Welcome to one of the healthiest things you can do for yourself. Exercise! Regular exercise and physical activity are very important to the health and abilities of older people. In fact, studies suggest that not exercising is risky behavior. That is why we wrote this book. We are the National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health, and our research is aimed at improving the health of older people.
For the most part, when older people lose their ability to do things on their own, it doesn’t happen just because they have aged. More likely, it is because they have become inactive. Older inactive adults lose ground in four areas that are important for staying healthy and independent: endurance, strength, balance, and flexibility.
Fortunately, research suggests that you can maintain or at least partly restore these four areas through exercise — or through everyday physical activities (walking briskly or gardening, for example) that accomplish some of the same goals as exercise. What may seem like very small changes resulting from exercise and physical activity can have a big impact.
Getting Past The Barriers
You may be reluctant to start exercising, even though you’ve heard that it’s one of the healthiest things you can do. You may be afraid that physical activity will harm you; or you might think you have to join a gym or buy expensive equipment in order to exercise. Or, you may feel embarrassed to exercise because you think it’s for younger people or for people who look great in gym clothes. You may think exercise is only for people who are able to do things like jogging.
In fact, just about every older adult can safely do some form of physical activity at little or no cost. And you don’t have to exercise in a public place or use expensive equipment, if you don’t want to.
Even household chores can improve your health. The key is to increase your physical activity, by exercising and by using your own muscle power.
Who Can Exercise?
Studies show that, in the long term, older adults in all age groups hurt their health far more by not exercising than by exercising. As a rule, older people should stay as physically active as they can.
