You’ve worked hard your whole life to get to a point where you can retire and enjoy the fruits of your labor, but there’s a good chance your body shows some signs of the decades of stress you’ve put on it. Nobody wants to get to retirement just to be forced to live a less active life than they wish because of lingering discomfort or a new injury. For a number of retirees, this discomfort develops in the area that absorbs a lot of stress – their feet.
If every step is painful or unbalanced, your golden years can be anything but golden. We want you to live life to the fullest in retirement without your feet slowing you down, so in today’s blog, we explore some of the ways you can keep your feet healthy and strong long into retirement.
Protecting Your Feet In Retirement
You may enjoy kicking your feet up in retirement, but odds are you won’t stay still for long. You want to get out and explore the world, pursue your favorite athletics and run around with the grandchildren, but foot pain can make that more challenging than it needs to be. Here are some tips for keeping your feet strong and healthy throughout retirement.
Stay Active – It may sound a bit obvious to say that you should stay active if you want to have healthy feet, but sometimes the best advice really is the simplest. One of the best things you can do for your feet is put a healthy amount of stress on your feet every single day. Healthy stress keeps your feet and their supportive tissues strong and functional. Some people mistakenly think that being overly protective of their feet and limiting the strain they put on them will help them stay healthy as they age, but a sedentary lifestyle can exacerbate the weakening of key structures. Stay active, and it will be easier to have strong feet as you age.
Proactive Treatment – If discomfort does develop, don’t just ignore it and try to push through the pain. The vast majority of foot conditions respond better to treatments at an earlier stage. Ignoring a problem like a bunion or ankle instability usually leads to worse symptoms, and by then the only optimal treatment route may be surgery. Make it a point to treat small foot issues before they snowball into a major concern.
Stretch – Your body and its soft tissues aren’t as naturally flexible as they used to be, so make it a point to stretch them before jumping into activity. Stretching allows these tissues to prepare for the stress that’s about to come, ensuring they are capable of handling the forces of movement. Similar to letting your car warm up for a few minutes in winter weather, taking a few minutes to stretch prior to activity can help soft tissues prepare for the strain that will soon be placed on them.
Balance Training – Falls are one of the leading causes of hospitalization among adults over the age of 60, and oftentimes these falls are caused by balance issues with our feet. If you’re starting to feel less steady on your feet, pursue some balance training exercises. Simple balance exercises or foot-focused exercises like yoga or Tai Chi can strengthen the tissues that support our feet and ankles, ensuring we have a strong foundation for decades to come.
Having healthy feet long into your golden years won’t happen by accident, but it also doesn’t require a major change to your daily habits. Stay active and pursue activities that force your feet to handle healthy stress, and your feet should remain functional for years to come. And don’t forget to connect with a foot specialist to address small foot and ankle concerns before they get worse!
For more tips, or for help managing a foot condition of your own, reach out to Dr. Silverman and the team at OrthoArizona today at (602) 648-5444.