The 17 Benefits of Walking & Climbing Stairs for Seniors

The 17 Benefits of Walking & Climbing Stairs for Seniors

As people age, their muscles start to decline, and as one gets into the late 60s, engaging in physical activities becomes strenuous unless you have been maintaining a regular training schedule through the years. Older people may find starting exercises late in life to be challenging and near impossible. Even those who have robust physical health may struggle to meet the regular 30 minutes of physical activity recommended for a healthy lifestyle.

The discipline required to hit the gym at least three times a week, and the learning curve in most of these exercises means most seniors have to find other means more friendly to their needs and limitations. Fortunately, such an option is not far out of reach. You have two scientifically proven options you can use to achieve the benefits of physical activities.

Walking and climbing stairs are your two options for reaping the benefits of physical exercises. The best part is that you can use both together, integrating them into your day to day schedule. You also do not have to worry about rest days. However, the most significant advantage they offer is the numerous health and social benefits you stand to gain by taking regular walks and climbing stairs. Here are the main benefits of walking and climbing stairs for seniors.

1. Improves Bones and Muscle Health

Bone and muscle loss are one of the biggest problems for older people. Conditions like osteoporosis affect older adults most. The loss of muscle takes your strength, and further makes you susceptible to bone loss. Weakening bones increase the risk of bone fractures, which explains why seniors are the most affected with hip fractures. Bone mass density peaks at 30 years of age, and from there, your bone density starts reducing, and bones get thinner as you age. To stop this, you have to engage in regular physical activity, which is a challenge for most older adults.

One study found that by walking 30 minutes daily, seniors were able to reduce the risk of hip fracture by 40%. Climbing stairs, which is more intensive than walking, has even greater benefits. Walking and climbing stairs pit your body weight against gravity creating the resistance need to promote bone and muscle growth.

2. Improves mental and emotional health

Another risk that comes with old age is deteriorating mental health. People in their late 60s to 80s have a high risk of memory loss, dementia, Alzheimer’s, and other brain-related complications. Studies have shown that there is a correlation between exercise and improved brain health. This relationship happens in three main ways.

First, physical activity which you can achieve by walking and climbing stairs increases the amount of blood that is being pumped to the brain. In doing this, your mind gets the necessary oxygen and nutrients, which helps you think clearly. Secondly, physical activity helps expand the size of your hippocampus, which is the part of the brain that is responsible for memory. Finally, it helps improve the nerve connections in your brain-boosting your memory and also preventing injury and brain disease.

That is not all for thirty minutes of walking or climbing stairs can help you overcome other emotional issues like bad moods, anxiety and depression, ADHD, and PTSD. It releases endorphins and serotonin enzymes and other chemicals that improve your mood and energize your spirit. A recent study by the Harvard School of Public Health showed that walking could help you reduce the risk of major depression by 26%. Exercising this way helps relieve body tension and breaks the concentration of negative distractions. It has also been shown to work as effective as anti-depressant drugs for mild to moderate forms of depression without the adverse effects and with more additional benefits. The University of Virginia Health System established in a study that men between the ages of 71 and 93 who walked for a quarter a mile or more daily had half the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia than those who did not.

In general, the increased physical activity that comes with daily walks and climbing stairs reduces inflammation and promotes healthy brain activity, including neural growth and activity patterns. These, in turn, promote calmness and improve your wellbeing and mental sharpness and reduces the risk of degenerative brain diseases.

3. Easy to Integrate into Life

The primary attraction of walking and climbing stairs is how easy they are to it in any schedule and how they are suitable for most older adults. You only need to find a couple of stairs to start on while walking requires you to take about 30 minutes of brisk walking. The idea is to engage in a pace that will increase the rate of your heartbeat but not leave you short of breath. Experts suggest using a rhythm that takes your heart rate to 220 minus your age. You should, however, be able to talk to someone comfortably.

