The Command Center

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We’re going to finish this month’s look at living life instead of just being alive by talking about brain health. The brain is the command center of the body, telling it what to do 24/7 without you having to think about it. Be honest: when was the last time you consciously told your heart to beat? It also handles conscious requests from you. Probably the most important part of our brain is our ability to think and recall memories.

In the past 10 to 15 years, a lot has been written about how to keep our brains healthy. For all we think we know, we really don’t know all that much, but there are three things that we need to do. I’ve already talked enough about exercise; what was good for the heart, muscles, joints, and balance is also good for the brain. But another type of exercise involves using the brain, such as reading, doing puzzles, listening to music, and learning new skills. For more on this topic, see How to Have a Healthy Brain.

Second, what we eat can impact brain health, as well as what we shouldn’t eat. This will come as no surprise: your diet should start with vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, and nuts. Whole grains are good as are quality oils such as olive oil and flaxseed oil. What we should avoid are overly processed foods, especially limiting refined carbohydrates and sugars.

Hand in glove with that, the majority of us need to eat less. Eating too much not only exposes us to usually highly processed foods, it contributes to being overweight and type 2 diabetes. Both can contribute to poor brain function over time.

We’ll finish this month’s look at living every day on Thursday.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Balancing Act

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The final component of everything we’ve covered this month to date is balance, the integration of every physical component of health we’ve talked about: muscular strength, endurance, stamina, flexibility, bones, and joint health. If we work on every one of the prior physical components, it enhances our ability to stay upright until we choose not to be.

One of the best illustrations of this I’ve seen was a video of members of an assisted living facility. Their balance was tested, and then they were put on an exercise program. Stretching, strengthening, and flexibility were part of a 12-week program; then the subjects were retested. They all had better balance. The average age of the people in the study was over 90 years old, including a few that were over 100.

Falling is a significant problem that impacts our willingness to move. We lose confidence and we aren’t able to live to our potential. Going down a flight of stairs, reaching for objects, even walking on a carpet are significant impediments to moving. Training the body can help with that no matter how old we are.

You may be thinking, “But what about the brain? That’s involved in balance, too.” Of course it is, but as you train the muscles, you’re also training the brain to respond more quickly. I’m not suggesting people will be ready to walk a tightrope over Niagara Falls, but they’ll have better balance than before.

Speaking of the brain, as we get older, that becomes the primary concern of most people. Next week, we’ll find out how to take care of that.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

What to Do About Aching Joints

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When we stop to consider what prevents us from moving as much and as freely as we would like, the main culprit would probably be our joints: knees for most, with hips a close second. Shoulders are up there, along with our feet and hands. One of my problem areas is my thumbs in the metacarpal joints of both hands.

Everything we’ve talked about so far leads us to our joints. The muscles attach to bones via tendons across joints, and that allows for movement. There are ligaments that hold bones in place, several types of cartilage that provide cushioning, even specialized fluid within joints. It’s the interaction of all those factors combined with the damage we’ve experienced and our genetics that results in the pain we may experience that inhibits motion. What do we do about it?

Without question, the most important is stretching and strengthening. I’ve written about that already, but it warrants a reminder. Maintaining the range of motion of each joint improves our mobility and ability to use our limbs properly. Our physical therapist has a saying, “Motion is lotion,” which is a way of saying the more you move, the easier it is to move. We should all move as much as we can without overdoing it. Here’s an example: Paula and I had to give up dance lessons because she has arthritis in her feet, and dancing was just too much stress on all the little joints in the foot. For all of us, the challenge is finding that happy medium between moving enough to keep everything going and moving so much it adds to the damage.

In terms of nutrients, all parts of the joints are connective tissue; the basic nutrient for every one is glucosamine. Our bodies are supposed to make as much as we need but often don’t. Any type of glucosamine can be beneficial. Chondroitin and hyaluronic acid are forms of glycosaminoglycans. In addition, vitamin C is also important for all connective tissue. There are many nutrients that may impact the inflammation in joints such as tart cherry juice and turmeric. But it begins with a good foundation, and that’s glucosamine.

Everything to date leads us to the final part of this series of living every day. I’ll cover that on Saturday.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Maintaining Bone Health

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In trying to live every day we’re alive, I’ve spent a lot of time talking about the ability to move, but it’s not just about muscle. Those muscles connect to bones for the most part, and the bones must be healthy as well. One of the basic tenets of healthy bones is Wolfe’s law, which can be summarized as “function determines structure.” In everyday terms, to have healthy bones you must stress them regularly. Exercise is critical to that effort. But it’s not as simple as that.

