having fun, our full-time activities director arranges all sorts of events – from games to seminars to parties to exercises, and more. Along with friends and neighbors, you will always have something to enjoy, whether in town or right here in our community. We have holiday celebrations, dances, concerts, potluck dinners, poker nights – you name it. Check out our sample activities calendar here.
