oint injuries are common when adequate care and attention is not taken before, during and after exercise. Injuries can be avoided by using the right training techniques and by ensuring good nutrition and supplementation, such as glucosamine.

Here are some common exercise issues that can lead to joint problems:

Excessive weight lifting: This is a common issue that can lead many fitness enthusiasts to end up with injured joints. Lifting heavy weights can lead to inflammation of the bursae; a small fluid filled sack that reduces the friction in joints. Bad lifting techniques also cause tears on the tendons which can lead to tendonitis. Slow and steady wins the race.

Rapid muscle strength increase: Supplements such as creatine and nitric oxide can cause our muscle strength to dramatically increase. When lifting heavy weights after taking these supplements there is a huge risk of joint damage. The reason being that muscle strength increases much quicker than joint strength. So your muscles may be able to lift the weight but your joints will be damaged in the process.

This problem is often encountered by young people as muscle strength rapidly increases due to the hormones been produced by the body at that age.

Lack of nutrition: Joints require nutrition and rest to stay in proper working order. Lack of proper nutrition diminishes the body’s ability to adapt to stress. As a result minute tears can occur in the tendons as well as deteriorating cartilage in joints. Poor nutrition along with aggressive and incorrect training techniques can lead to osteoarthritis or tendonitis (tendon inflammation). This form of joint care can be sometimes improved with glucosamine supplements, which is understood to rebuild the cartilage found in joints.

Not resting and recovering properly: Overtraining and lack of proper rest will also eventually lead to joint problems. Too much training or consistently doing heavy and extremely strenuous exercises will cause trauma and lead to joint pain. If the body cannot recover completely trauma is likely to lead to more serious problems later in life. Spacing workouts and ensuring different rep amounts are used is essential.

Hopefully these issues will highlight ways to improve your workouts and ensure you avoid making simple mistakes.

Do you spend leisure hours reading or watching television? Do you prefer playing chess or some game on your Sony playstation? If your answer to both questions is the latter, then there might come a day when you won’t even remember what a television is.

There are approximately more than 30 million people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease worldwide. In America alone, the number of people diagnosed with the disease has reached 5.6 million.

What is Alzheimer’s disease and why is it such a great concern for us? Alzheimer’s disease is a form of dementia. People suffering from it exhibit permanent memory loss, irritability, confusion, breakdown of language, and withdrawal. The disease is degenerative and usually affects people aged 65 and above. Though risk for the disease increases with age, not all old people develop Alzheimer’s disease. Its causes still baffle scientists. 

Scientists have not yet found the cure for Alzheimer’s as well. Several independent studies, however, show that people who regularly stimulate their brains in their young age are least likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than those who don’t.

Think of your brain as your leg muscles. To keep it in shape, you have to exercise it. Notice how soft and shapeless the legs of people strapped to wheelchairs compared to soccer players. According to studies, the brain grows in a mentally nourishing environment, and diminishes in size in an impoverished environment. In other words, its size, function, and capacity changes in response to external environs.

Mental workouts are the best way to keep the brain fit. If you don’t want to suffer the dreaded Alzheimer’s disease when you turn 65 or so, never stop engaging yourself in mind-stimulating activities. Read the news each morning, and then do crossword puzzle. Beat your kid at chess. Learn new French words.

Engaging in learning activities is the key to keeping one’s mind in shape. Watching television does not qualify as a thinking activity. Also alarming is the many computer-based games we are exposed to today; they are intended to provide entertainment and nothing else. At best, they are good for exercising motor and visual coordination. When I think of those kids wasting their time on mindless computer games, it gives me a shudder. Are we up for a mindless society or a society of demented people?

Neuroscientists do not think so. They work at the forefront of neuroscience developing ways to combat Alzheimer’s disease. They have created a number of preventive solutions including memory stimulating/ assistance software. Memory stimulating/assistance software provides scientifically designed mental workouts and brain testing exercises to keep your mind active and stimulated.  

Your choice of activities today can have a great impact on your mental health as you age. So do yourself a favor. Choose activities that keep your mind in shape. But learning does not have to be boring. Brain testing activities keep your mind active without depriving you of fun. The few hours that you spend each day doing these exercises will delay several years of mental aging. When you turn 80, don’t you want to be able to name all your grandchildren and share with them stories about your childhood?

