Many seniors avoid climbing stairs. Maybe they shouldn't.

Kerry Stewart has a long -standing dispute with his wife when it comes to their two -story house outside Baltimore. “I tell my wife that I stay in my two -story house, and she still says we have to move to a one -story house,” says Stewart. Stewart, a 78-year-old exercise physiologist at Johns Hopkins, believes that going up and down helps to keep seniors in shape himself. He is not alone. Some research has found that seniors who climb more stairs have lower death rates and retain their ability to do basic tasks. The different studies are mainly observations and can be skewed by confusing factors – for example, people who are healthy for other reasons can use stairs. But they underline that fitness is not just reached at the gym or by formal workouts. “You can go up the stairs in ten or 15 seconds, but throughout the day the benefit collects,” says Stewart, a professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins. “People who maintain an active life, even at low levels, can benefit greatly over time.” Scientists once thought we should practice for cardiovascular fitness at a time or longer at a time. That thinking has evolved. Small pieces of exercise throughout the day can be just as beneficial. In some cases, it may be more advantageous to reduce cardiovascular risk factors. It is carried by research on step. This study found that death rates drop to average between 8,000 and 10,000 steps per day to the age of 60. After the age of 60, death rates drop to 6,000 to 8,000 steps a day. It didn’t matter if the steps were spread across various sessions or teamed up in long hikes, researchers told Barron. Climbing stairs is a more intense exercise than walking, and it seems to have its own benefits. Stairs not only improve your cardiovascular health; They build leg muscles and improve your balance. Over the past century, everything has removed from cars to the automation of daily household tasks to online shopping physical activities from our lives, says Bethany Barone Gibbs, who is chairman of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at West Virginia University School of Public Health. “Getting a master bedroom on the first floor is another way we designed physical activity from our lives.” She’s going on. ‘Many European cities are built and designed in front of cars, and they are much more runable. And there is also more infrastructure for cycling and for more active transport in general. ‘ Gibbs, who is a volunteer expert at the American Heart Association, says Americans need to redesign their lives to add more exercise by walking or taking stairs where possible, or even choosing to shop their own instead of online shopping. “Stairs are a wonderful way to work back activities in our lives,” she says. What about the risk of falling on stairs? Falling down stairs is a concern – especially for seniors. But the risks can be relative. For example, the stairs equipped with rails pose less risk to seniors than walking nearby, says Meera Sheffrin, a Geriater of Stanford Medicine. She says seniors sometimes fall because they do not pick up their feet enough as they walk, and they stumble over a rough place. She says going up stairs builds the same leg muscles that help us to walk right. She likes the idea of ​​stairs for seniors they can handle. And she thinks it’s a good idea for seniors to have options without stairs as their health drops. “It’s good to buy a house with stairs when you’re healthy,” she says. “But I also recommend buying a house with a first-storey bedroom and bathroom.”