October 2022 Conference and Expo Edition

LIFESTYLE IN YOUR COMMUNITY By Dharmi Shah, Head of Lifestyle Support Taylor Management Company, AAMC, AMO

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D eveloping and maintaining a healthy lifestyle is crucial for all of us but imagine living in a community where you have the opportunity to focus on your mind, body, and soul without having to travel for it. This is exactly what you get when including lifestyle into your community. Lifestyle encompasses everything from creating exciting entertainment programs, bringing health and fitness to your community, and so much more. Whatever the lifestyle program, it is all about keeping residents healthy, excited, entertained, but most of all, feeling like they have a strong network within their small radius that they call HOME! Engage Residents! Engaging residents is by far one of the most important things to do in developing a lifestyle program. Creating a survey for residents to express the level of engagement they may be interested in is beneficial in developing activities for the community. For example, survey residents on their interest in dances, type of music, bus trips, fitness classes,

etc. Understanding the needs of residents is the most ben eficial aspect in developing a successful lifestyle program. Every community, every building, and every geographical location is so completely different and making it a point to embrace these differences and needs of the residents can help maintain a strong community. Socialize! We all need a moment alone or time to ourselves but social izing with neighbors and those in the community can provide a boost in our mental health. It brings about friendship, trust, but most of all it gives us the ability to feel like we are a part of something. Everyone wants to feel needed, feel important, and most of all, feel accepted and wanted. Creating opportunities to socialize will bring residents to a common place, where they can interact with others who are of similar backgrounds, similar mindsets, and similar interests. Planning the simplest of social activities can make a world of a difference for so many residents. Happy hours are just one example of the many

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