Do you know someone over 80 years old who still participates in sports, does regular physical activity, is mentally sharp, still working or doing community work, and continues to be outgoing and social? I have seen those who were surfing, bicycling, driving or dancing into their seventies. I can think of a few 90-year-olds who are still quite active and look 20 years younger. My son-in-law’s grandmother is just shy of 100 and still travels to Europe, drives a car and maintains an office in New York City.
Apparently, staying active and mentally sharp is one of the top concerns of the “Baby Boomer” generation. They expect to work longer. Some don’t even plan on retiring and they strive to remain healthy their entire lives. One of the major complaints of Western healthcare is that, despite great strides in technology and life saving procedures, this hasn’t helped with living long healthy lives. We would all rather be healthy until the day we die, and it would also be cheaper on our pocketbooks. That money could be used to help build a future rather than supporting a miserable demise. The following statistics are ones which we would probably want to reduce: One in eight older Americans has Alzheimer’s Disease, about 5.4 million people, and the projected number by 2050 is 16 million. It is now the sixth leading cause of death, and one that most say doesn’t have a cure. If the numbers turn out as predicted, by 2050 the costs for treating Alzheimer’s alone is expected to be over $1 trillion. There are an estimated 15 million Alzheimer’s and dementia caregivers, amounting to 17 billion hours of unpaid care, valued at over $200 billion. If we could get our aging population to be independent in their homes for just one additional year, we could save an estimated $26 billion in care-giving and healthcare per year. So, how do we change these statistics or prevent this from happening? I believe it is never too late to make changes. I always tell my patients that as long as there is life in the body, there is always the possibility to make positive change. Here are my recommendations: 1) Eat healthy. Add more vegetables and fruits, mostly organic, fresh and raw, to your diet. Chew food 30-70 times per bite. Eat when relaxed and happy. Eat at regular intervals. Don’t skip breakfast. Avoid processed sugar, animal protein raised on unnatural diets like corn instead of grass, and fried foods. 2) Drink water, preferably before or after you eat and NOT with meals. Stop drinking sodas and sugary drinks. Think about how much caffeine you ingest. One cup of coffee contains approximately 150 mg of caffeine, a therapeutic dose, and black tea has about 85 mg, while green tea has only 15 mg, plus it is full of antioxidants. 3) Supplement your diet with fish oil that has been purified of heavy metals, take multivitamins, antioxidants and other supplements as needed. Coconut oil is good for the brain, as are fish oil and probiotics. 4) Move more frequently. Life is movement. Find an activity that gives you joy and makes you feel better. Not everyone is meant to run. Some like to dance and others like to walk. Do what you enjoy. 5) Laugh more. Laughter stimulates good chemicals in the body and makes you healthier. 6) Make new friends, cultivate stronger healthier relationships and do good things for others. No one likes to hear complaints, judgments or orders. Be nice to others. 7) Learn something such as another language or a new skill. Read a book, do a puzzle, play cards and engage yourself in community activities. Life is too short to be waiting for things to happen or postponing activities until you have more time or money. Be proactive and create a life full of great times and great adventures. You are capable of making masterpieces come to life.
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Norman Cousins wrote a book called Head First, The Biology of Hope. In the book, he wrote about a judge he had been asked to help. This man had been diagnosed with a throat cancer that was in advanced stages and was given two months to live. He became severely depressed which worried his family, as he had always been the patriarch and had given strength and guidance to his family. They didn’t know what to do, since he was always the rock keeping the family stable and functioning.
When Norman Cousins met him he said to this man, “You are a very intelligent man and so am I, and we both know that you will probably be dead in two months. However, I would like to point out that you are not dead yet. Do you realize what your behavior is doing to your family? Why don’t you use these last two months of your life to help your family transition to life without you. Besides, don’t you want your family to remember you as you have always been, rather than remember you in this state?” This man snapped out of his depression and proceeded to guide his family to the next phase of their lives without him. I think about this story when life gets a little too serious or when I start to feel sorry for myself. I have come to realize that life is a journey and always brings change, surprise and obstacles that we won’t necessarily feel prepared for. It helps to be able to switch gears and change our way of thinking to maximize our efforts to achieve the best outcome. We all have stories and memories of people who have touched our lives and helped us to focus on what is important in life. When it comes down to the wire, material things may not matter as much as people who care about us and make life worth living. A newspaper story described a pastor who was a former drug addict and had his life turned around by a kind soul who directed him to the path he has taken today. Now he hosts a karaoke night at his church for the homeless and others who feel unwanted and invisible, giving them a chance to express themselves and feel appreciated. All it takes is one act of kindness to make others feel like they matter. You never know what kind of chain reaction you might create. So don’t waste any more time. Make each moment count. You can create a difference in lives, including your own. Qigong, an ancient Chinese exercise and treatment, benefits both health and longevity. It involves mind and body coordination to improve the flow of the body’s vital life force. Although similar to acupuncture in moving the qi (also called chi), qigong doesn’t require needles and also helps improve organ health. There are a number of schools and approaches to qigong, from exercises you can do yourself, to having work done to you by qigong practitioners.