Hormones and nutrients are also critical to bone health. Our ability to make hormones and absorb and utilize nutrients diminishes as we get older. Hormone replacement therapy has been controversial, and that’s a discussion a woman should have with her physician. In terms of nutrients, the ones critical to healthy bones are calcium, magnesium, vitamin D, and vitamin K2.

Before increasing any nutrients via supplements, have a bone-density test as well as a vitamin D test. If either test has low results, then taking a combination of the nutrients mentioned earlier would help the bones when combined with exercise. Any exercise that’s weight bearing is beneficial such as walking, but not swimming, with added benefits for weight training.

Maybe the best we can do is to stop the loss of bone mass, but that will help you live better for longer. We’ll move from bones to joints on Thursday.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Improve Your Posture

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Today is the final post about the physical factors of living and not just being alive, and it’s about your posture, the way you carry yourself. Posture reflects the interplay of your skeletal, muscular, and nervous system: the way you stand, the way you move, and the way you sit. Those all rely on the interaction of the three systems. The key is that we have to train those systems to consciously respond to the way we want to stand or sit until they become automatic.

I was overweight as a kid. One of the things I did was hold my stomach in so I didn’t appear to be so fat. It stuck. I don’t know what it’s like to relax my abs because it seems unnatural to do so. Here’s a secret: you can look five to ten pounds lighter just by holding your abs in and your shoulders back. You also can be taller by training your core to keep your stomach in and training your shoulders to hold your head erect.

There’s a lot going against us. Sofas are soft to sink into, and we do. Even our car seats can make it harder to hold our shoulders back. We are always looking at our cell phones, so we see teens developing the cell-phone hump, which looks a lot like the dowager hump. And even if we stand or sit straight, it may all fall apart when we work or exercise. Do you bend at the waist to pick up a package? Do you run hunched over? Especially when you lift weights, it’s important to get the posture correct so you’re training the correct muscles in the correct movement; that’s why it’s good to have a trainer or physical therapist to help you get started. And by the way, that’s the real reason for the walls of mirrors at the gym.

How do you stand tall? Sit tall? Practice. Once you get the correct posture, you have to keep practicing it until it becomes automatic. We have to fight our nature to slouch standing or sitting. You just have to keep practicing until it becomes automatic. It can impact just about every organ in your body, including your bones. That’s where we’ll pick this up next week.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Core Flexibility and Lower Back Pain

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On any given day, lower back pain afflicts 25% of the population; 80% of all adults will experience it as some point in their life, and it’s still a major cause of lost work days and workman compensation claims. Face it, as long as we walk upright, we’re going to have lower back pain of some sort.

Some lower back is due to various kinds of injuries. They must be handled within the parameters set forth by your doctor and orthopedist. Most lower back pain, however, is caused by a group of muscles called our core.

In general, lower back pain is the result of two contradictory conditions: abdominal muscles that are too loose; and lower back muscles, hamstrings, and quadriceps that are too tight. The solution is to stretch the tight and strengthen the weak. As I said Tuesday, there are many online sources to find those stretching and strengthening exercises. The most important point is to do them regularly; if I miss my routine more than two days in a row, I can feel it. If you stop when you start to feel better, you’ll soon feel worse again.

Your core also contributes to the final physical approach to living every day you’re alive. I’ll cover that on Saturday.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: http://bit.ly/33zjJfh

How Flexible Are You?

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Living every day you’re alive requires flexibility. Range of motion in your joints is important to your ability to move, but it can be difficult. As the years add up, touching your toes with your knees locked, whether sitting on the floor or standing, lifting your arms over your head, or even lifting your arms to shoulder level can be a challenge.

Connective tissue tends to tighten as we age; it’s another case of use it or lose it. And when I say age, I mean from teen years on. Later, after we’ve torn ligaments, sprained ankles, been in accidents, and on and on, if we haven’t worked on our range of motion, we can end up restricted in our ability to move. The less we move, the more restricted we can get.

The obvious way to increase flexibility is to stretch. There are dozens if not hundreds of programs online, but I would recommend that you get an examination by a physical therapist who can identify your strengths and weaknesses and prepare a program just for you, taking into account your current level of flexibility and previous injuries. The older you are, the more strongly I recommend physical therapy, because if you stretch too far and damage connective tissue, you’ve just made your situation worse. Another option, especially if you’re younger or more fit, is to try yoga, which is an overall muscle-strengthening and stretching program. Take a class with an experienced instructor so you can get feedback on whether you’re doing the movements correctly.

