One of my mentors once said "movement is life" and it could not be more true. Think of your life and how much movement plays a part. We often take our movement for granted, and only when we lose it does its importance become clear. This can happen acutely (injury/stroke), or chronically (desk job), but either way, when it is gone, it can be defeating, painful, and depressing. Today, let’s look at chronic restrictions in movement, and what you can do to ensure you keep your body mobile and function for all your years.
Begin with the End in Mind
What do you think of when you picture getting old? Are you healthy, enjoying life, able to do all things you have always wanted? Or, are you weak, frail, and reliant on others for support? Either of these is possible, but most of us think of aging in relation to losses in quality of life. It is not inevitable that you will lose your strength, flexibility, vision, cognitive skills, etc; it is only a common trend resulting from years of neglect. Industrialized countries, especially America, have innovated to the point of total convenience. We have cars to help us travel. We have one-stop shops where we can buy everything from clothing to groceries to toilet supplies. We have microwaves to cook our pre-made frozen meals in seconds. We have everything we need so that we save time and energy. But for what?
We have constructed our lives so that we can literally roll out of bed, sit down to eat without any work in preparing food, sit in our car while driving to work, sit at our desk for 4 hours, eat a lunch out (while sitting), sit for another 4 hours at work (all of this in front of a computer screen), sit in our cars again to come home, sit down for dinner, and then sit in front of the TV (more screen time) before rolling back into bed. We do this for 40+ years, then wake up one day with (hopefully) more wealth than when we started, a family, friends, house, etc, and with no health or ability to enjoy it.
It doesn’t have to be this way though. When you were born, you were full of energy, movement, and life. You built strength, balance, coordination, and stability. If you wanted to look at something on the ground, you would squat down and actually be able to stay there. If you wanted to get somewhere fast, you would run. If you wanted a challenge, you would work your way across the monkey bars at the park. If you wanted to go play soccer, you didn’t think about taking it easy; you went out and played until you couldn’t walk. So what happened?
We do not lose our ability to move because we get old. We get old because we stop moving! In the first few years of life, we are constantly exploring and moving. We enjoy physical challenges and testing our own abilities. After a time, however, sitting becomes more and more dominant, and by the time we are out of school, sitting is almost all that we know. Good thing, because there is a lot more of it to come! Now we continue to practice sitting until things start to hurt and our waist line starts to expand. We want to start moving, but it is hard when we are so out of touch with our own bodies. It can be disheartening to not move like we once did, and it often keeps us from really spending time on it until it is too late.
We do not lose our ability to move because we get old. We get old because we stop moving! In the first few years of life, we are constantly exploring and moving. We enjoy physical challenges and testing our own abilities. After a time, however, sitting becomes more and more dominant, and by the time we are out of school, sitting is almost all that we know. Good thing, because there is a lot more of it to come! Now we continue to practice sitting until things start to hurt and our waist line starts to expand. We want to start moving, but it is hard when we are so out of touch with our own bodies. It can be disheartening to not move like we once did, and it often keeps us from really spending time on it until it is too late.
Taking Control
If you want to maintain the highest quality of life, you must move. While I am obviously a huge supporter of exercise and strength training, I also believe strongly in designing one’s life to promote health and longevity. When it comes to staying young, here are my top daily activities:
- Cook more. Spending time in the kitchen can be an adventure and a workout all at once. Don’t think it’s hard work? Try making your own mayonnaise with a whisk…your arms will be sore for a week. Other benefits include time spent standing, becoming more in tune with the food that you put into your body, training both sides of the brain (creativity in cooking while needing to get those measurements right!), and engaging in a relaxing activity. Cooking is definitely one of my top lifestyle choices for longevity.
- Buy a standing desk. Start asking around about this and you will undoubtedly find someone who has made the switch and is now healthier, happier, and probably out of back pain. Sitting might be the single most detrimental activity when it comes to maintaining pain free movement. Back pain, neck pain, and knee pain are often traced back to extensive sitting. So get out of that chair and start standing!
- Take up an active hobby. Find a sport you like to play and join a league or team. Start gardening. Go hiking on the weekends. Find something that you enjoy doing that gets you moving and hopefully also gets you outside. There are tons of options here, so brainstorm and start playing around with different activities.
- Read more. While this is not physically active, keeping the mind active can be just as important as keeping the body active. There is so much in this world to learn about, why not spend some time every day becoming just a little bit wiser.
- Go for a walk every day. Walking is our most natural form of locomotion and it can be a peaceful time spent unwinding while also moving. If the weather is bad, just walk up and down the stairs in your building. If it is sunny, go out and soak up some rays.
- Do your homework. This is for all of you that have past injuries that are still nagging you. Go see someone about it, and then do what your health professional tells you to do. Too often I run into people that have poor movement or are in pain due to past injuries that they never fully recovered from. Most of the time, it is because they never took their recovery seriously. By the time I see them, they have been avoiding any movement that causes discomfort in the affected area and are so bound up that it takes serious work to undo the damage. Don’t hide from pain, figure out what it causing it, and then work to regain your movement!
- Learn how to breathe. Just because we all have to breathe does not mean that we are very good at it. We can thank sitting and stress for this one. Most people, unless they have actively worked to improve their breathing, tend to breathe with their chest, neck, and shoulders rather than diaphragm. If you want to see what you do, look in a mirror and take a big breath. Do your shoulders come to your ears? Not good. To improve this, think of your torso as a balloon. With every breath, your goal should be for your torso to expand in all directions. That means you should feel your stomach, sides and back all expand. To practice, use an exercise called Crocodile Breathing from the video below.
If you are a shoulder breather, spend some time every day working on this. This can also be used as a stress reduction technique. Just lie on your stomach and breathe so that your low back pushes away from the ground. 20-30 breaths should do the trick. If you can master your breathing, you will improve not only your stress levels, but also your overall movement.
A Fresh Start
There are plenty of ways we can add movement to our lives, so take some time to think about what will work best for you. The two things that I feel are most important to sustainable health are finding ways to avoid sitting (at work, at home, in transit), and taking control of your food (cooking, shopping, reading). If we start playing around with some of these ideas, we will see that it is not aging that should be feared, but rather immobility (and this is in your control). The fact that you get older have very little to do with your movement quality. It is the 365 days a year of sitting 8+ hours a day that adapts your body to sitting. Why should your body care about good posture and moving when it can just hang out all day in a chair? Repetition leads to adaptation, so start thinking about what you want your body to adapt to, and start doing it!
We all start the same, able-bodied and full of potential. Let’s take a step back and see if we are really living up to that potential. If not, maybe it is time to start back at square one and reconstruct our lives to center around what is most important—movement.
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