any other sport you enjoy that feels more like fun than duty can keep your body moving and in shape. Keeping it fun will help you stick to it. Just be sure you check with your doctor first.
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2. Check-ups
Be sure to get regular check-ups even if you feel fine. Make an annual physical and yearly vaccinations as routine as celebrating your birthday.
3. Eat well for good health
It’s not about quantity, it’s all about the quality. You may love eating a “meat and three” soul food sampler of all of your family faves with some warm peach cobbler and lemon pound cake on the side and a big glass of icy cold sweet tea to wash it down, but your high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and high blood sugar make you take a step back before your first taste.
Learn to re-make a healthier version of these heart attack classics on the road to obesity or only eat them in moderation or on special occasions. These health concerns affect our community more than others. Try a Meatless Monday or (Baked) Fish on Friday to cut down on highly salted and fried food or red meat. Get a journal and write down or keep notes on your phone of what you eat, when, and why (how you feel). Eat to live, not live to eat.
4. Computer skills
Don’t let the information superhighway leave you behind. Get more computer savvy. Everything requires computer skills in the twenty-first century. From scanning and paying for groceries, to paying bills or using your cell phone to communicate via talk, text, photo, video, recording, or email. It includes making an appointment to see your doctor or renewing your prescriptions. Even finding a book in the library requires basic computer skills.
Embrace this by taking a class, getting a guide, or finding a patient, a knowledgeable mentor who can orient you to what you need to know. Then practice by incorporating the knowledge you have acquired in the above and other practical and creative ways.
5. Travel
Is there one place, foreign or domestic, that you have always wanted to visit? Plan a trip! If you are new to travel, start small and local, then spread your wings and branch out. Go alone or make it a girls’/guys’ trip. Or, if you are less adventurous, take a cruise or join a tour group with the help of a (rare to find these days, but highly recommended to use) travel agent who can get you from door to door and back again, considering every detail and safety precaution.
Be the best you can be for those who matter most to you
1. Keep socially active and engaged
Sometimes you have to be the one to reach out first. Keep a calendar and fill the days with those you would like to check on or plan an outing with (for example, lunch and a movie; aqua-aerobics and a smoothie), those you call or communicate with more frequently, and routine friends and extended family that fall somewhere in between. If your social calendar is more empty calendar space than folks to fill it with, work on getting involved in some of the other mentioned activities and expanding your social circle to include the new people you meet.
2. Reach out, get out, and show out
Now you’re ready! Put all your new and exciting retirement activities on your calendar and add the people you meet to your contact list. You might even feel like in retirement you are busier than you were when you were working.
To head off any feelings of overwhelm, feel free to take it slow and scale it back if it becomes too much. Just do you and be your own best self in this new chapter of your life: your (hard-earned, well-deserved) retirement. Make it what you want it to be, but don’t be afraid to step out of your lane and try something new from time to time.