As we grow older, it becomes especially important to keep on top of our health. Every human body accrues wear and tear as the years go by; this is an unavoidable aspect of life. But it doesn’t mean that we can’t enjoy a long, healthy, and happy old age!

In the second half of life, most of us will see our hair turn grey (and then white!) and feel our joints grow stiffer. We will also become more susceptible to certain ailments and illnesses. This is simply the aging process in action. But if we employ a common-sense approach to staying healthy, it is entirely possible to enjoy a happy and active old age, full of excitement, companionship, and fun, and as free from illness and pain as possible.

Most of us grow wiser as the years go by. Thankfully, in old age we tend to care less about what other people think about us, take ourselves (and life) less seriously, and spend more time enjoying the awe-inspiring splendor of the world around us. The wisdom of old age allows us to appreciate the company of the people we love – our friends, family, and fellow human beings – and to experience the blissful lightness of being less self-absorbed.

Our senior years can be our best years, so it is extra important to maintain good health habits in old age. Staying fit and healthy will allow us to feel good and to fully savor the glory of being old! Read on for some tips on staying healthy throughout the year (and all the years to come).

What Are Some Common Health Concerns For Seniors?

Some health concerns are more common amongst older people. These include:

• Heart disease
• Respiratory disease
• Arthritis
• Glaucoma
• Diabetes
• Osteoporosis

Many of these conditions can be treated with a combination of pharmaceutical medicines and non-pharmaceutical interventions such as exercise, a healthy diet, and even medical marijuana for seniors.

In addition, here are four tips on staying healthy for senior citizens…

1. Exercise Regularly

Healthy habits for seniors are similar to healthy habits for all people. Everyone, and especially seniors, will benefit from physical exercise. As we age, our bodies succumb to wear and tear; our joints get stiffer, our bones get weaker, and our muscles lose strength. But regular exercise can go a long way to preventing this wear and tear. A regular exercise regime can even reverse wear and tear and make us feel better in our old age than we did when we were younger.

Exercise really is an elixir of life. Senior citizens can choose from a wide array of exercise forms. Pick the form of exercise you enjoy the most. You can lift weights at the gym, go for a jog or bike ride outdoors, take your dog for a walk, or do some yoga. Exercise is a fantastic way for senior citizens to stay healthy throughout the year.

2. Spend Time Outside

Another great option for those wondering how to maintain good health in old age is to spend time outside. You can do this by walking around your town or city, or by walking in nature. Fresh air, sunlight, meeting other people, moving your body – spending time outside will help you stay healthy in many ways.

Being outdoors necessitates that you move your body, which is great for improving cardiovascular health and muscle tone. Also, meeting other people is excellent for mental health.

3. Try Medical Marijuana

Medical marijuana for seniors is a great way to stay healthy. Medical marijuana can be used to treat the symptoms of a whole host of medical conditions that tend to especially affect seniors, such as arthritis, glaucoma, and osteoporosis.

MMJ is a healthier treatment option than many pharmaceutical drugs that tend to have negative side effects. Treatment with medical marijuana can greatly improve a senior citizen’s quality of life and allow them to stay healthy throughout the year.

4. Develop Interesting Hobbies

A very healthy habit for seniors is to develop a hobby. Hobbies keep people mentally and physically engaged. Whether it’s knitting, kite flying, dancing, hiking, cooking, travel, or anything else that you can get engrossed in and passionate about, a hobby is an excellent way to maintain good health in old age.

How Can A Senior Citizen Get An MMJ Card?

Senior citizens can get a medical marijuana card by visiting the MMJRecs online clinic. Through the MMJRecs clinic, you will have a consultation with an MMJ doctor in your state. Once the doctor verifies your medical condition and decides that you will benefit from treatment with MMJ, you will be emailed a legal medical marijuana physician certification form instantly. It is a quick and easy process.

Featured image by stevepb on Pixabay

If you’re thinking about using medical marijuana, you might be anxious as to how you can make it fit in with your daily life. MMJ has a difficult reputation, but thanks to a rise in use, further legalization, and increased research in the area, more and more people are turning to it in order to treat the symptoms of illnesses that can be difficult and debilitating. The good news is that it’s an incredibly flexible medication and you just need some specialist advice in order to integrate it into your life.

The first step is to log onto the internet and seek a medical marijuana specialist. While seeing a doctor online might seem a bit odd, the internet is one of the best places to seek advice on medical marijuana. As many traditional doctors have outdated ideas on what MMJ is and how it can treat patients, many specialist websites have been established online to provide patients with advice on how best to treat their conditions.

The next step is to make an appointment and then log on to speak to your doctor online. They will ask about your condition and talk to you about the best medical marijuana treatment plan for you. Medical cannabis can treat a variety of symptoms of conditions including, but not limited to, cancer, HIV/AIDS, eating disorders, depression, anxiety, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson’s disease. There are different forms and strains of medical marijuana that can have different effects on the body.

Joints are just one of the ways you can take MMJ.

Once you have your medical advice, you need to ascertain how MMJ is going to affect you and if you need to make special accommodations in your life in order to integrate your new treatment. Some strains of medical marijuana can have side effects such as drowsiness, which are not ideal when you’re working full-time or have an active social life. If this is the case for you, you’ll need to work out a treatment schedule that allows you to take your medication without interfering with your daily routine.

After picking the strain that’ll best treat your condition, you then need to decide which form of medical marijuana you’re going to take. The possibilities are endless and you are definitely not limited to smoking joints. Vaping, edibles, topical treatments, oils, and tinctures are just the tip of the iceberg and depending on your daily routine, there’s a perfect solution for you. If you’re unsure as to the best form of MMJ for you, the best thing to do is to go to a reputable dispensary for advice on what would work best for you. Not all strains will be available in all forms, but a dispensary employee will be able to give you advice on what works best.

