Setting Priorities In Retirement
Many of my articles on retirement center on health as a priority. It takes discipline to set priorities and stick with them. Think of New Years resolutions and how often they come to nothing. But nutrition and exercise in retirement become urgent matters and should be a priority.
Maybe you haven’t thought about your priorities at all. You should. You have a plan for your financial well being and shouldn’t you have a plan for your health. What good is money if you do not have the health to enjoy it. As we age, I am convinced the inner energy gets less and that is why we do not accomplish things or enjoy retirement as we should. We must build up the inner energy. The best way to do that, in my opinion, is through exercise and nutrition. Here is my daily personal plan and maybe it will make you think about what plan you have for your health in retirement:
1) Exercise: I decided that I feel my best first thing in the morning and that was the time to exercise. Now usually I would put it off but no more. I decided a plan would be to do it before I talked myself out of it. There are things I would rather do and that little voice inside my head tells me there are “more important” things to do, and guess what, I never get around to the exercise. That is how busy my day is.
But what is my priority in retirement–my health. So first thing, before my mind works on me and thinks of all kinds of reasons why I don’t have time to do it, I do my exercise. If you live near a beach, you are so lucky to be able to go out there and walk. You have no excuses. The kind of exercise that I do is from a video and it is a stretching routine. It takes about fifteen minutes and I feel so good after doing it. All tension seems to pour off me.
After that, I put on another video of ancient chinese exercises, known as either Tai Chi or Qigong. These are very gentle and designed to increase your inner energy, which I feel we need more as we age. These take a little longer but even if I do only half the video, I have kept to the practice. So choose an exercise that is easy to do.
2) Nutrition: There is a blender recipe I have that is full of nutrition. This recipe is not designed to taste delicious. I find it tastes good but not that delicious. Because it isn’t made with sweet fruit and yogurt, my husband won’t drink it. I need to perfect it to taste a little better and maybe he will. But he, like so many people, doesn’t realize that in this drink is something called phytochemicals. Nutritionists are finding out that the part of the food we throw away actually has the most nutrition. That is where the phytochemicals are and the most important part of the fruit or vegetable. Some examples, the stalk, the peeling, the seed, and the white part of the citrus. They all go into the garbage. Now they go into my blender.
I will do this for a couple of days, and guess what, there I go again, my mind talking to me and telling me I have enough nutrition and “those vegetables are pretty expensive.” So I stop. Therefore, before I have time to talk myself out of it, I make a blender drink.
After taking care of my health as a first priority, I take my shower, get dressed, and am ready to go. I have energy for my day whether it is to go to a job, work on a hobby or go on a trip.
You may prefer to do your highest priority items at another time during the day that is best for you, and that is okay, as long as you make it your priority.
Set your priorities in your retirement, and they probably should be your health. Don’t let that little inner voice talk you out of it.
Carol Fena, Realtor and Webmaster for http://www.bestguide-retirementcommunities.com
Tags: exercise in retirement, health in retirement, nutrition in retirement, retirement
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