Regular physical activity is one of the best things you can do for your brain and body. Staying active can reduce stress, improve wellbeing, and help deal with stress. The key is finding physical activities you enjoy, give you exercise and making them part of everyday life.
Exercise comes in different forms, and each has unique benefits.
Aerobic (cardio) exercise
These activities raise your heart rate and make you breathe faster. Aerobic exercise has benefits for mood, sleep, physical health, and even memory and thinking. Examples of aerobic exercises include brisk walking, cycling, swimming, and jogging. You can turn vacuuming, sweeping, or raking the leaves into aerobic exercise too!
Strength (resistance) training
Strength-based activities help build muscle and improve bone health, which can reduce the risk of injuries and falls. Examples include lifting weights, using exercise bands, or lifting your own bodyweight. Strength training can also be incorporated into daily activities such as carrying shopping baskets/bags rather than using a trolley, getting up from a chair without using your arms, or climbing stairs. A physiotherapist, exercise physiologist, or trained instructor can help tailor a safe strength training program, especially if you are new to this type of exercise.
Flexibility
Keeping joints moving and muscles stretched and flexible helps you move more freely and reduces discomfort or injury. Activities such as yoga, tai chi, dancing, or bowls help maintain flexibility. This type of exercise can be enjoyable and give you ways to stay active socially by attending some of the many classes available across the country.
Balance
The ability to balance well reduces the risk of falls and helps with confidence moving around in everyday life. Balance exercises include safely challenging your ability to balance with sideways walking, heel raises, and safely practicing finding your ‘toppling point’ (the point just before you lose your balance) and increase the time you can hold this pose. Balance and strength work best together, and improvements can happen quickly with regular practice. Physiotherapists and exercise physiologists can help with this.
You can read more about exercises physiology in our story ‘What an exercise physiologist can do for you.’
Falls prevention
‘An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure’.
For falls, the best treatment is prevention, and exercise is the best prevention. People with dementia fall more often than people, so exercising is essential to reduce your risk of falling and sustaining an injury.
Falls prevention programs usually incorporate strength, balance and flexibility exercises. Often falls prevention programs will also suggest changes you can make around your home to reduce your risk of falls. The websites below can help you find a local falls prevention or exercise program:
- New South Wales: Active and Healthy
- Queensland: Stay on your feet
- Victoria: Victorian falls directory
- Australian Capital Territory: Falls and Falls Injury Prevention Program
- South Australia: Falls South Australia
- Tasmania: Stay on your feet
- Western Australia: Stay on your feet
- Northern Territory: Darwin and Palmerston falls prevention
As well, your GP or GP practice nurse may know of falls prevention classes in your area.
Start exercising slowly and build up gradually
Australian physical activity guidelines suggest that older adults should do at least 30 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity on most, preferably all, days. Moderate intensity physical activity means you’re exercising hard enough to raise your heart rate and break a sweat. If you currently don’t do much exercise then start slowly. You might start by doing a 15 minute walk a few times a week. Then build up to walking for longer and more frequently.
The Australian physical activity guidelines also recommend different types of exercise activity each week. Do exercise that you enjoy, you’re much more likely to continue with the exercise if you enjoy it. Many people prefer to exercise with others. You might join a seniors movement class, play golf (more benefits if you walk rather than driving in a golf buggy), or have a regular walking date with a friend.
Some people prefer to incorporate exercise into their everyday activities. You might walk up the stairs rather than take a lift, or walk rather than drive to the shops, park at a spot a distance from the shops and then walk, or get a workout doing the vacuuming or gardening. Don’t underestimate the value of short bursts of exercise several times a day. You can read about ‘exercise snacking’ here.
- Always talk to your doctor before starting to exercise, especially if you have other health conditions. Ask for advice about what’s safe for you to do. If you feel faint, dizzy or experience pain, stop and talk to your doctor.
Aim to exercise every day
- Do at least 30 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity on most, preferably all, days.
- Exercise hard enough to raise your heart rate and break a sweat.
- If you find 30 minutes difficult right now, start with just 10 minutes once or twice a day. After 2 weeks, increase to 15 minutes twice a day.
- Over the course of the week, try to incorporate different types of activities.
- If you prefer not to exercise on your own, join an exercise group or find an exercise buddy.
- When starting a new, or getting back onto an old exercise regime, always consult with your GP first.