Stretching is something you should do every day. There’s one area that needs special attention and that’s your core. I’ll cover that on Thursday.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Preventing Muscle Loss

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This final installment on muscle focuses on keeping the muscle mass you’ve got. That’s one of the keys to living every day you’re alive: the ability to move at every age. There are three things that are important to hanging onto muscle.

  • Use it or lose it. Actually, you’re going to lose it not matter what, but the degree to which you will is partially dependent on using it. Whenever you can take the stairs, take them. Whenever you can lift something, lift it. While I would hate it personally, it was better when we had to get up and actually walk to the television to change the channel. More today than ever, we don’t take the opportunity to build muscle or increase stamina.
  • Exercise regularly. No matter your age, there’s always something you can do. Orthopedic issues happen as we get older—arthritis in hands, shoulders, hips, and knees, or torn ligaments and cartilages. They can all put limitations on what we can do. We have to work within those restrictions and do as much as we can to maintain and even increase what we have. A session with an excellent physical therapist (ask your doctor if you qualify for some free sessions) or certified personal trainer could be worth the money. It’s never too late to begin. Research has shown that even people over 100 years old can increase strength and stamina.
  • Consider taking essential amino acids every day. While the focus has been on what EAAs can do for people who train hard, the bulk of the research has been done on people 50 and older. It’s clear you can slow down muscle loss and increase muscle strength by exercising regularly and taking EAAs every day. I’ve been taking them the days I lift, but I’m considering taking them every day. In continuing to research the benefits, there doesn’t seem to be a downside to taking EAAs. There’s some preliminary research that indicates that taking EAAs may even be beneficial for pre-diabetics to reduce insulin levels and triglycerides if they exercise regularly as well.

The purpose for the month’s Memos is showing you how to learn to live every day you’re alive. Muscle is critical to that goal. We’ll move on to another important physical component of living next week.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Skeletal Muscle: Strength

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This week, we’re turning our attention to skeletal muscle. Skeletal muscle allows us to move and to lift ourselves and other objects. The two primary features are strength and stamina. Let’s begin with strength.

A simple definition of strength is the most weight you could lift once. That could be as little as a couple of pounds, or it could be as much a thousand pounds as some weight lifters have done. To me, as a minimum, strength is the ability to be able to do everyday tasks. We’ll start with the most fundamental, which would be sitting down in a chair or on a commode and then having enough leg strength to stand up. It would be enough to be able to lift a bag of groceries. To lift a hammer to hit a nail. To hold a hair dryer over your head while you do your hair. You can probably think of a few more.

Years ago, I mentioned to my mother-in-law that most women over 65 can’t lift 10 pounds. We lose strength as we age. She had just gotten back from grocery shopping and she picked up a 10-pound sack of flour. She began lifting it up over her head and back down to her lap and said, “Look Chet, I can do that!” She was in her mid-seventies at the time.

Strength can vary by body joints. With two torn biceps, I don’t have nearly the strength in my arms and shoulders as I used to, but I still have pretty good leg strength and pretty good back strength; my exercise routine includes strength training for all those areas.

How do you increase strength? Challenge the muscles to lift more weight than you currently can for any different set of muscles: your shoulders, your arms, your quads, your calves, and of course, there’s your core. I’ll save that for later in the month. Next time, we’ll take a look at muscular stamina.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Exercise Your Heart, Part 2

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Did you ever have to hurry to catch a connecting flight? Walk fast or maybe even jog? Were you able to do it?

How about carrying a child who weighs 45 pounds for a quarter mile because she’s hurt her foot? Could you do it?

That’s where your heart reserve comes in: facing challenges that put your heart to the test. Everyday training helps, but getting fitter is also important for those occasions when you need more. If your physician says you can do it, interval training is the solution to building a reserve.

Intervals have been around for decades, and they became a fad with something called High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). They’re the same thing except that HIIT is supposed to replace all other aerobic exercise to save time. I’m sorry, but it’s just not enough. Doing well on a fitness test isn’t the same as living.

The idea is to exercise as fast as you’re able for 30 to 60 seconds, then rest for one or two minutes, sometimes even more. Repeat the cycle eight to twelve times and you’re done. For some people, walking faster for 30 seconds is enough; for others turning up the intensity on a bike to the highest level for 60 seconds would be the intensity. It doesn’t matter your level when you begin; it will help you build a reserve for challenges. That’s something we all need. Again, you have to check with your physician before exercising to build a baseline or a reserve. It’s one of the keys to living every day.

Think we’re done with exercise? Nope. We’ll turn to those other muscles next week.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet