The Come Alive Project

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  • Energy bite 291 – Keep Your Blood Flowing

    In this article, I’ll go over the Cardio-Vascular System, how it works and how to take care of it. I want to keep it ultra-simple with simply a description and a list of it’s functions.

    The main point I want to get across is to keep the heart healthy and don’t clog the tubes. Yes, things can go wrong even with clear tubes. Valve malfunctions can be a hidden problem. Valve replacements are becoming more common — I should know. But the main takeaway from this article is to keep your heart pumping and your tubes clear. If you do that, you should live a heart healthy life.

    What is the Cardio-Vascular System?

    Oxygen and nutrients travel through the blood, pumped by the heart through the arteries to the capillaries. The blood is returned to the heart through the veins. Clean, oxygenated blood is pumped out to the cells, and blood with waste and CO2 is returned.

    The heart is an automatic, ever-beating muscle. The way to keep it healthy is with exercise. Get your heart rate up — but not too high. Max heart rate is still measured in most quarters today as 220 minus your age times a percentage (but see below, it may be changing).

    The Cardio-Vascular (C-V) System consists of your Heart (and it’s associated valves and tubes),  your various blood vessels, and your blood (about 5 Liters and 8% of your body weight). The heart is the pump.  The blood vessels are a group of hollow tubes that circulate blood throughout your body. These tubes consist of Arteries which carry oxygen from the heart and circulates your blood containing oxygen and nutrients throughout your body, and then return waste from your cells through your Veins, and dumps it.

    The blood flow pattern looks like this: It starts with the Heart which pumps blood through the Arteries (from the heart) > Arterioles (connect to capillaries) > Capillaries (distribute oxygen, nutrients and collect wastes) > Venules (connect capillaries to veins) > Veins (return wastes) > back to heart. Rinse and repeat — literally.

    The blood does the following:

    • Transports oxygen and nutrients to tissues.
    • Transports waste products away from the tissues.
    • Transports hormones to organs and tissues.
    • Regulates body temperature and acid/alkaline balance (pH).
    • Clots when appropriate to prevent excessive bleeding.

    How do you take care of you C-V System? I have discussed with two separate Cardiologists about the best was to keep the C-V System healthy. One is a gym buddy who works out the same time as I do, and the other is my own Cardiologist. They both confirm the necessity of exercise and eating right to keep the heart, as well as the rest of the C-V System healthy. They both practice what they preach.

    What kind of exercise is best? For the C-V System, it’s exercise that gets your heart rate elevated for a while. How high? The old formula was a percentage of 220 minus your age. A more recent method, based on a study published in the Journal, Medical Science in Sports & Exercise suggests that a better measure is based on 206.9 minus (0.67 times age). So for me at age 79, the calculation would be 206.9 – 52.93 (0.67 X 79) = 153.97 Max. Heart Rate MHR. The exercise heart rate range goes from 57 – 67% of that calculated MHR for a sedentary person, to 80 – 91% MHR for a person who exercises regularly.

    Confusing? Yes. I suggest you ask your doctor (who might not know). If you have a cardiologist, he or she should know. I think most people still use the old formula.

    Don’t even ask me about eating. What clogged your tubes a few years ago doesn’t seem to clog them now. Cholesterol? Fat? Who knows? I’ll leave that for your doctor or a nutritionist to discuss that with you. Now, it seems, what causes you to lose weight may not be so good for your heart. LOTS OF VEGETABLES seems to be on ALL the “heart healthy” food lists, so eat your broccoli.

    The point is that if you exercise, your chances of good heart health are improved. So go take a walk. Do some Pilates. Stretch some exercise bands. Get your heart rate up for a while. MOVE YOUR BODY!

    Thank you for reading.

  • Energy Bite 290 – Brain Health As You Age

    My original draft for this weeks article was about The Cardio-Vascular system, how it works and how to keep it healthy. That can wait for a week.

    I just returned from a workshop sponsored by OneLife Fitness in Reston, Virginia, and presented by the Insight Memory Care Center of Fairfax,VA. The title was Brain Health as You Age. Since it was presented to a group of young Seniors, most of whom were, like many of us, not in the throes of major cognitive decline, but approaching the age where we should be on the lookout for certain warning signs, I thought I would summarize some of the things the presenter had to say — before I forget. I hope you find as much value in this article as I did from attending.

    The presenter was Lindsey Vajpeyi, Director of Education & Outreach for the Insight Memory Center. She did an excellent job in providing valuable and useful information.

    The first thing that stood out in her presentation was when she said that research has shown that one third of all dementia is preventable through intelligent lifestyle choices. Of course, that leaves the other two thirds due to other causes. But anytime we can help prevent a third of a major disruptive disease by making lifestyle changes before the disease pops up, it’s well that we know what those lifestyle changes are and to implement them.

