Exercise. Walking. Water Aerobics. Yoga. Good nutrition. Getting enough sleep. Managing stress. Hydration. All of these are important. The #1 concept that holds them all together is balance.

In my work with adults aged 55–85,
I’ve learned that to stay fit and active as we age, we need to focus on balance
in three areas:

• Balanced
  joint alignment,
• Balance
  while we’re in motion,
• Balanced
  lifestyle.

Let’s cover some simple, practical
tips to maintain balance in all three areas.

Balance Your Joints

Some people believe that arthritis,
joint pain, and stooped posture are unavoidable, non-negotiable parts of aging.
While it’s true that our bodies eventually slow down, and we go through some
life situations we cannot change, we don’t have to experience pain and limited
motion.

In many cases, it’s the uneven wear
and tear on joints that causes pain. For example, if your feet pronate
(collapse on the inner arch) too much, your knees or low back may hurt. By aligning your feet with better
muscular balance
side to side and top to bottom, you can avoid this pain.

I’ve also seen many older adults who
are in excellent cardiovascular condition, but have stooped posture and pain in
their knees, hips, backs, and necks. These adults have often been endurance
athletes, with a lifelong love and commitment to bike riding, running, hiking,
or cardio machines at the gym.

While these activities are wonderful
for overall health, energy, immunity, and mood, they involve repetitive motions.
Without cross-training and stretching, the same muscles get used for hours
every day. The neglected muscles complain, and the imbalanced muscle effort
puts imbalanced strain on the joints.

Yoga, Pilates, tai chi, and other mindful movement practices bring awareness to our posture. They help us see where we are tight and weak. We have to stretch out the tight places to reduce the uneven forces on our joints.

In my work as a yoga therapist, I help
people stretch the tight places and strengthen the weak ones to improve posture, align their joints, and
reduce pain.

There are many exercises you can do to
overcome poor joint alignment: Rounded Shoulders, Stiff Upper Back, Forward Head and Stiff
Neck, Stop Walking Like an Old Lady.

Balance Your Balance

It’s no secret that maintaining
balance and staying upright are crucial to keeping fit and active as we age.
One fall can be a huge setback, especially if we break a bone or have another
serious injury.

When I talk to many potential clients,
they often say, “I can’t balance at all,” or “My balance is terrible.” (Once
they become my clients, they learn to speak and act proactively about their balance!)

I have a big gripe with one part of
senior fitness programming. The balance exercises are often too still. I’ve
never heard of anyone falling while standing on one foot and touching the wall.

People usually fall when they are
already in motion – walking, going down stairs, or stepping over an obstacle.
To maintain and improve our balance, we’ve got to practice dynamic balance, in motion!

We also need to balance
in multiple directions,
including forward, backward, right, left, and while in rotation.

Balance Your Lifestyle

Even if you have the best intentions
to exercise, align your joints, and practice balance every day, it’s incredibly
difficult without a holistic approach. If you’re not sleeping well, eating
well, or managing stress, even simple activities you need to do will feel a lot
harder!

That’s why in my very first
conversation with a potential client, I ask them how well they are sleeping,
hydrating, digesting, and managing stress. In their first week with me, we
track sleep, hydration, fruits and vegetables, and activities that bring them
joy and peace.

These foundational health habits are
the keys to a balanced lifestyle and must be in place to support gains in
flexibility, strength, and stamina. A balanced lifestyle is also absolutely
necessary for healthy bones.

To get you started, here are a few
free resources:

• Two Most Important
  Vitamins for Healthy Aging (and You’ve Never Heard of Them)
• How I Improved Insomnia with Meditation and Yoga Lifestyle
• Calmer This Year Free
  Meditation Training

If you’d like to learn more ways to balance your body and stay fit and active for as long as possible, check out my free webinar Balance Your Body with Mindful Movement.

What is your weakest point of balance?
What do you do to overcome that weakness? What exercises of lifestyle changes
have you adapted? Which ones do you the most good? Please leave a comment
below.

Now that it’s been a few weeks social distancing with hair salons closed, you might be itching to update your color. Sure, it’s not the most important thing right now but with Zoom meetings and virtual happy hours, you probably want to feel your best. We rounded up the best at-home highlighting kits for when you’re desperate for an update. Sure, seeing a colorist is always preferable but whether it’s time, money or these closures, you might be feeling like you can DIY right in your bathroom.