You do not need any specialized equipment to engage in any of these two activities. All you need are comfortable clothes for a physical workout and comfortable sports shoes that have proper padding to absorb the shock and cushion our soles and bones for the landing impact. Besides these, you need nothing else though having a partner will help with motivation and company. You can easily find stairs, whether it is at work or an apartment, while walking trails, parks, and even the sidewalks on roads are ideal for walking.

There is no specialized training, and you can afford to start small to build a comfortable routine you can begin with, and from there on, keep on increasing either the pace or the duration of the activity. You can even combine the two exercises to get the best of them all and challenge your body in different ways, which helps promote more muscle growth.

4. Extend Your Lifespan

As one ages, the risk of early death increases. Fortunately, you are not entirely powerless in stopping this, as various studies have found out. In a 2019 research published by the Harvard Health Alumni Study, it was found that climbing stairs significantly lowers the risk of death from all causes. The study also found a connection between climbing a higher number of stairs and a lower risk of death from all causes. As for walking, a study found that men and women in their fifties and sixties are 35% less likely to die over the next eight years compared to their counterparts who did not walk or engage in any other form of physical activity. The number rises to 45% when considering those who have underlying health complications.

Exercise has been shown to slow down the aging process at the cellular levels, which helps keep you biologically younger and reduces risks of fatal conditions like stroke. Scientists have found that it is never too late to start engaging in physical activity as you can still reap the benefits. People who start walking and climbing stairs in their 80s and 90s increase their years of living and other health benefits. On the other hand, those who used to exercise but then stopped later in life have a higher risk of chronic illness and early death.

5. Helps in Weight Loss

Overweight and obesity pose a significant health hazard for everyone. Yet, due to the bodily changes that happen as you age, the risk and impact of being obese or overweight as an older adult are significant and severe. Obesity generally contributes to several respiratory conditions decreasing the size of the lungs and placing an extra load on the lungs when they lift during inhaling, thus limiting their capacity. Since, as you age, the lung structure and functions change, decreasing the lung size and surface available for gas exchange, obesity strains this further, leading to hypoxia and sleeping and breathing difficulties.

Older patients also are severely affected by overweight issues, which worsen their skin health and cardiovascular health as well as bone health. By engaging in walking and climbing coupled with proper nutrition, you can effectively burn more calories leading to weight loss and helping you maintain a healthy weight. Thirty minutes of brisk walking helps you burn 200 calories while the climbing stairs, which is more intensive, will help you burn 1000 calories in just an hour. The advantage of stair climbing is that you burn calories both as you climb up and as you come down.

The advantages of walking and climbing stairs go even further than that when combating obesity. In a study of the genetic links in obesity, researchers at Harvard established that walking cut down the effect of 32-obesity promoting genes by half. Engaging in physical activity has also been shown to lessen cravings for sweet items like sugary foods, which helps you maintain a healthy and low-calorie diet necessary for weight loss.

6. Improves Your Leg Power and Balance

Even as you grow old, legs remain one of the most relied on part for movement and execution of many tasks in daily life. With many adults experiencing a high risk of hip fractures and immobility, having strong legs ensures you can carry out many tasks, from lifting items to walking on your own and moving about without the need for assistance.

Walking and climbing boost your overall lower body strength and engage the balancing points of your legs from the soles to the knee and hip joints. With repeated frequency, your leg muscles will grow stronger, allowing you to carry all your duties with ease. They also help you build and maintain right body balance, which is essential in preventing falls and slips common among aged people and which lead to injuries requiring long term rehabilitation.

7. Improve General Fitness

General fitness is usually taken for granted when you are young as the benefits of youthful health and vigor helps make up most of the time for lack of general fitness unless in a competition or physically demanding tasks. For older adults, however, general fitness is a significant barrier to enjoying their life fully. Climbing stairs or carrying a bag of shopping from the vehicle to the house is a challenge, while a simple walk leaves them out of breath.

Reduced fitness levels increase the risk of injury even in the simplest of tasks like standing up, getting out of bed, lifting luggage, and others. Lacking overall fitness limits how you can enjoy life and decreases independence. With the added risk of injury, it means you are more likely to be skipping most other fun activities and relying on other people to do specific tasks for you. Recovering from injuries that would otherwise appear simple also takes longer, further confining you to your bed or chair. By integrating walking and climbing stairs to your daily schedule, you have safe ways to build back your fitness levels, allowing you to overcome whatever limitations age may place on you.