When you have your medical cannabis, you’ll have to decide how best to take it. If you’re a busy professional, a discreet form of MMJ, such as a tincture or oil, would probably be best. Edibles are also a good way to take medical marijuana as long as you ensure that no one else mistakes them for normal candies or cookies and mistakenly eats one. You don’t want to be responsible for anyone else’s marijuana journey! If you have a more relaxed or flexible lifestyle, you can make the choice for yourself. It’s just important to make sure that you take your treatment with supervision if drowsiness or similar side effects are in play.

Medical cannabis is easy to incorporate into your daily life to treat the symptoms of your illness.

It is also important to remember the legality of medical marijuana while you’re traveling. While marijuana is legal for recreational reasons in some states and for medical reasons in others, it is still illegal on a federal level. This means that you cannot bring medical cannabis on planes and you could be arrested for bringing it into states where it is still completely illegal. This is obviously incredibly frustrating for people who rely on medical marijuana to go about their day to day business, but you do not want to risk getting on the wrong side of the law. It is often worth consulting a legal professional on this subject, especially if you’re traveling out of your state on a long-term assignment and genuinely can’t do without your MMJ.

Like any new medication, you will need to adjust your life slightly to your new medical regime. However, the payoff will always be worth it. Whether you’re using medical marijuana to improve your appetite, to reduce your nausea, or to control your seizures, you will feel a new lease of life in adding medical cannabis to your life. As well as physical symptoms, you may be able to use MMJ to help your mental health, so why not get some information and give it a try? It’s likely that you’ll never look back.

Chronic back pain is experienced by millions of Americans across the country each day. The sometimes crippling affliction is one of the number one reasons cited in medical marijuana card applications every year. Though MMJ on its own can be pretty power-packed when it comes to banishing those lower back blues, sometimes you need a little something extra to get you feeling yourself again. If you find yourself wanting a little bit more relief than your MMJ card can afford you, try some of these back-pain-busting exercises.

Decompression Breathing

Yes, you heard that right: our first exercise on the list is simply breathing! Well, not quite. Decompression breathing is the exercise of taking nice deep breaths as you make an attempt to lengthen your body as much as possible. This not only is great for increasing blood and oxygen flow around the body but it also essentially acts as a “reset” button, teaching your body to get your spine long and strong once more.

How to do it:

Stand perfectly straight with your toes touching and your heels slightly apart. With your weight on your heels, start to gently pull them towards each other, keeping your knees unlocked as you do it. Then, reach your arms upwards as you press your fingertips together, totally elongating your body. At this point you should feel every tiny muscle in your body stretching. Inhale and lift your ribcage upwards away from your hips. Exhale and tighten those important core muscles to sufficiently support your spine. Repeat this exercise at least 15 times per day and you’ll soon find yourself feeling a few inches taller, and most importantly, you’ll start to feel your chronic back pain melting away.

There are several simple exercises you can do to help manage chronic back pain.

Pilates Pelvic Tilt

Most pilates exercises could find there way to the top of this list, if we’re honest. MMJ card holders and non-card holders alike swear by the all-over body workout they get when they practice, saying that it’s great for mind and body alike.

Pilates works by strengthening those all-important core muscles that support and align our spines, meaning that you’re making sure every bit of your backbone is exactly where it needs to be. As well as soothing your chronic back pain, it also significantly reduces your risk of injury by building up those muscles and increasing flexibility. Pretty neat, huh?!

Of all the pilates exercises that could work to ease your chronic back pain, we think the pelvic tilt is one of the most effective and easy to do. It stretches your lower back muscles, drawing out any pain while also strengthening your abdominal and pelvic floor muscles.

How to do it:

Place a soft mat on your floor and lie faceup on it. Bend your knees and keep your ankles directly under your knees. While exhaling, tilt your hips up slightly. Keep your butt on the floor and keep your back nice and flat. When your hips are tilted, hold for five seconds, then return to your starting position while inhaling. We recommend doing this 10 times every morning.

Stretching it out regularly can help you reduce pain.

Transversus Abdominis Muscle Strengthening

Now, we know what you’re thinking: “Hey! I’m meant to be doing back exercises!” But trust us, strengthening those abdominal muscles can be just as good for spinal alignment as more targeted work (and you might just get some hardcore abs in the process!).

Though abdominal exercises are usually targeting at the “six pack” area, with this exercise, you’re going to focus instead on the transversus abdominus. This is how you’ll achieve greater spinal stability, which will in turn reduce your chronic back pain.

When you’re doing this exercise, it’s very important to maintain a neutral lumbar spine position – i.e. don’t unnaturally force your back all the way onto the floor. Instead, just lie on the ground as you would naturally, allowing your back to maintain its natural curvature upwards off the flat surface.

How to do it:

Lie on your back and bend your knees, keeping your knees and feet shoulder-width apart. Draw your belly button inwards toward your spine – this is where it’s important to maintain that neutral back position! When you exhale, reach towards the ceiling as if you’re trying to grab something dangling above you. After this, raise your head and shoulders gently off the floor and hold tight for two seconds. Return to your starting point while exhaling and repeat until you get too tired to continue. In order to really get the benefit of this back-pain-busting exercise, we recommend doing it once per day, four days per week.

With these exercises, your medical marijuana card, and some nutrient-packed MMJ fighting in your corner, you’re bound to start feeling a difference when it comes to easing your chronic back pain. If you’re already doing the exercises but don’t yet have an MMJ card, get in touch with us today and we’ll organize an online consultation with a qualified health professional in order to get you one. The MMJ revolution has begun – don’t miss out!