By Duncan Rinehart, Ph.D.
During nearly fifty years as an age-group triathlete, I have had various injuries, surgeries, and life setbacks. Life setbacks include divorce and job loss. There have also been positive things such as the birth of my daughter, graduate school, and job promotions which nonetheless affected my ability to exercise and maintain my healthy lifestyle. I have had shoulder and hip surgeries, various locations of tendonitis, cardiac ablation, and bike crashes resulting in broken bones. Some of these have disrupted my exercise, my sleep, and my otherwise controlled levels of stress - sometimes for months. Looking back, all the above have affected my health and wellness. I have found ways to return to a healthier lifestyle after every challenge. There have been times of pain and discouragement, to be sure. And, I haven’t always returned to my previous levels of fitness. But I’ve learned some practices that can help seniors gain or regain greater health and wellness through some of the physical challenges of aging. Here are three of them.
Make adjustments
The first practice can be said like this, given the physical limitations of your illness or injury or life-change, find some way to keep active. While a friend of mine was going through treatment for prostate cancer, he still went to the gym for shortened workouts with lighter weights on days when he had the energy, as often as he could. He is now back to his previous fitness and his cancer is in remission. There are many ways to be active, many ways to adapt exercise, diet, and sleep/rest to “workaround” or work through injury and illness.
Get support
The second is to find supportive healthcare professionals. An exercise-minded physician, nurse practitioner, physician’s assistant, certified personal trainer, or certified health and wellness coach can help you find ways to regain and maintain activity as you adjust to and hopefully heal from illness or injury. In 2007, The American College of Sports Medicine, in conjunction with the American Medical Association, launched the Exercise is Medicine® initiative stating, “The scientifically proven benefits of physical activity remain indisputable, and they can be as powerful as any pharmaceutical agent in preventing and treating a range of chronic diseases and medical conditions.” (EIM) I have found that I get better health care from providers who are also active, even if not athletic.
Be determined
The third practice is more psychological. Try not to concede. Determination to regain at least some of your previous health will likely help you regain more than you would otherwise. A sixty-year-old ultra-marathoner I know recently ruptured a muscle in his thigh, preventing him from running at all. He was discouraged. Though it is taking months for his leg to heal, he has been walking, backpacking, and recently going for short runs, refusing to give up on his passion and healthy lifestyle. Certified health and wellness coaches can help you create self-efficacy and use the tools of positive psychology to work through the mental/emotional challenges of illness or injury.
Thriving
I remember a poster with a picture of redwoods that said, “There is no shortcut through the forest of life.” The same can be said about dealing with the physical challenges of aging. Hopefully, these practices can help you gain or regain greater health and wellness as you deal with those challenges.