Turning 60 part 3: Moving to health

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‘If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have the safest way to health’ Hippocrates. 

These are some of the wisest words ever spoken as a guiding philosophy for health. This week I have been reflecting on movement in particular as I have been travelling and I always find that when I’m travelling the step count goes up without thinking about it. This is especially so in London when just jumping from tube to tube and walking those long distances between the various underground lines, often up and down stairs, you find yourself getting quite a workout. 
On Saturday after travelling to Oxford circus then walking to the conference centre, then on to Covent Garden to meet my daughter, then back to the hotel in Canary Wharf, back to Covent Garden for the theatre and back to the hotel, my step count was 17000 in  the blink of an eye! I had spent a significant amount of time that day on my bottom attending  lectures  and also at the theatre in the evening but I had also spent a significant amount of time moving my body, much more than I normally do. All of this got me thinking about movement and how we really need to consciously plan to move every day and build a lifestyle that involves movement. 

Our ancestors didn’t have to think about moving as moving was a default position in a lifestyle that involved hunting for food and foraging. Nowadays we can see the stark contrast with that as we don’t even need to leave our homes for food with online shopping becoming the norm, a situation that has only worsened since lockdown and has led to the closure of many businesses. Something else we noticed during lockdown was an increase in weight, mental health challenges and an exacerbation of  chronic health across the board. 

The interesting thing about inactivity is that everything gets worse when we don’t move our bodies. This is because inactivity leads to insulin resistance, loss of muscle mass, our stress hormones become dysregulated, our immune system becomes depressed. In fact our risk factors for everything from heart disease, cancer, diabetes, fatty liver, dementia  and osteoporosis all soar. This mismatch between our genes and our biology and the current lifestyle and environmental factors which are washing over those genes is a cocktail for disaster. 

So what do we do? Well, the answer to that realistically involves making choices around movement which we can  build into our day with ease. For me, my favourite forms of exercise are walking and dancing. They’re also free and very freeing as walking is a great way to calm the mind and be at one with nature while dancing brings us into contact with our own souls and we can select the music to fit the mood and lose ourselves while at the same time boosting our neurotransmitters. Did you know that exercise boosts our dopamine, serotonin and  norepinephrine levels ultimately making us feel mentally uplifted? If you think about people in your family or  friendship circles who have lived long and well, even sometimes despite some health challenges, they are always people who are active. I had a relative who was walking daily, attending keep fit classes several times a week and loved a family party so she could get on the dance floor well into her eighties! I have another friend who still works full time at 86 years old and can walk 5 miles daily at a pace which would challenge me! 

The next question which is the key one is when do we exercise? A dear old friend of mine always says, ‘fail to plan, plan to fail’. For me, I like to walk at night after my meal as I know that walking after a meal will boost my insulin sensitivity, helping to keep my blood glucose stable. It will also calm those stress hormones and will help me sleep better. It’s a routine which I can easily keep (weather permitting!) It also allows me to catch up with a podcast but sometimes I just like to listen to the sounds of nature. Did you know that listening to birdsong can activate our parasympathetic nervous system? This extraordinary fact is also why when we go for a walk in nature even when we don’t necessarily feel like it we always feel better. Equally if you are feeling low in energy, just sitting on a seat outside or taking a drive somewhere and simply opening the windows can be so restorative. I often recommend this simple but powerful life hack to clients who are feeling very low in energy and don’t know where to start when it comes to movement. But just getting outside can literally be the first step as taking deep breaths and feeling the sun on your skin or the wind in your hair can bring instant healing. 

Dancing can be done literally any time, any place, anywhere. Music is so accessible and you could play a couple of songs in your lunch break or follow an exercise routine or yoga session on youtube. It’s good to have some rainy day options but the real key to success is back to the planning. When are you going to exercise? My own plan means altering my work schedule a little so I can exercise more and also so that I can consciously bring in more movement between clients since my job is sedentary. I have already started doing this as I’m so aware that I am sitting in my chair literally inflammaging! That’s a great word isn’t it? But ageing in our world is very much related to inflammation and that arises from the food choices we make to how we manage stress and how we move our bodies . I’m pretty good at the food side as I know that food is either inflammatory or anti-inflammatory and as my hubby does a lot of the cooking, I’m very blessed as  I know I’m going to eat a home cooked meal with whole fresh ingredients. I’m also better at the stress side although that one is always a work in progress as we never know what life has in store for us. But what I do know is that my morning routine includes a meditation practice and I never budge from that. I also include meditation at lunchtime and have a 20 minute practice which has been a game changer for me over the last 6 months. I have occasionally fallen asleep for a few minutes doing it which has done me the power of good and then gone back to work. But exercise is the one I feel I need to work  on the most on with some simple but strategic moves. I have to say I find it so much easier in the summer when the weather is warmer! 

It’s well known that exercise, especially weight bearing exercise is key to prevention of osteoporosis.  But managing those stress hormones is also key to prevention and the beauty of exercise is that it’s great at doing both! Something else exercise does is boost something called BDNF or brain derived neurotrophic factor. In Nutritional psychiatry BDNF is being talked about more and more as low levels of BDNF is associated with a range of psychiatric and neurological conditions from depression and schizophrenia to parkinsons, MND and dementia.  Exercise boosts BDNF significantly so once again we really need to find as many ways as possible to increase movement. So next time you plan to meet a friend for coffee, how about meeting for a walk instead!? Better yet make that a regular part of your exercise programme even if it means by phone.

''A walk in nature walks the soul back home.' Mary Davis