How Practicing Mindfulness Can Benefit Seniors

No, it’s not a religion. Mindfulness is simply a way of looking at your life, of handling the daily stresses, chronic pain, or anything else that is going on in a way that restores your energy and enthusiasm. Studies have been done that show practicing mindfulness can have a positive effect on your health, it can improve cognitive functioning, create a positive way to manage stress, and it can also greatly improve quality of life.

How Mindfulness is Practiced

Mindfulness improves not just the mind, but the body as well. Through meditation, seniors can learn to relieve stress, maintain balance, create harmony in their lives, and they are better able to handle chronic pain and trauma. Through yoga, seniors can gain the physical benefits of mindfulness which ultimately reduce the risk of disease.

Physical Benefits of Practicing Mindfulness

• By practicing walking meditation, seniors can improve their physical fitness levels while also reducing depression and stress.
• By practicing yoga and meditation, immunity can actually be boosted. These mindfulness practices aid in reducing inflammation, which can decrease the risk of disease.
• Meditation can slow down aging. Could it be the fountain of youth? Almost. Meditation stops our chromosomes from being shortened, which is a marker for aging. They shorten through stress, disease, and aging.
• Meditation slows diseases from progressing, including HIV, dementia, and Alzheimer’s.
• By being present in the present (the definition of mindfulness) instead of the past or future, seniors can live in the now and not be anxious about the past or future. This reduces loneliness, which, in turn, leads to a decreased risk of depression and disease.

Ways Assisted Living Communities can Help Seniors Practice Mindfulness

• By offering yoga classes suitable for seniors
• By offering meditation classes
• By offering massage sessions
• By offering acupuncture sessions

Always Best Care Senior Services has been in the senior care giving industry since 1996. During that time, they have assisted over 25,000 seniors remain independent in their homes, and have logged over three million hours of care giving time. If you are interested in receiving information about in-home care in Harford County, or other types of home care assistance in Harford County, call the Always Best Care local office at 410-877-3787 or email them at egill@abc-seniors.com.