The ability to deal with challenges and change is referred to as emotional awareness, understanding, and acceptance. It’s also important for your emotional well-being to stay in the present moment. Emotional wellness is critical for our loved ones to enjoy a happier, healthier life. It can assist older adults in recovering quickly from setbacks. They can also hold on to positive emotions for longer periods and appreciate the good times.
While it’s always important to look after your emotional health and overall well-being, lowering your stress levels during these trying times can also help boost your immune system and help you get through the day a little easier.
To learn how to maintain emotional wellness, here are three strategies for remaining resilience, managing stress when larger personal issues arise and improving your overall mental health. During COVID-19, these activities are also good ways to deal with social isolation and loneliness.
Pick Up a New Pastime
It is important to remain active after retirement. Everyone has a wish list of goals and activities, but life has a habit of getting in the way. That doesn’t mean one should set them aside.
At Rittenhouse Village At Northside, we encourage the continuous pursuit of lifelong goals or picking up new hobbies such as gardening, sewing, painting or cooking, even in retirement. That is why we maintain a packed activities calendar with a wide variety of options for residents to participate in.
Brain Training Games
The brain, like the body, requires stimulation to stay sharp and avoid cognitive decline as we age. According to Harvard Health Publishing, brain games can help improve cerebral processing speed, planning skills, reaction time, decision making, and short-term memory.
Any activity that keeps the mind engaged and working toward a solution contributes to brain health. The following are some of the most common and accessible activities for our loved ones to partake in:
- Solving puzzles and playing games
- Playing a musical instrument
- Reading and writing
- Learning a new language
Aside from being entertaining, puzzles have been shown to help slow down memory loss and improve overall mental health. This is critical for our loved ones to maintain their independence and overall happiness.
Connecting with Others
As age catches up, we may find it difficult to continue close relationships with friends, due to factors such as time and distance. Maintaining contact with the important people in one’s life can help us and our loved ones avoid feelings of loneliness and isolation, which can lead to depression as well as mental and physical decline.
One simple method our loved ones can do is to actively write letters. Other more advanced ways of staying in touch with new and old friends can be through social media and video calls via FaceTime, Zoom, or Skype. At Rittenhouse Village At Northside, we are always willing to help our community stay updated on how to communicate effectively with these various applications.
