We are all civilized, modern homo sapiens who are currently living on this planet earth. Most of us are living a busy, hectic and stressful lifestyle, accompanied with a poor diet and nutrition. There are many of us who are 'couch potatoes' or what mainly known as sedentary lifestyle. Will once a week jogging in the park or walk the dog session be enough to cater such poor sedentary lifestyle?
In this final post, I will reveal to you another 'integrated doctor' within yourself. Called it doctor exercise, or doctor fitness, whatever you may like to name it, as this integrated doctor, will be your own master of movement. Well, back in the days of Hipprocrates , the amount of work that you had to do just to wash your clothes would have been acceptable as a workout today. How about our great ancestors aka caveman? Hunting a meal or prey, would have been an intense workout session for most of us. How about living as a farmer? There would be plenty of physical exercise as these farmers feed, water and care for animals, tend to crops, split firewood, clean barns, clear land and build fences.
In modern society, we notice how little exercise people get and how little they move. We enjoy all the comforts of modern technology; its easy to do the laundry today, most of us throw in our dirty clothes, push a button, and walk away. We go to the grocery store and buy our food instead of tilling the soil, growing our vegetables and harvesting them at the end of the growing season. But the result of all this convenience is that we get less and less movement in our lives. Now, remember this, Life is movement! If you stop moving, you stop living.
This is because to move means to experience. Without the right amount and kinds of movement, we suffer not only physically, but mentally, emotionally and spiritually as well. That’s what we are all here to do, experience life to the fullest! Nowadays, washing your clothes on the scrub board for three hours a day may not be your ideal form of exercise, but our bodies do require regular movement. The average hunter gatherer spent three and a half hours a day feeding and preparing food. So, it’s a good estimate to say that our bodies
are designed for at least several hours of movement in undulating intensity each day. When we get enough movement, each of the systems of our body is supported.
When we get adequate movement to run what are called biological pumps. These pumps are composed primarily of the abdominal muscles, the pelvic floor muscles and the diaphragm (primary breathing muscle). As we move, there is a rhythmic pumping effect that ripples through the body. I’m sure you have seen one of the old-fashioned water pumps with a long handle at a farm, museum or historic site. Well, our muscles act like one of those pumps. When you move, your muscles contract,forcing water, blood, and oxygen through the body, much like pushing on a pump handle that forces water out of the ground. But that’s not all, your lymphatic system relies solely on physical movement to keep it healthy and pumping. And your lymphatic system is one of the primary systems of your immune system. If we don’t pump our bodies with adequate movement, we don’t move these important fluids and we don’t remove waste efficiently from the body. This leads to lots of very common problems!
More specifically, if you aren’t moving your body enough, you’ll start to feel some combination of the following symptoms:
• Sluggish or low energy levels. The pumping action of movement transports nutrients throughout the body, and since movement in the right doses produces energy, movement can be seen as its own form of nutrition.
• So when the body does not get enough movement, it does not get the movement-nutrition it needs and the delivery of nutrition in general is drastically reduced. In fact, mitochondria, the tiny organs in each of our cells that produce energy, multiply in response to regular exercise. This means that movement, or a lack thereof, has a dramatic effect on the human energy system right down to the cellular level!
• Difficulty managing blood sugar levels. Muscles are the most metabolically active tissues in our body aside from the brain. Likewise, with regular movement, the human body not only maintains muscles that consume blood sugar at a natural pace, but it pumps toxins out to be eliminated. In the absence of healthy, daily doses of movement to maintain our muscles, not only will the body be less efficient at absorbing the nutrients it needs, it won’t be able to eliminate toxins as effectively either.
• Weight gain. Typically, people keep eating as much as they did when they were younger and more active. As they age, they become more sedentary and their metabolism slows. This means weight gain typically seen in the mid-region of the body, the buttocks and thighs, and eventually the back and upper arms. It also means that the waste generated by those tissues isn’t removed very effectively and in the beginning that might look like cellulite.