8. Engages Most of Your Muscles

The challenge of finding one or two exercises you can use for all your body fitness needs is that most do not involve the main body muscles. When walking or climbing stairs, you engage various muscles both at the primary and secondary levels. In walking, for example, you use the body’s most significant muscle, the quadriceps, which raise the leg and thigh and push them forward. Other muscles engaged include hamstrings, buttock muscles, calf muscles, stomach muscles which contract with each step forward, the pelvis stabilizing muscles, lower leg muscles, and the shoulder and arm muscles.

Climbing stairs, on the other hand, uses most of these muscles like the hip flexors in the hips and thighs, the gluteus medius, which is on outer thighs, and the gluteus maximus found in your butt. It also uses the hamstrings muscles, erector spinae on your lower back spine, and the calf and shin muscles. This range of muscles worked out from lower legs to the core, and arms make for a full-body workout. It is also what makes climbing stairs and walking a good base exercise to build on before heading to the gym.

9. It is an Effective Low Impact Cardio Exercise

While everyone benefits from exercise, not everyone will be in a position to undertake HIIT routines and other intensive forms of cardio. The labored joints of the elderly cannot safely sustain such intense pressure. They will lead to poor form and increase the risk of injury. Besides, they also lead to quick fatigue, making it hard for people who do not exercise regularly to keep up with the required sessions and be worn out for days.

In such cases, low impact exercises are practical and recommended. The advantage of climbing stairs and walking is they are still intensive enough to help you reach your goals while also involving several groups of muscles for a wholesome workout. Low cardio workouts have shown the same benefits as a regular intensive workout, including the effect on weight loss and improving your heart rate as well as your fitness as already discussed.

10. Build Your Endurance and Strength

Because you do not grow tired in a couple of minutes, climbing stairs and walking are great options for building your endurance. Having excellent stamina means you can go about your daily activities without feeling tired or sore later. When climbing stairs, you are working against gravity, with your body being the load your muscles have to carry and balance. When you do it daily, you challenge your body to build new muscle fibers and to manage the weight. Soon the body gets accustomed to the new demands prompting an increase in intensity or load, which means walking for longer distances or climbing more stairs.

Building endurance also results in more strength. As your body builds new muscle fibers to meet the demands of the exercise, you grow in strength. While it may not be at the same rate or in the same amount as weight training, it is adequate to help you boost and sustain your energy levels and do various duties without quick exhaustion.

11. Helps Regulate Blood Pressure and Boost Your Cardiovascular Health

Walking and climbing stairs regularly allow you to boost your heart rate and strengthen the body’s muscles. In a short time, your heart’s muscles health and strength, and there is optimum blood circulation to all body parts and no narrowing or blocking of blood vessels. All these changes boost your heart’s health. You have lower harmful cholesterol levels, and your blood pressure is also low.

Several studies have shown that walking for 30 minutes each day lowers blood pressure by at least 11 points in just 24 weeks. Climbing stairs and walking also reduce the likelihood of stroke by 20%, and if your increase pace or do more, then the risk falls by 40%. Your heart becomes healthier, and you can fend off most of the cardiovascular diseases.

12. They Help Reduce Risk of Disability

Another significant risk older people face is physical disability. As bones decrease in density and muscle loss progresses, older people who lead sedentary lives are at a higher risk of developing a physical disability. The muscle that is not being used is lost, and the joints and ligaments stiffen. The body’s tissues and skeletal frame, especially for the major muscle groups, are not able to carry the person’s body weight for long. When coupled with the increased risk of falls and injuries, it explains why most older adults lose their mobility early. However, daily walking and climbing stairs reduce that risk by as much as 41%, which helps maintain your independence, and you do not have to get walking aids or be taken to a care center.

