Leisure Activities
This Fact Sheet accompanies the Leisure Activities class in the Techniques for Everyday Tasks classroom.
Benefits to Leisure Activities:
- Improve Quality of Life
- Help to Focus and Redirect Behaviors
- Decrease Anxiety and Stress
- Increase Self-Esteem and Sense of Involvement
Consider Preserved Abilities:
- Take advantage of activities they performed in the past
- Emphasize their assets, not their deficits
Recommendations:
- Break activities down into small steps and keep them short
- Discontinue the activity if they become frustrated or upset
- Provide cues – verbal and visual
- Demonstrate the activity
- Be flexible and don’t rush the activity
Daily Activities:
- Watching the sunset
- Watching animals or children play
- Eating a picnic in the backyard
- Planting a flower or arranging flowers in a vase
Physical Activities:
- Walking the dog
- Playing with grandchildren or children in the neighborhood
- Dancing
- Gardening
- Playing a musical instrument
- Exercise to music
Quiet Activities:
- Play cards or board games (checkers)
- Do jigsaw puzzles or crossword puzzles
- Read a magazine or look at pictures in a photo album
- Watch a movie
- Paint a picture (fingerpainting can be fun, too!)
Reiminiscence
- Think of past experiences and try to recall past events
- Ask questions that encourage and questions that are relevant
- Use old music, photos, or movies
LEISURE = INVOLVEMENT
- The more involved we are, the more attached to the world around us we can be.
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