Hit the links and enjoy these great health benefits!
No matter whether you’re a golf lover already or you’ve never swung a club in your life, golf can be an excellent sport for anyone looking for a new hobby! Since it’s naturally a slower-paced sport, you may not realize that there are plenty of health benefits of golf for seniors.
In honor of August being National Golf Month, here are some of the top ways this time-honored game can also help keep us healthy:
- Adds walking to your day
- Engages your brain
- Improves strength and balance
- Releases endorphins
- Gets you outdoors
- Strengthens social connections
Let’s check out all these health benefits of golf for seniors to give you a reason to hit the green this month!
Adds walking to your day
Are you looking for opportunities to get a few more steps into the day? Head to the links, but consider skipping the golf cart! Since golf courses can be quite large, you can easily tally up the miles during your game, with breaks to rest and play in between. Along the way, you’ll reap the many health benefits of walking, like boosted metabolism and stronger bones. Be sure to take water breaks and rest periods as you feel comfortable.
Engages your brain
It takes a lot of mental work and strategy to plot the course to hit a tiny ball into a cup hundreds of feet away! Plus, you have to calculate environmental factors like wind speed and grass height. It also hones attention, memory, and learning as you improve your golf skills. That’s why one of the most commonly reported health benefits of golf for seniors include improved cognitive function.
Improves strength and balance
There’s also encouraging research showing that golfing offers strength and balance benefits for older players. In a study comparing golfers to non-golfers, the players came out ahead with better muscular strength, power, endurance, balance, and flexibility. Spending hours each week walking and swinging clubs is great exercise!
Releases endorphins
As long as you enjoy golfing, you’ll get a shot of feel-good hormones every time you make a great hit or come in under par. Plus, getting any form of exercise is shown to lift your spirits and relieve stress, so walking between holes will boost your spirits too!
Gets you outdoors
Recent trends have got many of us spending a lot of time indoors, but there are compelling reasons to get yourself outside on a regular basis. The benefits of fresh air and sunshine include higher vitamin D production, better concentration, and even improved healing abilities.
Strengthens social connections
Golfing is rarely a solitary activity. Part of the draw of golfing, or any other sport, is that it gives you time to connect with friends over a shared activity (or make new ones through a group). And having social connections is important for our health, too — offering mental, physical, and emotional benefits. Invite your friends to join you on the green once in a while!
There are plenty of health benefits of golf for seniors, but if it’s just not your thing, that’s okay too. (Different “strokes” for different folks!) Learn about five other great exercises and sports for seniors here.
