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Your health needs change as you age. From dietary guidelines to the most relevant types of exercise, there are so many different things to keep in mind for your health and longevity. It’s a lot to keep up with, but there’s no shortage of online courses for seniors you can take in order to stay up-to-date with the latest information regarding your health and well-being. Whether you’re looking to ward off cognitive decline or trying to be more active every day, you’ll find some helpful pointers with one of the free courses below.
Free online health and fitness courses for seniors from top universities
1. Emory University: Biohacking Your Brain’s Health
Aging inevitably brings along cognitive decline. This course explains how to maximize your brain’s fitness through nutrition, exercise, meditation, and sleep. This free four-week course is taught by Karima Benameur, MD, an assistant professor of neurology at Emory University. In it, you’ll learn from recent research on brain health and receive weekly tips for improving your brain’s health.
2. Imperial College London: Nutrition in Ageing
One of the best ways to increase your healthspan—or the number of healthy years of life you live—is to eat healthy foods. In this course, you’ll learn all about nutrition requirements for older people, the role nutrition can play in preventing disease, and how social settings can impact eating behavior. This four-week course will give you the tools to better understand nutrition and develop healthy habits that work for you.
3. Emory University: Beyond Balancing Calories
Another tool to increase your healthspan is to manage your weight. This course examines the root causes of obesity. You’ll learn how stress, a sedentary lifestyle, and inadequate sleep disrupt our appetite control system. By helping you develop a better understanding of the physiology behind obesity, the course aims to help you will learn how to work with your body to manage your weight.
4. Karolinska Institutet: Promotion of Healthy Ageing
This free five-week course will walk you through the tenets of healthy aging. It examines how lifestyle-related factors like diet, physical activity, stress, and sleep impact our well-being as we age. This course highlights the idea that it is never too late to modify our lifestyle and engage in healthy behaviors, and addresses health promotion strategies for older adults.
5. University of Toronto: Managing Your Health: The Role of Physical Therapy and Exercise
To learn about the ties between exercise and cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, cancer, sports injuries, and arthritis, consider enrolling in this free six-week course. This course will teach you why physical activity and exercise are important, and how these practices can benefit you as you age.
6. University of Edinburgh: Sit Less, Get Active
We know that sitting isn’t good for you. But, staying active is easier said than done. By teaching you how to monitor your own activity and set physical activity goals, this course hopes to make being active a more tangible goal. Additionally, this course offers you a unique opportunity to receive weekly physical activity health messages and monthly video-reminders on how to increase physical activity in various settings for six months after the initial three-week course.
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