Staying fit is important at any age, but it is becoming more and more important as we age. There are numerous benefits to regular exercising and staying fit. Among them, healthier heart and blood vessels, improved sleep and mood, prevention of type 2 diabetes, some forms of cancer, osteoporosis and other diseases. All in all people who exercise regularly are healthier, happier and live longer.
How do you find the most appropriate way to exercise? How do you keep doing it regularly?
Practicing self-discipline is always hard, so the best way to exercise is to make it a part of your daily routine, then it will becomes natural and integral part of your daily lives. If you have time in the morning, even a few minutes, start your day with a light morning exercise or a walk. This will wake up your body, help your energy flow and make you feel refreshed. It is also a great practice to finish your light morning exercises with a cold shower or a contrast shower. Contrast shower is much easier if you don’t really like cold water. All you do is iterate between cold and warm water finishing with the cold one. As time progresses, you will be able to handle cooler and cooler water. Cold shower in the morning has been shown to strengthen immunity and improve blood circulation.
To gently incorporate exercises into your day, try to fit small bits into your regular daily activities. For example, if you live near a store, a library or a post office, instead of driving there, consider walking. When you go shopping and there are several destinations (a store, a bank, a post office) that are close to each other consider walking from one to the other instead of driving. When parking, park your car in the furthest corner of the parking lot. It is essential for our bodies to keep moving throughout the day and not just for a short period of time that you designate for exercise. If you work all day, take breaks and go for a stroll. Consider always taking a stroll during your lunch time, suggest this to your co-worker friends and do it together. Walking is an amazing exercise. It is both gentle and effective. I suggest that for one week you look for all the small opportunities you can find during the day to walk more.
Walking is the best exercise for most people. To rip the most benefits do not do it on the treadmill. Go outside, to the park or a green neighborhood. The nature calms the mind and improves the mood. Studies by researchers in England and Sweden have found that joggers who exercise in a natural green setting with trees, foliage and landscape views, feel more restored, and less anxious, angry and depressed than those runners who burn the same amount of calories in gyms or other urban settings. I am sure the same effect would hold for walking. So even if you have to drive a few miles to find a little green, it’s worth it! I would like to share with you a story about my grandfather. Ten years ago he had a difficult heart bypass surgery and a pacemaker installed. His doctor’ predictions were not very optimistic. However, he told him that if he wants to live the longest he must walk every day 4 miles outside in any weather. He really took this suggestion and walked diligently for the last ten years. He is 84 now, very active, self-sufficient and intends to live and walk for many more years.
There is also an interesting research by Dr. Hiroshi Nose, a professor of sports medical sciences at Shinshu University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan, who has enrolled thousands of older Japanese citizens in an innovative, five-month-long program of brisk, interval-style walking (three minutes of fast walking, followed by three minutes of slower walking, repeated 10 times). The results have been striking. “Physical fitness — maximal aerobic power and thigh muscle strength — increased by about 20 percent,” Dr. Nose wrote in an e-mail, “which is sure to make you feel about 10 years younger than before training.” The walkers’ “symptoms of lifestyle-related diseases (hypertension, hyperglycemia and obesity) decreased by about 20 percent,” he added, while their depression scores dropped by half. It is end of summer now and is a perfect time to start walking more, it no longer hot and not yet cold. If you start daily walks now, you will easily transition into walking in the colder weather.
Another great form of exercise that I would like to bring to your attention is yoga. It trains muscles and increases flexibility and is a great alternative to weight lifting that might be too hard for the joints for some people. I suggest starting yoga at a yoga studio. Exercising with other people is generally much more fun than alone. Most people in yoga studios are friendly, welcoming and very helpful. You will feel better, will make new friends and this will likely motivate you to continue with the practice. Yoga has countless benefits for your health that most people start feeling right away. Of course, in the beginning some of your muscles can hurt a little while getting used to all the stretching, but at the same time you will start enjoying greater flexibility and openness in your body. Studies have shown yoga to be effective and beneficial for such conditions as arthritis, hypertension, chronic pain, lung problems and insomnia. Give it a try!
Besides walking and yoga, there are many other wonderful forms of exercise. I have chosen these two because in my opinion they are the easiest to incorporate and have been shown in numerous studies to be very effective. Of course you can and should do any other physical activities that you enjoy, swimming, hiking, cross country skiing, zumba, tennis and there are so many options. Look for small and big opportunities to exercise. Maybe get a dog to always have an ardent walking partner or maybe a ping-pong table to have a fun way to exerciser at home, or maybe something else? Take good care of yourself, stay fit and healthy!
Natalia Lukina
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