As you may have noticed, if you have been reading this newsletter for any length of time, I have an obsession with maintaining mental and physical functionality as I age. Why am I obsessed? I obsess because it is my story. I work diligently to maintain my mental and physical functionality as I age. I just turned 63 and I am beginning to feel the hands of time playing out in my body. Ten years ago this was especially true with my memory. My short-term memory was shot. It was becoming a joke around those who knew me that I couldn’t remember things from one day to the next. Fortunately I discovered that the root of my memory difficulties was something I could do something about – my diet. It turns out that I have non-celiac gluten sensitivity. It was producing massive amounts of gut inflammation. When the gut goes, the brain is not far behind.
Now ten years later my memory is much better. I eliminated the prime inflammatory foods from my diet – grains, dairy, and seed oils. My mental endurance is not as good as it was back when I was in college and Chiropractic school. Back then I could study intensely for hours at a time, now my brain starts to fade after only an hour or two. Of course back then I got a lot more aerobic exercise as I did not have a car and my transportation was by bicycle. This is relevant because science now knows that the very best thing you can do to stimulate your brain and keep it young is exercise. At least in my job I am not stuck sitting most of the day behind a desk. These days about the only sitting I do is researching and writing this newsletter and the occasional internet research for pet projects of mine.
The subject I want to write about today is something so very simple that most people never think about it – getting up from a chair. Did you know that doctors are taught to notice how you get up from your chair in their waiting room? How you get up has been found to be a reliable indicator of your physical condition and therefore your health. Notice how kids get up from a sitting position. They pop right up using only their leg muscles. They are able to rise slowly or jump upwards easily, because they have a lot of strength in their legs in comparison to the weight of their body.
Now think about someone old and frail getting out of a chair. They are unsteady and have to use both hands to hoist themselves up, because their legs are not strong enough to lift them up. While kid’s backs stay upright as they arise, old people bend way forward to throw their balance forward over their feet. They may even rock forward trying to get momentum to pull themselves upward out of the chair. This is all indicative of muscle atrophy and lack of primary muscle tone and strength.
Where do you fall between these two pictures – young or old? If you need to use your hands to get up out of a chair, then you are loosing it. It seems simple and efficient to use our hands when we get up, but it hides a slowly degenerating muscle tone. It is a compensation for something we are not paying attention to. It is scary how early in life this pattern starts. By paying attention we can reverse this slow decline. A simple step is to consciously build the ability to arise out of your chair without using your hands. It might not be possible at first, but with regular practice the strength will come. I recommend everyone get up out of his or her chair every 15 to 20 minutes, even if it is just for a few seconds. This gives you plenty of opportunity to practice building the strength and balance in your leg muscles. This simple activity not only fights the aging process in your body, but also stimulates your brain to fight aging there as well.
Since most of you sit a good portion of the day, you might also engage in some simple stretching exercises to combat the stiffening of your muscles and the development of arthritis in your joints. Stretches while sitting are safe and easy to do for most everyone. Here is a set of stretches I found on an Osteopathy site in London, England that you can download. Download Here I just did them and they took about a minute and a half to do the whole set. Don’t forget to do both right and left sides, even though only one side is shown. Or if you would like a whole book of stretches designed to do while at your deck in your office then go here: Book.
The idea is to make getting up from a chair a graceful, easy process. As much as we want to believe in such a thing as a fitness plateau where we have done the work to achieve a certain level of capacity and can now coast on our past efforts, this is a fantasy. In the human body, like so many other areas of life, if you are not working to climb uphill, you are sliding downhill. There are no plateaus. The body needs challenging stimulus regularly and the brain needs challenging stimulus regularly. Fortunately both of these needs can be met with regular exercise that always pushes our limits. The body is very efficient and will trim away anything we don’t convince it that we need. It only supports the minimum necessary brain or muscle tissue essential to get the demands met. So we have to decide just what level of functioning we want to have available to us when our needs are at their highest. That is the level we have to train for on a regular basis, otherwise it won’t be there for us.
I see too many seniors who tell me that getting old is not a good thing. They suffer too much of the time from too many aches and pains. They lose their memories and their ability to think clearly. This is not a necessary a consequence of aging, it is the consequence of doing less and expecting less from ourselves. Some say they are retired and just want to relax. This is the prescription for degeneration. To have a vital and enjoyable old age means keeping up an energetic lifestyle. The couch and television are a short cut to poor health physically and mentally.
So stay alive, stay healthy, stay vital and enjoy life.