Benefits to Staying Active as You Age

Health experts say developing an active lifestyle can make you look and feel younger.

According to Tom Pitney, a physical therapist with Lee Memorial Health System, exercising as we age can help with chronic pain and prevent injuries and falls. “Anything that gets the heart beating faster, and the muscles moving, and the joints moving is going to have health benefits.”

Pitney says exercise not only improves your memory, mood, and energy levels, it also improves balance, agility, bone and muscle strength, and helps maintain independence.

“Activity and exercise are actually more important as we age because the benefits actually increase as we get older” said Pitney.

Benefits, Shirley Jimmerson says, she’s living proof of. At 93, she continues to exercise three days a week. “My body tells me. If I don’t come for three days I feel restless.”

Pitney says if you’re not used to an active lifestyle, it’s important to start off slow and build up your endurance. “People as they start exercising, especially as they start exercising in later years, really need to know their limitations.”

He says choose something you enjoy doing, like walking, dancing, cycling, or swimming, and make it become a routine. Also, have a goal in mind.

“If you have to get down when you get older, you have to get down and get in the bottom of that shelf and get something and get up again. So I work on my balance, the things I’m going to need to be functional” said Jimmerson.

Pitney says adding some type of physical activity can even help reverse some of the symptoms of aging. He says it’s never too late to get started.


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Lee Memorial Health System in Fort Myers, FL is the largest network of medical care facilities in Southwest Florida and is highly respected for its expertise, innovation and quality of care. For nearly a century, we’ve been providing our community with everything from primary care treatment to highly specialized care services and robotic assisted surgeries.

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