Clements - Better balance for life: banish the fear of falling with simple activities added to your everyday routine a 10-week plan

Better Balance for Life: Banish the Fear of Falling with Simple Activities Added to Your Everyday Routine
Copyright 2018 by Carol Clements
Foreword 2018 by Jonathan LaPook

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Clements, Carol (Personal trainer) author.

Title: Better balance for life : banish the fear of falling with simple activities added to your everyday routine a 10-week plan / Carol Clements.

Description: New York : The Experiment, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017026289 (print) | LCCN 2017030794 (ebook) | ISBN 9781615194261 (ebook) | ISBN 9781615194155 (paperback)

Subjects: LCSH: Falls (Accidents) in old age--Prevention. | Exercise for older people.

Classification: LCC RC952.5 (ebook) | LCC RC952.5 .C54 2018 (print) | DDC 617.10084/6--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017026289

ISBN 978-1-61519-415-5
Ebook ISBN 978-1-61519-426-1

Cover and text design by Sarah Smith
Cover illustration by Amanda Sim
Illustrations by Amanda Sim
Author photograph by Ellis Michael Quinn

Manufactured in China

First printing November 2018
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Livia and Richard

Carol Clements has turned her attention to a serious problem facing people as they age: the risk of falling and suffering a severe injury. The National Institute on Aging warns that more than one in three people 65 and older fall each year. Falls are the cause of most hip fractures, and many people who suffer hip fractures never get back to normal. The fear of falling can prevent you from staying active, and can lead to social isolation. Overcoming the fear can help you stay engaged and healthy.

Many things can increase the risk of fallingincluding medical problems; failing eyesight and hearing; unsafe footwear; alcohol consumption; subtle safety hazards, like loose rugs; sleep deprivation; and medications that cause side effects such as dizziness, sleepiness, or confusion.

Theres no surefire way to improve balance, and serious falls sometimes happen despite best efforts to prevent them. But Carol Clements has reached into her decades of experience in exercise methods and movement arts to create a program that aims to improve balance by integrating exercise routines into the daily activities of life. She understands that there are countless excuses for avoiding the gymso she removes the gym from the equation and replaces it with locations like the bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom. Her logic: youre there anyway, and with a little thought and practice, you can do exercises while drinking coffee, brushing your teeth, watching TV, rinsing dishes, talking on the phone, getting dressed, checking email, or even taking a shower.

Before following the Better Balance for Life blueprint, I recommend you check with your healthcare provider to make sure the suggestions in the book make sense for you. The National Institute on Aging provides advice on how to prevent falls and fractures; their website is nia.nih.gov/health/prevent-falls-and-fractures .

Heres to a healthy, happy, well-balanced life!

Jon LaPook, MD
Chief Medical Correspondent, CBS News
Professor of Medicine, NYU Langone Health

Are you afraid of falling? Do you find yourself holding on to something to keep your balance and feel safe? As my contemporaries and I entered our sixth decade, we baby boomers were all surprisedwith many complaintsthat we had to endure the aging process. In the past, Susan trotted down the stairs in the middle of the crowd, but now she steps to the side and holds the handrail. Rick was recently traveling in Europe and felt insecure walking on cobblestones. Anxiety struck when Bill found nothing to hold on to while navigating the stands at the baseball stadium. This is a generation like all generations. In youth, they took it for granted that theyd be active and agile forever. Now, theyre losing confidence in their ability to do what formerly came naturally. They worry about losing their balance and falling.

As a personal trainer, yoga instructor, and dance and movement specialist for more than forty years, Ive helped people become aware of their own physicality and to develop flexibility, coordination, and endurance so they feel healthy and energetic. We focus on increasing their muscle mass and density, so that these do not diminish with age. Together, my clients and I have peeled back layers of joint and muscle dysfunction so that their body mechanics and alignment support ease and mobility. This process takes time and commitment from my students and clients.

But not everyone can afford a personal trainer. And not everyone wants to put his or her time or money into that kind of individual assistance. Many dont like the idea of exercising. Some dont belong to a gym or attend scheduled classes.

Thats why I wrote this bookto reinvigorate your balance and your physical well-beingwithout scheduled exercise sessions. In the next ten weeks, you will incorporate simple activities into your everyday life that will improve your agility and stabilityand you wont even break a sweat!

Each week you add four simple activities to your daily routines, such as brushing your teeth, rinsing the dishes, putting on your socks, or sitting down to work at your computer. The challenges gradually increase in difficulty and as you progressively master each step in the program, youll begin to notice that youve become more confident. When you can stand on one leg and button your shirt, you are ready to trust your ability to walk on uneven pavement.

You can stand up without holding on and have better balance for life and pleasure.

You get it. The research shows that getting older is directly proportional to a loss of balance and the risk of falling. The potential reasons for problems with balance are many: medical conditions and side effects from prescription drugs, decreases in vision and reaction time, poor posture, muscle weakness in the hips and legs, gait pattern disorders, and the fear of falling itself. However, the main culprit for most of us can be summed up as: inactivity.