For most of us, our senior citizen years are a time to relax, maybe pursue a hobby, travel or just relax and let life go by.  But, for many, retirement isn’t just a time to lay the goals of life down.  It is a time to look back over life at the unfinished challenges and then go back and finish them.  And for many, an unfinished goal in life is to go back and get that degree.  Whether it is finally graduating from high school, finishing your bachelor’s degree or starting and finishing a masters or PHD, it’s a big challenge to go back to the classroom and get that certificate, especially when you do that as a senior citizen.

So why do we do it?  This may be a question your children ask when they see you going after such an ambitious goal so late in life.  But when you think about it, we as senior citizens have a right to be a bit offended by the question.  Where is it written that we are denied the right to better ourselves just because we are in the later years of life?  Implicit in the question is the implication of, “What is the point of you getting a degree since you are not going to do anyting productive in retirement and you are so close to death?”

The last thing we as senior citizens want is to be seen as people who are just sitting around waiting to die.  Many a senior citizen has started an entirely new career and accomplished great things after 50.  With the advances in medical science today, it’s perfectly logical that you could live 20-30 years or more “in retirement”.  That is plenty of time to accomplish great things.  And starting out this era of life with a good education makes just as much sense as a youth doing so as they start out on their first career. 

This is not to say that going back to school is going to be easy.  If finishing your high school degree is the goal, you are going into an alien world and one that was probably pretty hostile the first time you were there.  Your presence in the high school or college classroom is going to be the source of some humor and you might take some teasing for being there.  But those same kids will come to admire what you are doing and enjoy having “grandpa” in class with them each day.

On top of the social situation you may create in a high school or college classroom, school is a challenge.  You will have to get used to being in the classroom and listening to lectures, reading textbooks, taking notes, doing papers and taking exams all over again.  If you go after an advanced degree and take several classes, you will be a very busy senior citizen just keeping up with your studies.

But there are some joys you can expect from going after an advanced degree.  College life and being on a college campus each day is by itself a very stimulating environment.  And you may find yourself at a few pep rallies and enjoying campus life just like the other students.  Being with young people each day can be energizing and you may find yourself looking and acting as much like the youth you “hang out with” as you do your fellow senior citizens.

But the greatest benefit of getting that advanced degree is the pride or accomplishment you will get.  If you are finishing your high school or bachelor’s degree, it no doubt nagged you all your life that this was something that you started and didn’t finish.  So by going back and finishing it, you close that door and take away the power of that nagging voice. 

Don’t be surprised if you fall in love with academic life.  Learning is tremendously addictive and you may wish to go on for yet more studies in fields of learning that have always fascinated you.  Nobody will turn away your tuition dollars if you just want to be in college for the pure joy of learning.  And you will be an inspiration to your fellow students when they see you succeed and they tell themselves, “If Grandpa over there can do it, so can I.”

When a senior citizen finds a new romantic companion late in life, it’s a wonderful moment for both.  Romances late in life can provide a much needed source of companionship and love that may be missing if the senior has lost a spouse or is going through their golden years alone.  But it’s common for children of seniors to go through some anxiety when they see dad or mom enjoying the company of another romance in their lives.  And getting the kids to accept your new girlfriend or boyfriend, especially if that romance is going to result in a wedding.

Part of your children’s resistance to you dating comes from anxiety about losing their parent which may be just as deep and lasting a grief as you had in losing your wife or husband.  It may seem strange but often it is the children of the marriage who go through the longest grief when a parent passes on.  You may have already moved along in your processing of that loss much more than they.  To children, the parents are a permanent institution and the idea that one of them would go away seems inconceivable.  And this feeling often survives well into adulthood.

So that is the first big adjustment your family ahs to make when they see you beginning to enjoy the company of the opposite sex.  They must be assured you are not going to replace mom or dad in their hearts and that this romance will never remove the love you cherish for that departed spouse.  To the children, that love must endure forever because it is the foundation of their concept of family which is a big part of their own identity as well, even though one parent may have passed away.

