Activities & Wellness

Creative and Crafty Things to Do with Grandchildren in the Bay Area This Summer

These days, grandparents often have to compete with smartphones and other screens just to get some quality time with their grandkids. The games and programs available to kids are virtually endless, so they can easily get caught in the digital web. There comes a point when they really need some outside perspective to help them detach and remember what real-life adventures are waiting for them beyond those two-dimensional playgrounds. As a grandparent, you can help to not only wake them up from their screen fixation but also engage them with their creativity and their evolving role in the wider world.

What Are the Best Brain Foods for Older Adults to Preserve Memory and Cognitive Vitality?

Known as “The Bookworm,” Therese is never without one or two volumes tucked under her arm or open under her nose. From a young age, she loved to live vicariously through the adventures of her fictional heroes and heroines. Now that she’s retired, she has even more time to journey through these fascinating stories.

The Benefits of Tai Chi for Older Adults and the Bay Area's Commitment to Sharing Them

Our language has a lot of metaphors for being calm: “A port in a storm,” and, “The still point of the turning world,” are just two examples. They all engagingly invoke a common image: There is tumult, and somewhere in that tumult, there is peace. You just have to find it. The reason these metaphors are so prevalent is because life often feels like a raging swirl, a chaotic mess of stress, emotional entanglements, and uncertainty.

Celebrate LGBTQ Pride Month in June with Institute on Aging

Everyone deserves to grow older with dignity and pride, and without having to hide who they are. At Institute on Aging (IOA), we strongly support LGBTQ rights and feel that older adults, who had to spend much of their life hiding, deserve to celebrate who they are. These aren’t special rights: These are basic human needs that are just, fair, and moral. That’s why we are honored to celebrate Pride Month with our amazing LGBTQ community and everyone else who wants to join in.

National Senior Health and Fitness Day 2017: Activities for Older Adults in San Francisco

In song and story, and even in our perception of ourselves, life is pictured as a journey. It’s a metaphorical path, like a Keane kid dotted-line doodle, from birth to death, zig-zagging along river and dale. But when we get older, while we might be moving metaphorically, we too often stop moving physically. That path isn’t quite a dead end, but we are walking in place.

Fun Things for Older Couples to Do Together in San Francisco to Rekindle That Spark

Think back to the very start of your relationship. Those early months—sometimes years—are an intense time of excitement and expansion. This person you’re developing strong feelings for is helping you to see the world with fresh eyes and enter new experiences in each moment simply because you get to experience these moments with them. This period of newness motivates self-expansion, which in itself is a happy and fulfilling experience. In time, the newness wears off and makes way for knowing your partner even more deeply and intimately.

Tips for Success as an Aging Athlete: Rethink Exercise and Your Body to Stay Active While Getting Older

In late April of this year, Katherine Switzer ran the Boston Marathon, completing it with an impressive time of 4:44:31. This was slightly slower than her first Boston marathon, in which she finished in 4:20, but we can cut her some slack. Her first was 50 years ago, in 1967. She was the first woman ever to enter the Boston Marathon. Her courage and strength today is no less inspiring than it was 50 years ago.

Fun Memory Exercises for Older Adults: A Caregiver's Creative Toolbox

Nothing frustrates my grandmother more than reaching for a memory and its living details and coming up short. There’s nothing, tangible or intangible, that she can do to bring herself closer. Her wheels are spinning, and eventually, feeling defeated, she gives up hope of finding traction.

Age Out Loud: Activities and Ideas to Celebrate Older Americans Month in May 2017

Cultural expectations have a funny way of forming without anyone actually giving thought to it. Take getting older. As a society, we have this notion that it is a time of slowing down, withdrawing, and isolating yourself from new experiences, regardless of what your health allows. We’ve treated aging as a time to step aside and to be quiet.

Gardening Activities for Older Adults in San Francisco Fill Pantries—and Hearts—with Natural Goodness

These days, the grocery store shelf is about as close as most of us come to the source of our fruits and veggies. There are some surprising disadvantages to this rather sterile exchange. Exposure to the rich, living dirt in which our produce grows leads to a stronger immune system, thanks to the harmless microbes and bacteria that teach our bodies to build up their defenses. Certain microbes in the soil have even been shown to stimulate serotonin production in the brain, lifting your mood and easing symptoms of depression and anxiety. Spending time in a garden also feeds you with Vitamin D from the sunshine and healthy exercise from digging, pulling, searching, and watering.