Healthy Hobbies: 10 Fantastic Activities For Seniors

Retirement is a fantastic time for seniors to pursue their favorite pastimes, explore new activities, and find creative ways to stay physically and socially active. Finding a new hobby that brings you joy has multiple health benefits. It can reduce and manage stress, challenge the brain and decrease cognitive decline, support mobility, and improve social connections, while in turn increasing your mood and overall happiness. Here are some of our recommendations for a healthy hobby for seniors.

Getting crafty

Arts and crafts are powerful mediums of self-expression. The experience of creating something will help you release stress while improving cognition, motor skills, and hand-eye coordination. Plus, whatever you create can be shared as a gift with friends and family. Everything from painting and drawing to photography, knitting, pottery, scrapbooking, or crocheting can be a great new hobby for aging adults.

Swimming

Being a non-weight-bearing activity, swimming is a great and relatively easy way to get some healthy exercise and strengthen major muscle groups. At the same time, it also boosts cardiovascular health. The sense of accomplishment coming from doing a few laps also enhances your general mood. Joining a swimming group or class or doing water aerobics can also be considered.

Dancing

While dancing is a fantastic activity for both the mind and the body, it also never stops being fun. Learning new steps, as well as listening to music while performing various physical motions can also improve cognitive ability. A little dancing at home every day can be very beneficial both physically and mentally, while joining a class can also be a great and rewarding idea.

Gardening

Doing some work in the garden is a great way to stay active during your golden years. Studies have shown that gardening for just half an hour a day is a great way for seniors to meet their body’s physical activity needs. Growing a small vegetable or flower garden outside is a great idea, or alternatively, you can explore indoor gardening options and get a few pots and seeds. Make sure to show off the fruits (and flowers) of your labor to your family, neighbors, and friends.

Puzzles

Puzzles come in a huge range of sizes and difficulty levels but the best thing about them is that they don’t have to be finished in one go. You can keep coming back to them whenever you’d like, which makes playing puzzles a great hobby. You can get custom-made puzzles with your favorite family photo, or even make one yourself at home.

Reading

A good book can provide several days of entertainment and as there are so many different genres to choose from, you will definitely find something to your liking. The experience can be made even more rewarding by joining a book club so you can socialize with like-minded people in a laid-back setting. If reading is too difficult or tiresome, audiobooks are a great alternative.

Picking up an instrument

Does being too busy to learn a new instrument sound familiar? In the senior years is one of the best times to take on such a hobby. Not only will it keep the brain active and stimulated, but it will also help with memory retention, hand-eye coordination, and sharpen dexterity. It is also a lot of fun and can provide several days of entertainment.

Volunteering

Many retirees who find themselves with more leisure time decide to give that time back through volunteering. With thousands of local and national service organizations to choose from, volunteers get to support a cause and help others in a social environment. It can also contribute to improved self-esteem, knowing that you’re making a positive difference in the world.

Writing

There may be no more meaningful indoor activity for older adults than putting your own thoughts, memories, and stories on paper. You can choose to write about anything from creating a work of fiction to writing poetry, or even write about your own life. If you have grandchildren, you can write unique stories and fairy tales for them.

For more tips on aging adult care, browse our interesting articles on our blog.