Your best bet with at-home hair color is to start small. Choose a shade 2-3 hues darker or lighter than your current color and you’ll be less likely to make a mistake. You can always add more color but it’s much harder to remove too much. This goes for bleach, too. This probably isn’t the time to go fully platinum because you’ll end up spending more money in the end to fix it. Not to mention, we want to minimize damage as much as possible here.

Pick a hue that’s not too far off your current but one that will cover up any gray hair that bothers you or just give your roots a boost. Then, use color-safe, sulfate-free shampoo to keep the shade bright and vibrant until you can get into the salon. Aren’t sure what color to pick? Ask your current hairstylist if they have any recommendations. Below, some of our favorite options available to shop from the safety of your own home.

Image: Sally Beauty.

Blond Brilliance Highlighting Kit

Get subtle or dramatic blonde highlights with this non-drying formula.

Image: Madison Reed.

Madison Reed Light Works Balayage Highlighting Kit

Though this highlighting kit is mostly sold out, a pretty warm caramel shade is still available, perfect for dark brown or medium brown hair.

Image: Garnier.

Garnier Nutrisse Multi-Lights Highlight Kit

With avocado oil, olive oil and shea butter, this formula promises to leave hair ultra-soft.

Image: eSalon.

eSalon Balayage Hair Highlighting Kit

In five natural shades, this balayage kit comes with lightener and activator, highlight shampoo and toning mask, two pairs of non-latex gloves, application brush and mixing tray.

Image: Target.

L’Oreal Paris Couleur Experte All Over Color and Highlights

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Our mission at STYLECASTER is to bring style to the people, and we only feature products we think you’ll love as much as we do. Please note that if you purchase something by clicking on a link within this story, we may receive a small commission of the sale and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.

The top priority of the day for many
of us in the Sixty and Me community is to stay safe and, from a
distance, ensure our friends and family are safe, too. COVID-19 has changed
life more than we could have known.

We all are striving to best accomplish
being a part of our community from a distance. As a 70-something, the best
thing I can do for family and friends is to stay home and check in by phone or
whatever means possible, but physically stay away from them.

Of course, keeping to our house will
give us the blues, but we can also make sure that we use our time to accomplish
something. What could that be? With some ingenuity and an internet connection,
we have the time to indulge in our passion.

We all have a passion, whether or not we
recognize it as such. My personal passion is physical movement and wellbeing,
primarily running, but any type of movement will do.

Your passions likely differ from mine,
but I’m certain you know exactly what activities keep you going and maintain
your mindset as positive as possible.

Get Outdoors If You Can

If your passion is something you can
participate in alone, this is your time. At this point, I obey the stay-at-home
rule, only venturing out for a run or walk during times of the day when there
are few or no people on the road or trail, and staying at least six feet away from
anyone who is near.

The fresh air, whether a misty day or
tinged with humidity, is a welcome change to the indoors.

When my gym closed, I began doing my
own workouts at home using my body weight (push-ups, anyone?) and a few stretch
bands.

Then, my gym announced they would be
conducting live workouts on Facebook. It’s not 100% as beneficial as being in a
class or working with a trainer, but it beats letting our physical fitness go
by the wayside while we wait out a dangerous virus lurking outside our door.

Silver Sneakers offers online yoga to any member (65 years and older mostly). Some time ago, for whatever reason, I fell out of a yoga practice I really enjoyed. This is my time to return to it. Remember, you can also engage in yoga through Sixty and Me as well.

Increase Your Knowledge Bank

Is there something related to your
passion that you have been meaning to investigate or learn? In my case, I saw
an announcement that one of my hiking groups, in lieu of being on the trails as
a group, is offering an online learning session in map reading.

This is an area where I frequently
rely on other hikers. What a great time to learn this skill! I signed up
through Meetup.com.

Meditation for an Anxious Life

Meditation is a great solo practice,
though some people find the experience is improved for them when they meditate
in a group. If you are one of those, there are many online resources where
guided meditation is offered.

I learned a member of my congregation is offering to guide sessions of Heart Rhythm Meditation over Zoom. I attended one of these this week and was surprised at how well it worked.

Now that our world has changed and we may only see grandchildren or dear friends through Skype or FaceTime, let’s appreciate that technology allows us this connection.

Furthermore, let’s indulge our passion
and perhaps learn some new skills that we might not otherwise have the time or
inclination to learn.