• Chronic Aches and Pains. Lack of movement starves the muscles and joints for water, nutrition, and oxygen. This makes it difficult for the tissues to repair themselves from the wear and tear of daily living. Soon enough, the body suffers chronic low-grade inflammatory processes in the areas needing movement and nutrition.
• Constipation. Not only does movement help to pump nutrients to every part of the body, but it also helps to pump the solid waste out as well. A body that isn’t moving enough is much more likely to suffer constipation; we know that there is an increase the risk of colon cancer with this condition. • Increased risk of disease. Constipation itself is upsetting, but it can be far more problematic than that. Fecal matter is the body’s solid waste and it needs to be moved out of the body regularly. If it isn’t removed, the body becomes backed up with rotting, indigestible foodstuffs, toxic bacteria and microorganisms as well as other toxic remains. Left in the body long enough, these wastes may cause a number of diseases.
• Mood swings and overall emotional imbalance. Remember, emotions are directly affected by the kinds of nutrition being supplied to the nervous system and the hormonal system. If the body isn’t moving regularly, whatever nutrients it takes in aren’t going to be effective at supporting the organs and glands responsible for maintaining emotional balance.
• Heart disease and circulatory problems. The heart is not intended to pump blood all by itself. When the body gets adequate movement, each muscle helps to circulate blood. This greatly reduces stress on the heart and cardiovascular system at large. It should come as no surprise that cardiovascular disease is such a top threat in our society!
Following the advice of your own integrated doctor will help your body pumps functioning at their best and keep you from ever suffering from these symptoms. Now, In addition to powering your body pumps, regular movement has an important effect on the oscillations underlying smooth muscle contractions. One of the recent insights into the body that science has provided for us is that the body generates a number of electromagnetic fields influencing biochemical circuits that regulate biological functions. In particular, the heart, the brain and the intestines generate very strong fields, each of which oscillates with a particular rhythm. These organs and the fields they generate are called your biological oscillators.
The energy fields for each of the oscillators interact with one another and should be in sync rhythmically. If one of your oscillators is distressed or malfunctioning, that tends to throw the other oscillators out of harmony with each other. It’s the interactions here that are important.
Here are some examples of the ways in which these oscillators interact:
1. Depression and heart disease. Research is now showing that these two illnesses often go hand in hand. The interaction between the heart and brain oscillators explains why this is the case. If the heart is diseased or damaged, it generates a disrupted field that can interfere with brain activity. This is especially the case with the heart as it generates the most powerful electromagnetic field in the body. Conversely, if one’s thoughts are predominantly negative or disempowering, the brain’s electromagnetic field is likely to reflect itself in the heart. As above, so below!
2. Heart disease and poor digestion. The small intestine generates a significant electromagnetic field as it goes through peristalsis (the rhythmic contractions that move food through the intestines). If a person has heart problems, the disrupted field of the heart can interfere with the process of peristalsis. Not only does this reduce how effectively the body absorbs nutrients, but it also means that waste products linger in the system too long. The effects are much the same as constipation. Anxiety, nervousness or excess stress can cause the intestines to speed up as well. This is often experienced as both loose stools and poor nutrient absorption. Again, the relationship between physical, emotional, mental and spiritual realities in this case can be understood once again, 'As above, so below.'
Regular physical movement is one way to ensure that the patterns generated by your biological oscillators are in sync and support one another to keep you healthy. In fact, the 'Work In' exercises I will discuss shortly are very effective at reducing stress, developing healthy breathing habits and increasing your energy, all of which greatly help to harmonize the rhythms of your brain, heart and intestines.
Now, let's talk a little bit about breathing. How many of you really breath? I'm not talking about 'normal' typical breathing, but it's the breathing all the way to your pelvic floor, which is part of your core. It may sound obvious to say that breathing is important. Of course, breathing is important, it draws oxygen into the body. But, the way that you breathe has a significant impact on your health. One of the most common side effects of modern sedentary lifestyles that it make us less effective at breathing. When we sit too many hours and don’t get enough physical movement, we tend to slouch. When our posture is poor from too much sitting, our head comes forward and our chest drops downward, crowding our organs. This tends to encourage shallow chest breathing and mouth breathing rather than the healthy, deep breaths that start with your diaphragm and come via the nasal airways.
