Senior Hobby | Thoughts on Aging

Seniors in Clarendon Hills ask, ‘What’s your hobby?’

May 14th, 2010 |

Living in a retirement or assisted living community provides precious time to pursue hobbies. But you know what? Sometimes finding a hobby isn’t so easy. Hobbies for seniors need to fit certain guidelines. They need to be entertaining, but they also need to be inexpensive. They need to be exciting enough to be enjoyable but not too strenuous.

The good news is there are hundreds of hobbies out there just waiting for seniors to participate. For example, how about walking? No equipment necessary, no new wardrobe to buy. Walking can be enjoyed anywhere, especially with a walking buddy. You can take a shortie or a long walk. You can walk the halls of the retirement community or you can go around the block. You can go five steps, because chances are in a few days, you’ll be able to go six steps.

According to FutureYears.com, Phyllis McGinley said, “A hobby a day keeps the doldrums away.” Research shows that seniors who participate in group activities are less prone to depression and health problems. They also live longer than people who are not associated with like-minded friends and acquaintances.

In a nutshell, staying socially active in some kind of group activity helps seniors stay happy, make new friends, and also helps utilize one’s time in a productive and satisfying manner. Besides, it’s just plain fun.

Not that there’s anything wrong with solo hobbies such as reading, watching TV, meditating, or gardening. Each of these hobbies is therapeutic in its own way. After a while, however, boredom can set in. You could always expand a reading hobby and join a book club or a library, exchange books with other book lovers and have interesting informal discussions. In fact there are many reading groups on the internet.

In addition, it has been proved that hobbies are good for the brain. Now who needs any more convincing than that …?

Retirement-Online.com provides some A to Z ideas: