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No, I’m not going to write about Bob Marley (though I’d love to and just might one day). While listening to his music this morning that song title inspired me to write about---movement for seniors. Not quite as significant as his song but super important just the same. It’s so much more than daily exercise. It’s a way of life. It’s how we set a style of living. We gotta keep on moving. All day, every day. Like it or hate it we MUST move. And often.
Years ago some exercise gurus suggested brisk walking for twenty or thirty minutes three days a week. That hardly seemed worth the effort of getting out of bed. Over time most experts decided that in addition to a daily exercise routine we must increase our activity throughout the entire day. Theoretically we could do our hour at the gym then crawl back in bed until the next morning. Not a good plan. It would probably be better to be active all day and skip the gym than to go through the day like a slug and break a sweat for an hour at the gym.
It’s hard for office workers to get the type of activity we need and during my work years I was glued to a desk. My fingers got lots of exercise but that was it. Oh, maybe my brain (on a good day). I walked a bit here and there and on breaks and took occasional exercise classes and joined gyms but none of it worked well for me. Work took up almost all my waking hours and the remainder of my life was spent with kids then preparing to go to work. I was active but not in the way exercise experts would approve of. And managing a family and work was stressful and tiring. Friends that went to gyms were gone from home for many more hours a day than I was by the time they factored in commuting and the gym and the grocery store and . . . well, I was never successful at that and gave it up.
Now that I’m retired I am more active than I have ever been because I can be. I have the time. That’s the deadly secret. It takes time to be healthy. I’ve added yoga to my life which takes an hour and a half each day, I walk two dogs which takes an hour (though it isn’t aerobic because of all the sniffing and digestive stops), and I walk most days without the dogs at a brisk pace once I bring them back home. That would seem sufficient but I started reading more about being active all day and decided to try developing a more active way of going through my routine. The true key to a more efficient metabolism is consistent vigorous movement throughout the day. It sounds hard but I have found a way to add more movement and it isn’t hard at all. I wish I had thought of this when I worked and raised the kids. I know I would have felt a lot better.
First, even though I’m retired I still spend a great deal of time at my desk. Not quite at the level I did when I worked in an office but I manage my bookkeeping and my mom’s bookkeeping on my computer, I have published three novels and I’m working on the next series (talk about sitting at a desk all day---and night), I write my weekly blog, I visit with friends via email and social networking, I continually work on my photo projects for the family, and other computer things too boring to mention. I am a bit addicted to my computer. So over the last few weeks I’ve started getting up frequently and I do a sort of jog-in-place with arm movements. Just for a few minutes or even seconds but often. Sometimes I stretch for about five minutes along with the jog.
Next, as I go through my day I have developed a strange walk and concentrate on aerobic breathing. It’s somewhere between a light jog and a power walk. I don’t just walk to the kitchen to get a coffee refill, I do a little march/walk/jog step and I pump my arms. Seems silly? Well, maybe it is per walk but added up throughout the day it is quite a bit of extra movement, movement I had not incorporated into my life until recently.
I discovered that like with most things we add to our daily routine it took some time to develop the habit of moving with purpose. Sometimes I would walk outside to get the mail and realize I didn’t utilize my new mini power walking routine. But now that I’ve been at it a while it’s become a habit. Basically, whenever I’m on my feet I put intensity into my pathway. Even the simplest trip is now a small workout. And when I do leave my desk in addition to the new higher activity level I also do a few things around the house or yard. If the weather is nice I’ll spend just a few minutes pulling weeds. Along the way I’m putting laundry away or emptying the dishwasher or a myriad of other tasks but only a little at time and with purposeful movement.
I think that’s the key. Movement with purpose. I’ve only been experimenting with this new activity level but already I’ve noticed a tremendous improvement in my overall wellbeing. My customary periods of fatigue in the late part of the day have all but disappeared. In fact, when I feel that 3 p.m. wall that seems to hit so many of us I now find that if I get up and go outside and move around (energetically) it completely disappears. Better than coffee or an energy drink.
As I sat here typing the first part of this post I remembered I left my cell phone in the kitchen and without hesitation I hopped up and did my weird jog with the exaggerated arm movements and realized that I do that all the time now. My son was visiting for the weekend and once or twice I started to move that way when it occurred to me he might think I’m losing my mind. I know my dogs think I’m strange. They stare at me when I race around the house and I’m sure they wonder. I minimize the movement slightly when I walk to the mailbox but I still do the little march/jog. I keep the arms in a more normal walking position to avoid frightening the neighbors.
It doesn’t matter what we do but we should move about more throughout the day and when no one is around we can be as goofy as we want. It’s good for us in countless ways. Especially the goofy part.
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