Great Advice For Enjoying Your Time In A Senior Living Facility

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Enjoying Your Time In A Senior Living Facility

Everything you need to know about enjoying your stay in a great senior living facility. How to find the right activities and routines to fit your personality.

Getting older doesn’t mean you can’t have a good time.

When you’re beginning to consider the option of moving into a senior living facility, it’s common to be nervous. Thason for e rethis is that there’s a stigma attached to these facilities is one that depicts them as drab and depressing, certainly not where you would want yourself or a loved one to live out your days.

We’re here to tell you that this is a false perception. Living in a facility with other seniors doesn’t preclude you from enjoying yourself or having an engaging, healthy lifestyle. In fact, being around other people your age day in and day out can be more fun and more invigorating than living by yourself.

If you’re still not sold, you’ve come to the right place. Today, we’re going to give you some advice on how to have a good time in senior living facilities.

Selecting a Great Facility

Touring several prospective senior homes will help you choose one that’s perfect for your personality and your interests. Keeping your options open rather than just choosing the closest or most affordable one is better for your long-term mental and physical health.

Make sure to ask a lot of questions and take stock of all the things you could do during the tour so that you can make a wise decision. Some of the biggest things that most people value are the quality of the facilities, staff friendliness, room size/privacy, and access to outdoor areas.

Make a list of your own requirements and use that to decide. A facility like La Sonora has everything you could ever ask for in terms of community, facilities, and staff.

Staying Active

One of the most important senior health tips is staying active and if you’ve chosen a good facility, they’ll likely have a workout room fully stocked with treadmills and bikes. As you get a bit older, it becomes more and more crucial to stay active, keep up with your cardio, and work out your muscles. 

Encourage those running the facility to have yoga, Tai Chi, and Zumba instructors come by on a regular basis. These kinds of low-impact exercises are perfect for older folks and instructors that understand the needs of seniors can help to maintain a certain level of activity. 

Staying Outside

Living in a facility with ample outdoor space is a massive requirement for a lot of seniors. Nothing feels quite like a breath of fresh air and getting a daily walk in is a proven mood and fitness enhancer for people in retirement facilities.

Being inside all the time increases feelings of depression and anxiety. Getting just 15 minutes of outdoor time per day can negate those feelings, improve mental health, energy, and overall health. Spend your time soaking up the sunshine, admiring the trees, and listening to the birds.

Cooking Class

Having lived a long life full of activities with family and friends, we’re sure you’ve made your share of big meals. As people get older, they tend to shy away from cooking because it can be a lot of work to make a big meal for just one or two people. 

However, cooking has a lot of therapeutic benefits that are important for healthy senior living. The sense of accomplishment you get from cooking a delicious meal, even if it’s just for yourself, is immense. Encourage your facility to bring in a cooking instructor to teach yourself and the fellow residents some new cooking techniques.

Making New Friends

One of the best pieces of senior living advice is the importance of being able to socialize with people in your demographic. Living in the same community with so many other like-minded people will make it easy to make new friends that you can walk, talk, and play games with.

Participate In Events

If you’re someone that’s a bit more reserved, it might be a bit more difficult to make new friends, even in a retirement community. Fortunately, most great facilities will organize weekly events for the residents to participate in.

Whether it’s crochet night or karaoke night, you can find something that you enjoy doing and meet others that enjoy doing it too. Through these fun events, you can forge great new relationships in your facility.

Playing Games

A great way to maintain your mental health in a retirement facility is to play brain games. There are loads of apps out there that promote brain health (Lumosity, CogniFit, Personal Zen), but if you don’t want to use a smartphone or tablet, there are a lot of great offline games as well.

Check out this article from the Guardian about the importance of brain health and brain games for people of all ages, not just seniors.

Stay Close to Family

By choosing a local facility, you can have your family come to visit you multiple times per week. If you’re feeling cooped up, they can take you out of the facility to walk in a new park or go out for lunch. Being able to see your family, even after you’ve transitioned into your new lifestyle, is really important for emotional and mental health.

Take Up Hobbies

Since you’re going to be looked after in your senior living facility, you don’t have to worry about things like cooking and chores around the house. You’re going to have a lot more spare time on your hands, which you can spend learning new hobbies and skills.

A lot of seniors enjoy scratching the creative itch by painting, knitting, taking up an instrument, or getting into photography. Try your hand at something, and if you don’t like it, you can always try out something else.

Learning to Love Your Senior Living Facility

Moving into a senior living facility can be a huge adjustment for most people. When you’re used to looking after people, it can feel strange to be the one being looked after. However, the benefits of assisted living for your mental and physical health, as well as your social life are too many to ignore. If you need help affording your stay at a facility, car title loans may be able to help with the expense

Take up a hobby, make new friends, and enjoy your spare time!

Did you enjoy this post? Come back and visit us again for more on health and fitness.

 

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