The Come Alive Project

Tag: senior fitness

  • Energy Bite 322 – Exercise and Your Immune System

    It’s well known that moderate exercise helps keep the immune system healthy and responsive. But can it be detrimental to your immune system to exercise too much?

    Exercise can have both positive and negative effects on your immune system. Risk of respiratory tract problems decreases with moderate exercise but increases significantly when you overdo it.

    In fact, overdoing exercise actually reduces immune function. If you are a normal exerciser like you should be, then here’s a interesting conclusion.

    In a recent study, researchers found that of three classes of people studied, elite athletes had the highest risk and incidence of respiratory illnesses, couch potatoes who did little or nothing had the second highest incidence of respiratory tract dysfunction, and recreational athletes and moderate exercisers came out the healthiest by far.

    That study was done with humans. Nearly identical results showed up in a separate study using rats.

    As seniors, we are in the “at risk” demographic for the current flu bug that has popped up around the world. So, it’s probably NOT a good idea to engage in overly vigorous exercise for a while. Why not? Re-read the above. Since respiratory dysfunction is a major problem with the current virus, the results of the above studies become particularly relevant.

    But don’t stop moving your body. If you are exercising moderately, you should be in better shape than most. Just don’t wear yourself out.

    After this virus settles down and we are back to normal, it will be wise for most seniors who are not exercising now, to start some sort of fitness program consisting of moderate exercise and good eating habits. As responsible seniors, we need to take special care of our immune system, as well as taking overall responsibility for our own health and well-being.

    We will want to make sure that when another new “flu” hits us, our immune response will be in the healthy range, and not a part of the risk factor that faces us now.

    None of the above is medical advice. If you need medical advice, go to a medical professional.

    Thank you for reading and please stay vigilant.

  • Energy Bite 321 – Rational Fitness Goals for Seniors

    What do Seniors really want from their Health and Fitness regimen? Most that I have talked to want to have the physical energy to live their lives the way they want to.

    Most Seniors aren’t interested in being a super marathon runner or super muscular. But they want to be fit for life with smooth running systems and the great feeling of “being alive” with energy and enthusiasm.

    Look at the ads in the AARP and Travel Magazines. The images aren’t of people with huge muscles or who go skydiving or do dangerous stunts. The images are of healthy people enjoying healthy activities, and doing it with energy and enthusiasm.

    These are people who are being themselves in fun environments, not a bunch of supermen and superwomen. They are people who are just like you — all portrayed as people who are healthy, fit and enjoying life.

    AARP and other Travel Ads put YOU in situations where you would like to be. But all too often, you don’t really feel alive or energetic enough or healthy enough to fit in the pictures.

    What’s the answer? How to look like a person in a travel ad? Here are a few suggestions:

    Get off your duff and start MOVING! Exercises should be just a little bit harder than you are comfortable with. Exercise should not be easy, yet as seniors, if you go at it too hard, you are susceptible to injury. There are plenty of excellent exercise classes available at all levels and costs. Give them a try. Or exercise by yourself – either way works. Be careful but don’t be fearful.

    Eat sensibly, breathe deeply and get plenty of rest and sleep. All common sense, right?

    And use your imagination. Put yourself mentally into those pictures. Imagine yourself looking and feeling like the people pictured in those ads.

    Remember, the end result should be to build your health and personal energy to be able to live the life you want, with all systems running smoothly, with you enjoying the feeling of being alive.

    The goal of EXERCISE is energy for life.

    The goal of FOOD is energy for life.

    The goal of BREATH is energy for life.

    The goal of REST & SLEEP is energy for life.

    Keep those goals in mind as you think about how you want to live your Senior years.

    Thank you for reading.

  • Energy Bite 320 – Fitness, Flow and the Mind

    The brain seems to be as much of a beneficiary of exercise as is the body. In his great book, Spark, the author, Psychologist John Ratey says:.

    “Exercise is as effective as Zoloft for Depression”.

    Others have suggested that not exercising is like “taking a depressant”.

    Modern neuroscience is bearing out what others have said for years about the power of exercise and its benefits for the mind. They are discovering that we are literally “wired for movement” and that sitting on the couch looking at a screen is one of the worst things we can do for our bodies, our minds, and our well-being.

    Almost everyone has heard of the “Flow State”. That’s where body and mind are one, time is distorted or disappears, concentration is focused, and the mind and body are in optimal states. It has been variously described as “optimal experience”, “runner’s high”, and includes full concentration and focus on a task or activity that is so intense that nothing else can gain attention other that what you are doing.

    In his book, Flow, author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced: Chick-sent-me-hi) describes it as an “activity that produces such experiences is so gratifying that people are willing to do it for its own sake, with little concern for what they will get out of it, even when it is difficult, or dangerous.

    Author Mihaly C writes: “When we are unhappy, depressed, or bored we have an easy remedy at hand: to use the body for all it is worth.” He goes on to say that while most people nowadays are aware of the importance of health and physical fitness . . . “most of us ignore it and use their physical equipment as little as possible, leaving its ability to provide flow unexploited”.

    Neuroscientists are confirming what we have long accepted as true, that exercise has a powerful effect on the mind, both from the experience of the state of “flow”, to the general feeling of physical and mental well being that exercise provides. We all know that exercise stimulates the mind. Most of us just don’t do it.

    “Physical Fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity.”   — John F. Kennedy

    Physical exercises such as crawling, cross body movements and even the stimulation of a brisk walk have been demonstrated to provide valuable mental benefits as well as physical.

    In upcoming articles, I will explore some of the many benefits of physical exercise on the mind and how it affects us far beyond what we see above the surface. Let the phrase: “The tip of the iceberg” play in your mind for a while. In the coming weeks, we will explore mental and physical aspects of our minds and bodies that are in the 95% of our “being” that lies beneath the surface. Stay with me.

    Thank you for reading.