“Exercise is wonderful," said Louis.
"I could sit and watch it all day.”
I’ve gotta admit that I do NOT love to exercise. We are
finally enjoying warming temperatures where I live, which at least helps makes
it somewhat easier to exercise: I enjoy moving more when I’m outdoors. To aid
in motivation, in this month’s wellness email I offer a few words on exercise (I
know I talk about this often – most likely because I need the reminders).
I
keep meaning to keep these posts short, and then I fall into the trap
of thinking
that more info is better than less; so please, just scan the parts that
appeal
and let go of the rest.These particular aids and benefits are ones that
may be newer “discoveries” so it's possible you'll find something you
haven't heard before.
Enjoy. And may you move as you relish spring and pursue wellness.
“I’d gone with my
usual option. I was running through long tunnels filled with demons and
monsters and nightmares, because it was easier than going to the gym.”
Aids to exercise
(in addition to being outside while exercising).
-
TALK POSITIVELY TO YOURSELF
In a small randomized study
of 24 participants, researchers at the University of Kent in Canterbury,
England, along with other institutions, found that folks who used
encouraging self-talk, such
as “You’re doing well” and “Push through this” during a high-intensity
cycling
session pedaled longer before reaching fatigue and had a lower rate of
perceived exertion than those who said nothing or, worse, were negative
on
their rides.
“Exercise is a great
leveler. It doesn't matter how rich you are, you can't just buy your way into a
great body. You have to do the work. I find that comforting. It's one of the
few things in life where we're all on a level playing field.”
― Vinnie Tortorich
― Vinnie Tortorich
-
MAKE MUSIC
Producing tunes instead of simply listening may make your
body more efficient: music may not simply distract us but also reduce the
effort (recall chain-gang chants, military cadences).
In a small study doneby Thomas Fritz, a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Human
Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, and other research facilities, and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy ofSciences, USA ,
half of the study participants passively listened to music during exercise, and half
made music while working out by using software that interactively turned their
movements into tunes (the music would start when participants used the
machines). The music makers used less oxygen during their routine – a measure
of exertion – and they also felt they were working less hard than those who
just listened.
Music
production may make exercise easier by activating
so-called emotional motor control, posits Fritz, the study’s lead
researcher. Emotional
motor control is responsible for spontaneous actions such as a genuine
smile; deliberate
motor control, in contrast, implements purposeful action such as a fake
smile. To activate this more efficient system (of emotional motor
control responsible for spontaneous actions), Fritz says, try singing
along or pumping iron in rhythm with the tunes in your exercise
playlist. [Dee's note: to say it another way - look for whatever is good
or enjoyable about whatever you might be engaged in, including
exercise!]
“Listening to the
music while stretching her body close to its limit, she was able to attain a
mysterious calm. She was simultaneously the torturer and the tortured, the
forcer and the forced. This sense of inner-directed self-sufficiency was what
she wanted most of all. It gave her deep solace.”
― Haruki Murakami, 1Q84
― Haruki Murakami, 1Q84
Benefits of exercise, possibly surprising…
-
YOUNGER SKIN
This New York Times Well article, says
“Exercise not only appears to keep skin younger, it may also
even reverse skin aging in people who start exercising late in life… researchers
at McMaster University in Ontario… found that after age 40, the men and women
who exercised frequently had markedly thinner, healthier stratum corneums and
thicker dermis layers in their skin. Their skin was much closer in composition
to that of the 20- and 30-year-olds than to that of others of their age, even
if they were past age 65.”
Note that there is no evidence that exercise reverses
wrinkling and other damage from the sun, so we still need to wear sunscreen if
exercising exposes us to the sun.
“To resist the frigidity of old age, one must
combine the body, the mind, and the heart. And to keep these in parallel vigor
one must exercise, study, and love.”
-
INCREASED CREATIVITY
As reported in another NY Times well blog, Dr.
Oppezzo and researchers at Stanford University had undergrad students complete
creativity tests (such as coming up with alternative uses for button or other
common objects, for about eight minutes), either while sitting at a desk or waking
on a treadmill at an easy self-selected pace. Their findings, published in The
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition showed that for
almost every student, creativity increased substantially when they walked. Most
were able to generate about 60 percent more uses for an object, and the ideas
were both “novel and appropriate.” They had another group of students sit for two
consecutive sessions of test-taking and subsequently walk for about eight
minutes while tossing out ideas for object re-use, then sit and repeat the
test. Again, walking markedly improved people’s ability to generate creative
ideas, even when they sat down after the walk. In that case, the volunteers who
had walked produced significantly more and subjectively better ideas than in
their pre-exercise testing period.
Again,
walking markedly improved people’s ability to generate creative ideas, even
when they sat down after the walk. In that case, the volunteers who had walked
produced significantly more and subjectively better ideas than in their
pre-exercise testing period.
Dr.
Oppezzo observes, “It may be that walking improves mood” as its primary effect,
she said, and creativity blooms more easily within a buoyed-up mind. Or
walking may divert energy that otherwise would be devoted, intentionally or
not, to damping down wild, creative thought, she said. “I think it’s possible
that walking may allow the brain to break through” some of its own,
hyper-rational filters.
"But he said to me, ‘The Lord, before whom I walk, will send his angel with you and make your way successful." - Genesis 24:40a
"All truly great
thoughts are conceived while walking.”
― Friedrich
Nietzsche, Twilight
of the Idols, Or, How to Philosophize With the Hammer
~~~
“If there had been an
exercise I'd liked, would I have gotten this big in the first place?”
― Jennifer Weiner
― Jennifer Weiner
