u/Jamesoniania

Got back into working out a few months ago. Nothing fancy, mostly walking, some bodyweight stuff, and a tai chi class twice a week. I'm in my 60s and was nowhere near where I used to be.

What I didn't see coming was how much of this is balance. I went in thinking strength and cardio. Balance was something I figured I had until I didn't. The shower is a good example. Wet floor, eyes closing under the water, reaching for a bottle. You don't think of it as a balance situation until you almost go down in one.

What's got me excited is that balance is trainable. I wasn't sure at first. It felt like something you either have or you've lost, and at my age I figured I was on the losing side. But it's responding to the work the same way strength does. Being able to measure it with my phone has kept me honest about whether the work is doing anything, and given me something to talk about with the people in my life who worry.

That's what's kept me showing up. Walking is fine, bodyweight stuff is fine, but seeing balance go in the right direction at 60-something is the thing I didn't expect.

Last week I posted in r/over60 about a dizzy moment I had backing out of the driveway.

I'd been thinking it was balance related. I'm getting older, not in the shape I used to be, and figured this was just part of that. So I started looking into things that might help. That's how I ended up in a tai chi class for older adults. Slow, deliberate, you actually feel your weight shift from one foot to the other. I've stuck with it and I like it.

The studio had a flyer on the bulletin board for balance tracking. I figured if I was going to do tai chi I might as well see whether it was actually moving the needle. I started taking a reading in the morning and one in the afternoon.

That's when I noticed my dizziness wasn't constant. It varies through the day. Mornings are usually worst, late afternoon there's another rough patch, evenings tend to be better. I'd been thinking of it as either a dizzy day or a not-dizzy day. It's more like windows.

If you've been treating yours as a single thing that happens to you, it might be worth tracking for a couple of weeks. Knowing was the thing that helped me most.

A few weeks ago I was backing the car out of the driveway and turned my head sharply to look over my right shoulder. The world did that thing where it kind of slides for a second before it catches up. Not a full spin, not enough to change plans, but enough that I sat in the driveway for a minute before I drove off.

It's happened a few times since. Turning my head fast in the kitchen. Looking up at a high shelf. Nothing dramatic. But it's been on my mind because I haven't fallen, and I'd like to keep it that way.

I went to my doctor and she did a couple of quick checks. Had me stand with my feet together and eyes closed for a bit, called it a Romberg test. Then had me turn my head side to side while keeping my eyes on her finger. She said things looked "okay" but to practice at home and keep an eye on it. That was useful but it also felt like the kind of advice I'd probably forget about in two weeks if I didn't make it concrete.

So I started looking into other things I could do. A friend of mine swears by tai chi for keeping steady, and there's a small studio near me that does a class for older adults. I've been going twice a week and I really like it. Slow, deliberate, you actually feel your weight shift from one foot to the other in a way you don't normally pay attention to. Half the class is people who started after a scare like mine.

The studio had a flyer on the bulletin board for stela balance that gives you a score you can track over time. I've been using it alongside the tai chi to see if I'm actually improving. Both have helped.

The reason I'm posting all this is because I want to raise some awareness on this sub. The thing nobody told me, that I had to figure out on my own, is that balance loss starts years before a fall. Decades, in some cases. Most of us only think about it after something happens. By then you're playing catch up.

In your 60s if you've had any little moment that made you pause, a near miss on stairs, a head turn that didn't quite settle, a stumble you laughed off, that's worth taking seriously. Not in a panic way. Just in a "I should actually do something about this" way. Tai chi has been the most enjoyable piece of it for me, and being able to see and feel a move in the right direction has kept me showing up.

Don't wait for the fall.

mom is 72, lives alone, generally fine, but i can see the slow direction things are heading. for years i've sent articles, suggested classes, mentioned things i was reading about strength and balance and aging. polite nods. nothing took.

a few months ago i started taking my own movement more seriously because of my own desk life and some minor brain fog. not sure why but balance seemed to be what i thought would help both

showed her once on a visit. didn't expect anything from it. now she call me about it. more engaged with her own body in three months than in years of articles from me.

i've been thinking about why this stuck when nothing else did. she finds comfort in her phone. she likes small things she can do on it that feel like hers. and the shift that mattered most was that the information stopped being me telling her something about her body and became her tracking her body and telling me. the agency moved from outside her to inside her.

asking the sub: what has actually worked for you in getting an aging parent invested in their own health, vs trying to push it from the outside? i suspect the agency thing is general, not specific to balance. curious what other shapes it takes.