It can be a challenge to stay active and enjoy the sweltering summers we get in Texas, especially for older adults. Medications and other conditions can make it harder for seniors to tell when they’re overheating or dehydrated, and many need to limit their sun exposure for health reasons.
It can be a challenge to help seniors keep moving during the summer months, but it’s not impossible. Flower Mound has a wealth of resources to help your loved one enjoy the season and stay active indoors. Here are a few of our favorites.
How to Help Seniors Stay Active During Summer in Flower Mound, TX
From trustworthy AC repair technicians and refreshing meals to a broad range of indoor activities, there are plenty of resources to help seniors stay active during the summer in Flower Mound. Here are some of their best options.
- Find Them Indoor Activities
Summer presents a dilemma for older adults in Flower Mound. They know that they need to stay active to maintain their long-term health, but in the short term, just staying cool amid the Texas heat is a much higher priority. How can they do both? The answer is simple: Work out indoors with friends in a climate-controlled facility to stay cool and avoid sunburns.
The good news is that Flower Mound has quite a few options to choose from. Indoor pools like the one at Cross Timbers Family YMCA are hands-down the best ways for seniors to work out while staying cool. Water cools down the body 25 times faster than air, so there’s practically no chance of overheating—though dehydration is still a risk, so they’ll need to bring a water bottle.
For some seniors, the best motivator to get moving is to work out with a group of their peers—and there’s no better place to find one than the Flower Mound Community Activity Center. The group exercise programs there for older adults are a great way for your loved one to find encouragement and companionship, and even to make some new friends.
Other seniors find it easiest to exercise when they don’t have to think about it too much; the kind of movement that happens naturally while exploring a museum or walking between the holes at a golf course. If this sounds like your loved one, try introducing them to Seniors in Motion, which hosts a variety of entertaining social programs for older adults that just happen to include a lot of movement.
- Get Them a Cold Meal
Have you ever been looking forward to a meal, only to completely lose your appetite due to hot weather? It’s even harder for seniors, who tend to have a smaller appetite to begin with.
Our bodies reject food when it’s hot because digestion naturally produces heat, but there’s a simple solution: Cold meals. Or even better, frozen ones. Local cafes like Cerulean Blue sell frozen fruit bowls and smoothies, delicious frosty treats that happen to have all the components of a balanced, nutritious meal.
If your loved one ends up liking them, as many seniors do, it’s worth getting a blender strong enough to make your own at home. Many grocery stores sell frozen smoothie packets or mixes to make having a cool, nutritious meal even easier (but let fruit thaw for a while if their teeth are sensitive to cold).
- Maintain Their AC
Long exposure to high temperatures can take it out of anyone, particularly heat-sensitive seniors. To make sure your loved one has the energy to stay active and keep going to their activities, they need to be able to cool down fully every night while they sleep—which means they need a working air conditioner.
Heavy usage puts air conditioners under strain, which is why they have a nasty habit of breaking down on the hottest days of the year, right when we need them most. Instead of biting your nails and praying your loved one’s AC keeps working all summer, reach out to a trusted HVAC company like DFW Comfort Pros for a maintenance call. By servicing their air conditioner in advance, you can minimize the risk of a breakdown at the worst possible time.
Caregivers Help Seniors Keep Moving During Summertime
The Texas heat can make the idea of exercise seem daunting for seniors, but Flower Mound has plenty of resources to make it easy—and even enjoyable. From healthy frozen treats and reliable HVAC technicians to a wide variety of climate-controlled activities, there are plenty of ways for seniors to keep moving during the summer right here.
If your loved one needs a little more help to stay active this summer, FirstLight Home Care of Flower Mound is here for them. Our compassionate caregivers can help seniors get out of the house and transport them to and from their activities, removing many of the barriers they would otherwise face.
To learn more about how we can help your loved one stay active this summer, just contact us.
