Retirement means a lifestyle that is free of stress from work and the cares of raising a family. As the years add up, however, many seniors find stress-free living at home is more of a wish than a reality. Keeping up with indoor and outdoor household chores, needing help with personal care, being a burden on family, and other factors can make stress-free living at home nearly impossible. That’s where senior living is a great choice, even before life becomes hard to manage alone.
Stress and the older adult
Stress comes in many packages and is almost always present throughout life. Seniors however are especially prone to the negative effects of stress thanks to their changing physiology making stress-free living seem unattainable. According to stress.org, these changes include impaired immunity and diminished ability to respond to the causes of inflammation associated with atherosclerosis, osteoporosis, arthritis, Type 2 diabetes, cancers, and dementia. In addition, the blueshieldca.com article, “Impact of Stress on Seniors’ Health” notes stress can also limit an active lifestyle (which is key to minimizing the effects of stress), increase blood pressure, cause an irregular heartbeat, and contribute to poor decision making.
Home upkeep
One of the first things to chip away at stress-free living is often the inability to keep up with all the housekeeping and home maintenance required to ensure the home is safe and well cared for. Just vacuuming and washing floors can becomes difficult, not to mention lawn care, and other outdoor maintenance.
In senior living, however, residents can live a stress-free lifestyle that includes not only a beautifully maintained community inside and out, but amenities like weekly housekeeping and linen service, with the added benefit of 24/7/365 security. Today’s modern senior living communities actually make stress-free living a daily goal so that residents can cast their worries aside and enjoy all that senior living has to offer. Find out how senior living meets that goal in our blog, “7 Reasons Why a Retirement Community Beats Living at Home.”
Download our free guide for tips on making a Successful Transition to senior living.
Personal Care
Another stressor for seniors is managing personal care. Home bathrooms with slippery bathtubs, conditions like arthritis, mobility issues, and other challenges can slowly erode a senior’s ability to manage their own personal care due to the fear of falling and getting hurt, being unable to get up and down from the toilet safely, or even struggling to hold a tooth brush or adjust faucets for proper water temperature. Seniors may skip personal care or need to fall back on family members to help them every day which makes stress-free living harder to reach.
Managing personal care is a breeze in senior living where each resident can receive exactly the right amount of help exactly when they need it. Of course, unlike family homes, senior living communities are designed to make stress-free living easy by making every day activities like personal care simple with walk-in showers, grab bars, easy-to-operate faucet handles, and overall community-wide accessibility. In so doing seniors maintain their health and independence and continue to look and feel their best. Learn the importance of personal hygiene in the seniorlifepa.com blog, “Keeping Up Appearances—Senior Hygiene.”
Eating well
Struggling to get groceries and prepare healthy meals is another stressor that can really make a stress-free lifestyle much harder to achieve. According to the aginginplace.org article, “The Facts Behind Senior Hunger,” there are many reasons for poor nutrition including advancing age, living alone, lack of nearby food sources, and mental or physical health problems, any of which can contribute to poor nutrition.
Seniors in senior living communities have zero reasons to worry about eating well because meals are included. These chef-inspired meals are not only delicious but prepared with the freshest ingredients so that even seniors with special diets receive excellent nourishment every day.
Wear and tear on family
One more reason for senior stress is the constant concern that they are a burden on family caregivers. Sadly, it really can become a burden when caregivers also have jobs, families and other responsibilities. The AARP research report “Caregiving in the U.S.” found caregivers often struggle to coordinate care, and the more care is needed, the more difficult it becomes. In addition, over the past five years, more caregivers self-reported declining health, with 18% reporting fair health but just 10% reporting excellent health.
Senior living removes the weight of caregiving off family, so they can concentrate on their own lives, and spend precious time with senior loved ones enjoying each other rather than with cleaning and caregiving.
Stress-free living is a given in a community like Sonrisa Senior Living! Find out more about what luxury senior living is all about – contact us today to schedule your tour! Download our free guide for tips on making a Successful Transition to senior living.