    Ms. Vajpeyi pointed out early in her presentation that many of the things we may be concerned about are really normal signs of aging. She said that we start losing brain cells after we are 35. She said that as a normal result of aging, we may start having difficulty finding the words we want, have difficulty multi-tasking, and may find ourselves being distracted more easily (decreased ability to pay attention).

    The presenter listed a number of warning signs of cognitive decline. Yes, memory loss was on the list, but only to the extent that it disrupts daily life. Not so much forgetting where you parked your car, or where you put your car keys, but instead, maybe not being able to identify your car when you are looking for it. She also listed difficulty in completing familiar tasks, confusion with time or place, decreased or poor judgment and difficulty with visual images and spatial relationships as being among a list of possible warning signs.

    She listed some possible risks to brain health as including some medications, SMOKING, poor diet, excessive alcohol, lack of sleep, LACK OF PHYSICAL ACTIVITY and reduced social activity.

    The presenter talked about Alzheimer’s, one form of Dementia, as a buildup of harmful proteins in the brain, the death of brain cells, and loss of connections among them. She said that some approaches showing promise in reducing the risk of Alzheimer’s include: EXERCISE, healthy diet, and cognitive “brain” training (which includes just about anything that uses the brain).

    With respect to those lifestyle items that can help prevent cognitive decline, the factors that stood out were:

    1. Eat healthily. She suggested a Mediterranean “style” diet including a lot of green, leafy vegetables.
    2. GET MOVING. That’s MOVE YOUR BODY. You know it as EXERCISE! 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week.
    3. Keep mentally active with lots of stimulating reading and actively learning new things.
    4. Stay connected. Engage in meaningful activities. Volunteer. Belong to a social network.

    Did you happen to notice a resemblance to what people in Dan Buettner’s Blue Zones are doing to live to be 100 plus?

    So yes, lifestyle choices are important in both how long you live and how well you live. If you are a regular reader of these articles, you should already be doing those things. If you’re not doing them, it’s time to start.

    For information about the Insight Memory Care Center, go to their website at https://www.insightmcc.org/ .

    Thank you for reading.

  • Energy Bite 289 – Keeping Your Body Young, Part 1

    This is the first in a short series about body systems, changes to those systems because of aging, and the importance of Physical Movement to maintain the full use of these systems. I’ll start this week with the Musculo-skeletal System and later in the series, I’ll cover the Cardiovascular System, the Respiratory System, and possibly the nervous system.

    The intent of this series is to keep it very simple, and stay away from technical or medical details.

    Your Muscles

    Muscles Atrophy (lose size and strength) as you get older. You begin to have difficulty lifting, carrying and moving things. In sedentary people, this muscle loss can begin as early as your twenties. Active adults can maintain muscle size until around age 60, depending on the level of activity. Participants in Masters Level Sports and those who actively exercise against some resistance, can keep muscle size and strength much longer.

    Your Bones

    Bones become brittle and easy to break. Bone mass declines with age. Falls are a high risk event as we get older. Most Emergency Room admissions for Seniors are a result of Falls, not heart attacks or stroke.

    The reasons for bone mass decline are inactivity, changes in hormone levels, and improper eating habits resulting in nutritional deficiencies. Osteoporosis is a chronic disease which results in weak, low density bone structures. Very severe osteoporosis, particularly among the very old, can result in the weight of a person’s own body, actually crushing a bone if put under stress, something borne out by many Emergency Room Doctors.

    I have a series of floor movements that I do daily to protect my aging hips. I call them “hip-savers” Maybe I’ll put them online one day. They seem to work. I had a bad fall on the ice this Winter and landed right on my hip. I had a huge bruise but no break.

    Your Joints

    Joints, too are affected by aging. As you get older, your joint structures can weaken and can get small tears and also calcify. This can result in a shortened range of motion of the joints as well as pain. A weakening of the cartilage around the joints can also occur as a result of aging. All this results in a lack of stability in the joints. Unstable and weakened knee, hip and shoulder joints are common as we get older. Knee and hip replacement surgery seems to be rampant.

    The Remedy

    Physical Activity is the key to maintaining a healthy Musculo-skeletal system. The more one moves, particularly against resistance, the easier it is to hold on to muscle and bone strength and body flexibility.

    There has been a lot of research on the effects of weight bearing exercise on bone density over the past decade, as well as the confirmation of age related muscle mass maintenance and gain through resistance exercises. Research has demonstrated that even older adults with a sedentary past can build muscle strength and bone density through physical activity.

    Osteoarthritis is often a component of hip and knee joint problems and can often be treated by water exercise, using the low impact resistance of the water to build strength and mobility.

    I have tried to keep technical and medical aspects out of the above, while still making the basics understandable. I hope it’s not too simplistic.

    Next week you’ll get an overview of the Cardiovascular system and the benefits of physical activity on your heart and blood vessels.

    Thank you for reading.