Mindful Aging: Embracing Wellness Practices for a Joyful Senior Life

Old age can look like an unkindness at the end of a busy and fulfilled life, coming as it does with the aches and pains of worn bodies, slippage in the cognitive abilities and a gradual sense of things running down…

But it doesn’t have to be that way, and even if you or your elderly relative have been diagnosed with a cognitive condition such as dementia , this does not have to mean that the joy will vanish from life. Let’s look at some ways to embrace wellness for a joyful senior life.

Reminisce Freely

Allow your relative to revisit their youth, or talk about times and people that you do not know. Memory is a funny beast and can arrive at unusual solutions to problems, for example, returning to the deepest long-term memories as a salve against the depredations of dementia on more recent memories.

As long as your relative can remember their family and friends, allow them to share anecdotes and adventures with you – the practice of remembering the ‘olden days’ can help them to retain their contemporary cognitive abilities for longer, delaying – possibly for years – their decline.

Exercise Gently

The effect of exercise on the human body is still not fully understood. We know that we eat heartily when we have exercised and that our digestion responds well to a certain amount of exercise and also that we sleep better – but researchers are beginning to discover that exercise helps with so many other aspects of our lives too: mental health is improved, problem-solving abilities soar, and small aches and pains are erased under gentle exercise, such as walks, swims or even yoga and Pilates aimed at older bodies.

Encourage New Hobbies

Your older relative might well be harbouring long-lost dreams of singing, playing a musical instrument, drawing or painting, or even of simply learning to knit or sew – dreams pushed to one side by the demands of a busy life.

Now is the time for these hobbies to be examined. The brain loves to learn and the more you keep learning, the better you will retain your mental faculties, so why not encourage your ‘old dog’ to try some new tricks? You might both be surprised at the success of the experiment.

Eat Well

Eating properly (and that includes drinking a good amount of water and staying properly hydrated) can wreak wonders in an elderly person. There have been several cases of ‘dementia’ patients brought back to full cognitive ability simply by ensuring that they were eating a good range of nutrients in sufficient quantities to restore their body’s proper functioning.

Having your relative move into a specialist home – check for care homes for dementia here – can help to ensure that they are not forgetting meals and that they are eating enough to sustain a good quality of life.

Stay Engaged

Finally, ensure that you keep your relative up to date with all the news. This doesn’t mean just venting to them about the problems you are having with the children; rather it means discussing current affairs, telling them funny and interesting anecdotes about the neighbours and asking for their take on any problems you are having. Not only will you feel better – we humans are sociable creatures – but they will have a purpose to go on: will the wedding go ahead as planned? Did the demand for a pay rise bear fruit? Why on earth was the neighbour digging in his flower bed on one of the hottest days of the year? As with learning, being engaged, and feeling plugged into the world, can help to retain cognitive ability and even forge new neural connections, fending off the spectre of dementia for a little longer each day.

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