Your respiratory rate and the efficiency of your breathing both influence whether you use your fight or flight nervous system or your rest and recovery system. Poor posture and shorter shallow breathes that are the result of the sedentary lifestyle activates the fight or flight system. You are now familiar with the effects of keeping that system active for prolonged periods of time. The kind of exercises that your own integrated doctor encourages keeps the muscles strong enough for you to maintain healthy posture, and teach you to breathe in a fashion that is much more likely to trigger your rest and repair systems.
Apart from breathing, let's discuss about exercise @ workout. Everyone knows about working out, but how many people knows about 'working in'? Exercise is not all about workout, which involved expanding energy from daily foods and drinks we consumed. Work-in type of exercise, such as Yoga, XiGong and Taichi are all movements which absorb energy into our body systems. Both are very different types of exercises and they compensate and balance out each other.
What we now understand is that there are lots of reasons to stay active. Unfortunately, most people just don’t get enough, if any, regular exercise. Of the small percentage of active people, those visiting the gym or hiring trainers do so because they:
• Are tired and want more energy.
• Don’t like the shape and feel of their body (this includes poor posture).
• Are injured. Often, traditional and commercial approaches to rehabilitation haven’t worked so they’ve decided to take their problems into their own hands and get fit.
• Have an intentional goal such as running a marathon, going on a vacation high in the mountains, river rafting, sailing, kayaking, skiing, or something that requires a higher level of fitness.
When I go into the gym, I go to workout. Sadly, the majority of people going to gyms to address their desires don’t get the results they were hoping for. The reason is quite simple. As you can see, all the common physical, emotional, mental and spiritual reactions to stress, each of which drains your vitality, don’t leave you much 'driving force' to work out do they?
If your body is already drained of energy and displaying these kinds of symptoms, adding vigorous exercise will more than likely add further stress. Think of it this way. A workout quite literally works the resources right out of your body! So, a visit to the gym may be doing you more harm than good. The main effect of the exercises in a work-in routine is that they cultivate more energy than they expend, leaving enough energy to stimulate and fortify your healing processes.
Most of the symptoms that we have discussed in the previous sections are a consequence of triggering your fight or flight systems, your experience of stress. Work-in exercises switch that system off and trigger your rest and recovery system (your parasympathetic nervous system). These exercises also use low intensity movements that help your biological pumps to move nutrients more effectively and tune the biological oscillators so they generate healthy patterns that support one another. In short, work-in exercises are specifically designed to counterbalance all of the effects of living an inactive or overly stressful lifestyle that we’ve explored above.
So should you be working out or working in? Dr. Exercise will be able to guide you. If you find that you have a number of the symptoms mentioned above, you’ll probably do best using the work-in exercises. But there’s an easier way to see which kind of exercise is right for you. If the idea of working out makes you tired just thinking about it, then you are getting a very important message from your body-mind and should pay attention. So when your body sends you a message telling you not to work out, it is simultaneously sending you a request to work in!
It would be easy to mistake your Dr. Exercise's advice not to workout as just promoting sheer laziness. But the fact is if you really don’t have the energy or drive to workout, chances are your body-mind just isn’t ready for more stress of the kind that a genuine workout will place on it. You’ll be much better off beginning
your exercise with the work-in movements I’ll describe below.
Which work-in exercises should I do?
All Work-in exercises are to be done at an intensity that allows:
• Normal breathing. While you execute the exercise, you should never have to hold your breath like you would if you’re trying to pick up a heavy weight or exert yourself like running.
