What's keeping you on the couch?When you’re over 65 and live in a two-storey house with your spouse, the couch can easily become the centre of your world. A great evening could be summed up as reclining in your Lazy Boy watching the game while eating snacks and drinking beer.
Here are 5 confessions from some older men who’ve become couch potatoes:
1 People bore me, I’ve heard it all before
Been there, done that. I’m disinterested in the same old platitudes. Why push myself to make friends, when I prefer my own company on the couch?
2 My TV has all the entertainment I want
My home entertainment system has everything I need. Why make the effort to go out, deal with traffic, crowds, and noise, wishing I was home on the couch?
3 I’ve earned the right to do nothing
I’ve done the hard years of work, I’m tired. Now it’s my time to switch off and do nothing. Why set a new goal, when I’d prefer to do nothing on the couch?
4 Life hasn’t turned out the way I thought it would
Sure, I’m disappointed with how it all turned out, but it is what it is. Why muster up ambition and get off the couch when nothing is going to change?
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5 Quite frankly, my body hurts
My joints hurt and I have chronic health problems. Why exert and push myself to climb the stairs to my bedroom, when I’m perfectly happy to sleep on the couch?
Why get off the couch?
Here are two reasons worth considering:
- Your relationship with your spouse: how is your sedentary lifestyle affecting her? What is her retirement dream? How is her body experiencing age? And how is all this impacting your relationship?
- You risk becoming disabled: a recent study proved that prolonged sitting puts people over 60 at quite a significant risk for disabilities?* Including an increased risk of heart failure, type 2 diabetes, and death from cancer, heart disease and stroke.
“The odds of a senior being disabled were almost 50% greater for each hour spent in sedentary behaviour”
Dorothy Dunlop,
Professor of Medicine
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
In fact, being a ‘couch potato’ is a softer term for what is called “Sitting Disease”.
Fortunately, breaking the ‘sitting’ cycle doesn’t have to be drastic to be effective.
There are simple solutions that can serve you well as you choose to take control of your life.
Take the quiz to see what quick solutions would be best suited to you.
