Lifting Spirits During Retirement Years: Making it Happen
Your elderly loved one is now retired. Do you find that they are getting lonely since they are no longer around the people they used to work with? Does it seem like they don’t know what to do with their life or what to do each day? If so, they may be experiencing a major shift in their mood and their thought processes now that they are in their retirement years. The good news is that there are many ways to help lift your elderly loved one’s spirits.
Healthy and Fun Activities
Your elderly loved one may be feeling down now that they don’t work. However, you and home care assistance providers can change that. There are many healthy and fun activities that your elderly loved one may enjoy. Of course, you or the home care providers may need to do these activities with your loved one, but that would just make it even more fun for them. Some of the healthy and fun activities that are great for people in retirement include:
- Swimming
- Yoga
- Meditation
- Going for walks or hikes
- Doing puzzles
If you can, try to find time to do some of these activities with your elderly loved one.
Self-Expression
Is your elderly loved one unsure of what to do now that they are retired? If so, the first thing to do is to let your elderly loved one know that is normal. It is okay for them to feel like that and to go through a range of other feelings in regard to their retirement, as well.
However, you should also encourage your elderly loved one to express themselves and their feelings. Just sitting with these new feelings and not doing anything with them probably won’t do much good. You should try getting your elderly loved one to talk to you or senior care providers about how they are feeling. It may even help to get your elderly loved one a journal or an artbook, so they can express themselves in other ways.
Self-expression can help your elderly loved one to accept the way their life is now that they don’t work.
Creating Their Legacy
One other way to help lift your elderly loved one’s spirits in their retirement is by helping them to create a legacy. There are numerous ways to do this. Some ideas might be to:
- Create a scrapbook
- Write a book
- Write notes to loved ones with stories in them
These are just a few ideas to help your elderly loved one create and talk about their legacy. If needed, you can have a home care assistance provider help your elderly loved one write the book, write the notes, or create the scrapbook.
Conclusion
Is your elderly loved one feeling down in their retirement years? If so, these are some of the ways they can start lifting their spirits.
If you or an aging loved one are considering Home Care Assistance in Evanston, IL, contact the caring staff at Companion Services of America today at (847) 943-3786. Our home care service area includes Northbrook, Highland Park, Deerfield, Glenview, Buffalo Grove, Evanston, Des Plaines, Skokie, Lake Forest, Wilmette and the surrounding areas.
Sources
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5508938/
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