Healthy elderly are those who are diligent in cleaning up

Being a healthy elderly and free from chronic diseases does not have to be achieved with grandiose efforts. You can start by diligently cleaning the house every day. In fact, research has shown that doing simple household chores, such as cooking, washing dishes, gardening, and shopping, can help improve the quality of life of older people.

Healthy elderly are those who regularly clean up the house

Healthy elderly are those who are more painstaking in cleaning the house, says a study from the Clinical Gerontology Branch at the National Institute on Aging, Maryland, United States. The research was led by Chhanda Dutta, PhD.

This study states that cleaning the house is a simple physical activity that is good for the elderly. Routine physical activity can prevent various diseases and decreased bodily functions that often lurk the elderly.

Physical activity can help make you stronger, prevent bone loss, improve balance and coordination, improve mood, improve memory, sleep better, and reduce certain symptoms of chronic disease. Those of you who already have certain diseases such as diabetes or stroke can prevent your health condition from continuing to deteriorate by doing physical activity.

The research findings above are also supported by a study from Germany published in the journal BMC Public Health. The research team stated that people aged 65 years and over have a higher life expectancy if they are more diligent in doing housework.

Researchers reported that 25 percent of the elderly who spent between 3-6 hours doing household chores reported having better health than those who only spent 1-2 hours doing household chores each day.

Interestingly, the benefits of cleaning up the house to ensure healthy elderly people are always reported to be higher in older men. In fact, homework is identified with women's duties. This conclusion comes after observing the daily habits of more than 15 thousand men and 20 thousand elderly women in more than seven countries, including Italy, Germany, Britain and the United States. Researchers actually found that cleaning the house for less than three hours a day actually decreased the health conditions of the elderly, especially men who generally did it less frequently than women.

The house tidying work division must be divided equally

The results showed that older men generally only spend about 3 hours per day cleaning the house, while older women spend almost 5 hours per day. The type of housework that is done is also heavier for women (mopping, washing dishes and washing clothes, cooking, and shopping) than that of men which are maintenance and repairs such as repairing a leaky faucet.

Doing too much homework is also not good for health, especially for elderly women. Their health tends to deteriorate because they do homework for more than 3 hours each day. Ultimately, this habit has an impact on the duration and quality of sleep in elderly women. Women who spend hours doing household chores are also more likely to experience stress.

Therefore, to keep the two elderly healthy in the household, a balance is needed in the distribution of household duties among elderly couples.