This is a next step in life that calls for you, the senior citizen and the wise old Grandma or Grandpa in the family mix to use some of that sensitivity and wisdom of your years to help your children and even grandchildren accept your new romance and evolve with you to a new phase of life.  If you have the chance as you begin a new relationship, the time to begin the acceptance process is before that friendship becomes a romance.

By sitting down with your children and discussing that this will happen, even before it happens, you begin the acceptance process.  In their minds and emotional systems, they begin to understand your need for companionship and for love and for romance.  You need that as much as they do.  So you explain it to them.

Then as you begin to see a romantic interest, be open with the family about what you are doing.  Adult children can even get to the point that they will be your advisor and your cheerleaders as you enjoy a new era of dating and romance.  Once that area of life is open, then when you do “bring home the date to meet the family” it wont be such a difficult thing. 

But by keeping the adult children always in the loop, they can talk with one another, agree that this is the best possible thing for you and even work to help the grandkids accept your new romance.  Before long, he or she will be able to come for dinner, join in the holidays and really become part of the family.  Just as you opened your heart when your kids were dating and finding new loves, you will teach your kids to open their hearts to someone who is becoming important to you.  It’s a cycle of life but if we handling it lovingly and honestly, it’s a good cycle.

When you are raising your kids in your adult years, it seems you will never know a minute’s peace.  Each day was another explosion of yelling, running and wild activity in the house from the moment the kids are born until they are grown and moving out.  It was when the last one finally made their way into the world that you actually knew what is was to be alone, at least the two of you. 

A full life such as this makes the adjustment to senior citizen status, retirement and the time you may spend alone and with time on your hands a bit of an adjustment.  The adjustment is even more profound if you enter your senior years alone and you find yourself alone much of the time.  The problem of loneliness is chronic in senior citizens so it’s good to get out ahead of it so it doesn’t cause serious problems the longer it goes on.

The negatives of loneliness in senior citizens are well known.  Excessive loneliness can easily lead to a sense of isolation, desperation and depression.  This can result in substance abuse or worse if the senior citizen doesn’t find a way to fight back against that feeling of being alone.  It is easy if you are in your house that used to be filled with children to feel abandoned and resentful when your day passes with no human contact.  If you have relocated to an assisted living center or nursing home, the problem may be even worse as you don’t have the comfort of familiar surroundings.  

But to feel sorry for your self and blame your children for not coming to see you is not a healthy way to fight this enemy.  Yes, your children should call or come see you more often.  But short of moving in with you or you with them, the problem of loneliness will have to be solved by you and using other means.  It may seem like a simplistic answer to loneliness but the beginning of solving these problems is a simple prescription which is – Get Out of the House!

If waiting in your house or apartment for people to bring companionship to you has not worked so far, it probably isn’t going to.  So you have to get out there and engage life directly.  If you can become proactive and take command of the situation, you will find the opportunities to find friendship and companionship are diverse and abundant.  Among some of the ways you can get in the company of other people are…

. Senior citizen functions.  If you are in an assisted living or retirement home, there are events being planned all the time for you to get out and meet your neighbors.  But even if that is not your living arrangements, most local communities have senior centers that have as one of their primary missions in life to provide social outlet for senior citizens.  So use that resource to its fullest.
. Volunteering.  There are so many excellent ways for you to volunteer at church, with civic groups or in the arts that you can stay continuously busy.  Not only do you get the gratification of doing something good for others, you get out and meet people which is a sure cure for loneliness.
. Church.  If you are active in your church, they always have ways for you to be involved during the day.  Some of them will be volunteer opportunities but others might just be attending a good bible study or social time with your Sunday School class.
. Pitch in with the grandkids.  This is a wonderful way to get out.  You love those grandkids and by giving your children a way to get out and leave them in a trusted place, you do them good and get tons of great play time with those sweet children.

These are just a few great ways for you to get out and meet people who will welcome you with open arms.  These are areas of life that are eager for an enthusiastic Grandma or Grandpa to jump in feet first and get involved.  Getting involved means staying busy and staying busy means never feeling lonely again. And that is the permanent cure for loneliness.