Best Exercises To Improve The Symptoms Of Parkinson’s

Making exercise a part of your daily routine is a great way to maintain good health. It keeps your body young and active.

For patients with Parkinson’s disease, the loss of motor control hinders coordinated movement and balance of the body. Although prescription medications are available to control the symptoms to an extent, day-to-day activities can become quite troublesome. 

Slurred speech, tremors, and muscle stiffness gradually develop, making it difficult to walk or stand upright. For such patients, incorporating exercise into their rehabilitation management is showing promising results in terms of improving symptoms. 

Start with a low-intensity workout and gradually move to more vigorous exercise.

Getting Started

Here are a few factors to be taken into account.

• Your safety is essential. Before engaging in physical activity, consult your therapist to ensure that it does not cause more harm than good. Work together to draft a routine that best suits you.
• Calculate your steps and cycles. Most smartwatches have built-in motion sensors that can make quite accurate calculations.
• Try to change your daily routine to keep you motivated to stay active.

Key Components

When figuring out a workout regimen, be certain that it encompasses core training, balance and agility, aerobics, and flexibility.

Here are 7 of the best exercises you can try at home or your local gymnasium to alleviate the quality of your life.

No-Contact Boxing

When Parkinson’s has robbed you of so much, it is only understandable to fight back. Although there is no absolute cure for its symptoms, you can try methods like boxing for Parkinson’s disease to reduce its severity. In these supervised workouts, patients only throw punches but do not take any. Studies have shown that at a micro level, this promotes neurological changes in the brain while restoring balance to the body and improving muscle coordination.

The only limitation is that it has proven to help in the disease’s initial and middle stages, with effects reduced to almost none in more advanced stages.

Walking, Jogging, Or Running

It is the easiest way to get in a full-body cardio workout. Take an early morning walk, a light jog, or a good run if you are up for it. Whatever you choose depends on the freedom of muscle movement your body allows. Studies claim that any aerobic exercise done for 30-45 minutes three days a week could replace conventional Parkinson’s medications.

Swimming Or Rowing

If you have access to a nearby swimming pool, swimming every other day can improve your general fitness. You can slowly get into water aerobics starting with a few laps across the pool. This works wonders because patients with Parkinson’s find freedom of movement in the water. With water’s buoyancy at play, they no longer have to fear falling due to lack of balance or hesitating to bear weights, as it leads to joint stress.

For patients with severe movement limitations, rowing exercises are a good alternative. Evidence suggests that putting your muscles through repetitive resistance motion controls symptoms.

Cycling Or Stationary Biking

Cycling is another form of aerobic exercise that is neuro-protective. It is vital to balance maintenance and a greater range of mobility. Wake up early, or utilize the evening to take your bike out onto the road. This will not only be good for your health but will also keep you fit and refreshed.

If you can’t manage outdoor cycling, it is just as beneficial to take it indoors. Get an elliptical trainer, or use one at the gym.

Strength Training

The process involves employing your body weight or deadlifts to build muscle mass and increase core strength. Start with small weights, and make your gradual journey toward heavier weights. Adding this to your exercise routine at least twice a week can improve balance and posture.

Besides the obvious effects, strictly adhering to an exercise routine boosts the uptake and effectiveness of levodopa, the most common medication used in treating Parkinson’s disease.

The largest clinical study of Parkinson’s disease to date was titled Parkinson’s Outcomes Project. Results showed that patients who engaged in an activity for about 2.5 hours per week had a far better quality of life than those that were relatively sedentary.

Yoga And Pilates

Both yoga and Pilates are forms of exercise that connect the mind and the body. A sound mind means a healthy body, and vice versa. They improve flexibility, help with posture alignment, and enhance endurance. It might be hard at first to stay in position for longer than a minute, but with time and perseverance comes betterment and perfection. So let your body loose, allow yourself to relax, and let your mind strengthen its function. After doing this for several weeks, you can expect to have improved cognitive function and feel healthier overall.

Dance

Are you tired of the same boring old workouts? Has the monotony of your routine exercises made the whole ordeal dull? Put on your favorite music, let your body groove to the beat, and let yourself free. This workout has no rules except one: free your mind of every worry and have fun.

Conclusion

Getting the unfortunate diagnosis of Parkinson’s is hard. But the harder bit, without a doubt, is the period that follows where you must accept the reality that you’ll have to live with it forever. In such a time, the wise thing to do is to process your thoughts properly first. Once you are past that, you can create a well-thought-out plan.

You can do this with the various exercises discussed above. This is to slow down the progression of your disease and help you cope with your symptoms a little better. This way, you can control Parkinson’s and not let Parkinson’s control you.

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