• Optimal digestion. When performing any work-in exercise, I recommend you start your practice directly after a meal. Work-in exercises actually support the processes of digestion and elimination because the combination of low strain movement and breathing with a relaxed mind actually stimulates digestion and elimination, as well as encouraging a reduction in stress hormones and elevation of sex, growth and repair hormones, which are called anabolic hormones.
• Your mind to relax. Work-in exercises should never be so technical in nature that you need to think as you exercise. Remember, the brain is a big energy hog and if you are thinking intensely during the time you are working in. Your brain sucks up all the energy you created and that defeats the purpose. Besides, your brain needs to rest just like your muscles do so why not allow your whole body to enjoy the work-in experience?
- Work-In Exercise Examples -
Slow Walking - Slow walking is a very easy, beautiful, effective work-in technique. Simply commit yourself to 20-30 minutes a day of walking slowly in a relaxed manner. To get the tempo of your slow walking right, I suggest you do it immediately after a full meal. When your pace is right, you will feel that your digestion is being supported and you will not feel uncomfortable at all as you walk. While walking, dump the mind. If need be, listen to relaxing music or better, simply listen to nature sounds as they are very healing.
Breathing Squat - Well, think of pooping in the woods. My bad, let me rephrase it in a civilized manner. Find a surrounding or place which is relaxing (quite playground or garden in your house), both hands position virtually like wrapping a bubble around your chest (but relaxed). While in standing position, take deep slow breathe and exhale slowly while your are squatting down until your butt almost touch your heel (That's why I mentioned imagine pooping in the woods!). Keep your body and mind relaxed and do as long as you want, breathing in and out through the nose and you MUST not feel like your heart rate speed up or exerting yourself.
Stretching - Stretching is a lovely, gentle and effective way to balance the body and improve posture, while at the same time cultivating energy. By stretching the tight muscles of your body you will immediately start improving your posture. This encourages a return to what I often refer to as the green light posture. listen to nature sounds as they are very healing. When we have proper posture and our skeleton and muscles are balanced, energy moves efficiently through the body. When we have areas of tightness in our muscles and connective tissues, there is a strangulation effect that restricts the flow of blood, lymph and energy in much the same way you get restriction of flow when you step on a hose.
Tai Chi or Qigong - Either of these ancient forms of exercise has been shown to be very effective at lowering stress levels and increasing vitality in the body-mind. I will not elaborate further on both of these exercises.
Yoga - Yoga has been shown to relieve stress and restore optimal vitality for millenniums and is now a very popular practice. Not all yoga is the same though. This soothing practice offers you the opportunity to leave your stress behind so that you feel nourished and well rested. Locate a good yoga teacher in your community that will give you individualized exercises to meet the needs of your body. I would not recommend to join commercial yoga classes in gyms unless you want to get injured. Yoga/Pilates training is one of the highest rates of injuries apart from Crossfit! Don't believe? Go do your own research. Imagine a yoga trainer in commercial gym class conducting on all 20-30 ppl at one time? That's just ridiculous.
There you go, various recommendations of different work-in types of movements and exercises to try it out yourself. Remember, it's not all about GO GO GO and workout like spartans and beat the crap out of your muscles and robbing your vitality and secreting chronic catabolic hormones. Everything in life, evolves around homeostasis and balance. Ying & Yang, negative and positive, one and zero, white and black, catabolic and anabolic, etc.
Before I sign off this topic, ask yourself, did we evolved with help of prescription drugs and so called 'supplements'? How did our ancestors and great grandparents survive and live an old healthy life? Did our ancestors run on treadmills to get fit and strong and healthy? And the million dollar question, do we really need doctors? Well, I will let you think and decide yourself after reading this whole discussion. As for me, the answer is YES and NO. Yes to certain surgeries associated with trauma, accidents, emergency situations and also caesarean section for baby delivery. But NO to disease or illness related assistance or so called 'cure'. I hope you enjoy reading this topic as much as I enjoyed sharing all these valuable information. Everyone deserved a healthy quality life. No one wish to be on prescription drugs all their lives and died prematurely!