13. Promote Joints Health and Fight Diseases Like Arthritis

Joints are some of the adversely affected body parts among the elderly. They do not have direct blood flow, and instead, they get their nutrition and oxygen when they are moving through the synovial fluid, which only circulates when in motion and helps keep the cartilage in the bones healthy. Without sufficient movement, the joints do not get lubricated, and the cartilage does not get nourishment, and joints lose their flexibility.

For older adults dealing with arthritis or at a high risk of developing the condition, walking and climbing stairs provide an effective option for rehabilitation and overcoming the limitations the condition places on you as you nurture your joints through old age.

14. Promote Better Sleep

Sleep is necessary for cell regeneration, a healthier mind, and even emotional stability. Much of your growth and body healing processes happen when you are asleep. Unfortunately, the sedentary lifestyle of most seniors means they do not get to sleep much or have a poor quality of sleep regularly. The effects are detrimental to your health and overall wellbeing. For example, poor sleep quality affects mental health leading to memory loss and problems with thinking and concentration.  It also increases the risk for diabetes, leads to poor balance, and a high risk of having accidents. Poor sleep quality also leads to weight gain, poor moods, low sex drive, and high blood pressure, among other ailments.

The physical exertion you have from walking or climbing stairs during the day helps you overcome insomnia and have deep refreshing sleep and all its benefits. These exercises enable you to protect all the gains you have made instead of losing them through insufficient sleep.

15. They Help to Boost Your Immune System

It is no secret that seniors have some of the weak immune systems, which makes them susceptible to a myriad of bugs and opportunistic diseases. Adults have the best immunity because of exposure to many ailments throughout their lives. As you age, this ability decreases due to several factors. First, the number of cells and antibodies used to fight infections reduce. Others like T-Cells reduce their functions. They are also slow in reacting to disease-causing germs in the body, making the disease spread faster. Another challenge is that, as people get older, their immune system becomes less intolerant to the body’s cell, which results in an increased risk of auto-immune diseases.

Thankfully, a moderate exercise like brisk walking or stair climbing has been shown to improve your immunity system. People who take such exercises record fewer sick days compared to those who do not. The two activities help you spread the white blood cells faster to fight infections, and the rise in temperature creates an unfavorable environment for the growth and spread of bacteria. Stress is another condition that affects your immune system, and by climbing stairs, you manage your stress level giving a boost to your immune system.

16. Helps in pain management

Years of exerting your body through strenuous work but with poor nutrition or living a sedentary lifestyle, catch up with you in old age. Your body aches almost everywhere, whether it is lower back pain, joint pain, and even headaches. Painkillers provide temporary relief, and some may also have side effects and generally do not address the main problems behind the pain.

Climbing stairs gives you an avenue to workout, stretch, and lubricate your muscles, joints, and connecting tissues. Weak muscles and stiff joints cause most of the pain, and jumping straight to the gym will cause you more harm than what you are currently experiencing. Walking is a safe alternative. It allows you to stretch your muscles and build strength, which, in a short period, alleviates the pain and aches in your body.

17. Improves General Quality of Life

Walking and climbing stairs lead to an overall improvement in your quality of life as a senior. This effect happens on all levels. You get to cut your weight and maintain a healthy body weight, which in itself is an achievement of which you will be proud. At the same time, the toned body muscles and increased energy will give you confidence and raise your self-esteem. With the usual nagging and aches are gone, you enjoy your experiences and can move around with ease and participate in events you usually would be skipping.

The impact of these activities on your mental and emotional health also contributes to your general wellbeing. They help keep you sharp and in good spirits preventing depression and stress. You are also in better shape to fight infections while at the same time lowering your risk of chronic diseases. The most significant gain though, has to be increased independence. Depending on caregivers and family members can limit how well one enjoys old age. Lacking the ability to do shopping, moving around on your own can hurt your outlook towards life and even your social circle. The less independence you are, and the severe your disability, the more your world is limited.

Fortunately, you can always start the journey today either to prevent the adverse effects of aging or to reverse them. You can still live your senior years with vigor, and the independence of your mid-life, so find a schedule with the help of your physician and progressively grow your challenge.