Stay safe and stay home.

What is your passion? Is it art,
gardening, volunteerism, archeology? Check around and see how you can improve
your skillset. Have you found means where you can continue and deepen your
endeavors while staying home? Please share what has worked for you!

Six years ago, during a particularly difficult period
in my life, a period devoid of any sense of accomplishment whatsoever (I was
job hunting at age 57), I decided to learn a second language, Spanish.

Understand, I have absolutely no talent for languages.
In fact, spending my senior year of college in Valencia, Spain, brought my
overall grade point down. I remember trying to answer questions on
written exams in my Spanish class and having no idea what the question
was. 

Instead, I answered a question I made up myself. The professor probably thought I was spending my evenings drinking in Barrio del Carmen. The sadder fact was that I studied and still did poorly. I was that bad at languages even at 21. Once I returned home, I didn’t try to speak a word for over 30 years. 

Hunting for a Sense of Accomplishment Post 55

However, I hung on to the vague recollection that I
had enjoyed trying to speak it, even at a primitive, bisyllabic
level. That faint memory was enough to study a little (about 20 minutes a day
for a month) and attend my first language exchange meetings in my hometown.

Mostly retirees attended this particular group, which
met twice a week at a coffee shop. The oldest (and most charming) member was in
his 80s and suffering from Parkinson’s.

The initial experiences were awkward and humbling (you
always speak better inside your head than when you open your mouth). Underneath
the frustration though, I felt something else: the mental challenge my brain
craved.

For several years, my life had no longer had the daily
problem-solving that was part of a career. I returned home from these club
meetings mentally exhausted – in a good way – from the mental work-out.

Who Knows What It Might Lead to?

Speaking a second language eventually became the
foundation of a whole new life in another country; one I’d never dreamed of,
one infinitely better than I had ever dared hoped for.

If I surveyed the hundreds of people I have met on
this language journey in practices and online, many of them my age or older, I
am certain that each one would say it has enriched their lives immensely, if
not transformed them, whether they traveled or not. 

Saving Your Brain

You have likely read many reasons why you should learn
a second language. I’d like to focus here on perhaps the most important reason
for older adults: It saves your brain. Science has proven it.

Of all the things one can do for the brain, learning a
second language is one of the best, many scientists would say the best,
for improving brain plasticity, cognitive processes, and memory. 

Thinking Young

Dr. Patrick Alban and Deane Alban founded the website Brain
Be Fit as a
result of their own struggles with midlife mental decline. They focus on
balanced, evidence-based information about achieving and maintaining brain
health and fitness for a lifetime.

In their research, they found numerous scientific
studies supporting the idea that learning a second language outstrips many
other activities in keeping the brain “thinking young.”

Delaying Dementia

Among one of the most powerful benefits that science
has proven is that learning a second language can delay dementia by an estimated 4.5 years. This is significantly better than the
best Alzheimer’s drugs, which can delay symptoms but only for 6–12 months. 

Brain Plasticity in Older Age

In a study conducted in Sweden, MRI
tests of soldiers learning a second language showed they developed better
connectivity between various regions of their brains.

Another study by Penn State demonstrates these
detectable changes in brain structure can be seen in the elderly as well as
younger students.

This led researchers to conclude that brain plasticity
– the brain’s ability to constantly change and grow
even late in life – is greater than
previously assumed. The benefits are realized regardless of the age of the
language student.

Exercise Your Mental Gears

Anyone who has done it will tell you that you can
almost feel your mental gears groaning when under the load of practicing
a second language. Studies prove that feeling is not in our imagination.

The brain of bilinguals (defined as speaking the
language, not necessarily fluently) is physically different. Learning a foreign
language increases the size of the brain’s language
centers and the hippocampus, the area of the brain responsible for forming,
storing, and retrieving memories. 

It’s true that puzzles, learning to play a musical
instrument, and meditation can also improve your brain’s performance and
provide protective benefits (brain training software has yet to show any significant
neurological benefits for older adults).

What these activities lack, and what makes language
learning superior to all of them, is the potential social benefit in addition
to the mental work-out.

I will cover the social benefits in Part 2 of my
series for 60 & Me: How to Learn a Second Language Post 55. I hope you will
follow along.

Have you ever dreamed of speaking a second or new
language for travel or fun? What holds you back? Which language is on your
to-learn list? Why did you choose it? Please share with our community.