One simple way to improve your immune system is to improve salivation in your mouth. Doctors and dentists know that saliva helps reduce dental cavities. People with poor salivation tend to have more dental cavities and poorer immune function. Here is a simple qigong exercise to increase salivation. Clack your teeth together 12 times, move your tongue up and down 9 times, then move your tongue from left to right 9 times, and finally move your tongue out and in 9 times. You should notice increased saliva in your mouth. Swish the fluid around your mouth and swallow it in 3 amounts. You will notice even more saliva afterwards. Improving the lymphatic flow in the body also improves the immune system. The lymphatic system is similar in structure to the circulatory system but with much smaller vessels. If the blood vessels were the size of straws, then the lymphatic vessels would be the size of silk threads. The lymphatic system removes waste material. Sometimes, if there is a lot of material to remove, congestion occurs, resulting in swelling, heaviness and decreased immunity. Even bone dust from certain surgical procedures can clog lymph nodes and vessels. Using shaking machines or vibrators or jumping on trampolines can help move the lymph fluid. A simple qigong exercise involves doing mild shaking while standing and relaxing all joints in the body including the jaw, so that when you shake, your teeth clack. Imagine all of the water in your body, which is about 70% of your body composition, moving as a single unit, creating a tidal wave moving waste material out of the cell and driving in nutrition, including oxygen. Also imagine the various types of tissues gliding smoothly as separate units, unsticking any scar tissue that may have developed from trauma, infection or disuse. Your fingers, shoulders, vertebrae, skin and muscles should bounce or move as a wave or flap like a flag blowing in the breeze. The action should appear graceful and flowing, with movement occurring at each separate joint. Care has to be taken to shake at an appropriate speed so you don’t hurt yourself. From a qigong point of view, this is the only exercise I know of that benefits the hormonal or endocrine system. The endocrine system could be described as the “mobile” messenger system, versus the nervous system which could be described as the “landline.” The endocrine system communicates messages that help with energy production (thyroid, adrenal), digestion (salivary), sexual function (prostate, ovaries), sleep cycles, growth, and coordination of all bodily functions. As a child, I watched my grandparents doing a Japanese exercise called nishishiki. They would shake their arms and legs while lying on their backs. My grandmother lived to 88 and my grandfather to 97. Later, a 92-year-old Japanese patient told me to shake my hands to stay healthy. Even while playing sports, if a team member missed a point, everyone said, “shake it off.” Shaking seems to lead to better health and performance. What differentiates living from non-living things? Movement. Strength training is used more today to round out exercise regimes, especially for the “Baby Boomer” population. This addition compliments the previous focus on cardiovascular fitness programs. Evidence shows that strength training is not only good for activities of daily living, but also improves balance and helps with weight management and memory. Muscle strength involves coordination of nerve messages getting to the individual muscle fibers, which requires chemical messengers called neurotransmitters to link muscle and nerve function. Weight/strength training stimulates the production of these neurotransmitters, which also may boost memory.
Some of my patients are taking responsibility to keep themselves fit with a daily exercise routine but find that they are injuring themselves with the same routine they have done for years. Upon questioning, we find individuals are doing weight lifting of only certain muscles around a particular joint, usually the areas of the body that are easily seen. In doing so, imbalances can develop. Some people try to progress with their programs quicker than their bodies can handle. Some start off at too heavy a load and try to push through the exercise despite what their body says. Others do techniques or exercises with a higher risk for injury. Still others take statin drugs to lower their cholesterol but are not taking Co-Q 10 which gets depleted when taking statin drugs, thus reducing the body’s ability to produce muscle energy. Plus, add in the aging factor where muscle mass and strength decrease with each decade of life. Most people who do weight training know that exercise is done gradually and every other day to allow for the muscle fibers to build with a day of rest between workouts. It is important to understand the different types of workout routines depending on your goals, whether to tone, bulk, increase strength or increase stamina. Muscles are made up of different types of fibers; some are better suited for strong bursts of energy and others better suited for endurance activities. People have different ratios of each of these fibers, so that is why some people are better at long distance running and others are better at sprints. Nutrition can make a difference in how muscle performs. Many books have been written on the subject, specific for various types of athletic events. For the majority of us who just want to stay standing and functional for as long as we can as we age, there are simpler guidelines to follow, but it may help to get some guidance with an exercise program if you feel you are straining, plateauing or have gotten into a rut. Changing a routine may enhance brain function and muscle efficiency and get you to a new level with less risk for injury. I still hear people talking about exercising to the point of pain and trying to work through the pain. Ever since I was an undergraduate in college, I have always believed, based on what my professor said, that pain is your body’s way of telling you that something is getting damaged. He said you could exercise without experiencing pain. Was I relieved to hear that, since I am such a baby when it comes to pain.
Coaches still push their athletes to the point of pain and it is one way to develop more muscle fiber. But some damage does occur and it’s similar to taking 2 steps forward and 1 step backward. You make forward progress but you do have some suffering. There is a way to push ahead 1 step forward, 1 step forward, without any backward motion. I tell my patients to listen to your body. Don’t look for pain signals, because that is an indication that you have already gone too far. If you have to use ice to calm the pain and swelling, then you have most certainly gone too far. Instead, look for other signals from the body telling you the point of damage is near, such as breathing harder or feeling like more effort is needed. You may start to modify the movement by using more parts of your body. It can feel like you are straining. You feel fatigue coming on. These are signals that come before the pain and will give you a “heads up” that you should stop. Using these signals will prevent any damage or pain from occurring, making your progress proceed in a forward manner. One incredible athlete I met in my life was Lynn Jennings, who won the Bronze Medal in the 1500 meters at the Barcelona Olympics. What made her so remarkable was the fact that she never had an injury in her running career at the time I met her. When I asked her how she was able to accomplish this, she said that she always listened to her body, taking it easy when she felt tired, taking a break when she felt her body needed a rest. What a contrast to other elite runners who usually feel compelled to continue to train despite pain and injuries to keep up with the other runners. She lived in the woods and trained with her dog, away from the running community, so she never got caught up in the competition of keeping up with the other runners. She listened instead to her body. No matter what type of activity, exercise or class you are doing, listen to your body and stop before you experience any pain. Keep moving forward. |
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