BlogPositive

Reverse the signs of ageing!

We talk a lot on our Fresh Steps course about the enhanced value of exercise as we grow older.  We know that we start losing muscle as we get over 30 and that regular training with weights can help to offset this.  One of the benefits of building muscle is that it is a metabolically active tissue.  This means that it uses calories. So if you have more muscle you are making better use of the food that you eat and can eat more.  Having better muscle tone also helps to prevent injury by keeping all of our joints in a stable state.

I have just also been reading some research from the US that shows that resistance exercise, using weights, can actually reduce the signs of ageing in muscle.  This small study showed that a 6 month resistance training programme changed the genetic expression of muscle to that of a younger person. 

This study measured the genetic messages for mitochondria in the muscle tissue.  Mitochondria are the power houses of any animal cells. They are the tiny organs inside the cell that actually use all the raw materials that we put into our body and convert these into the energy that the cell needs to function.  As we grow older some of the genetic messages relating to mitochondria become scrambled and as a result the mitochondria don't work properly.  The muscle tissue then doesn't get the energy that it needs and it starts to decay.  This results in the muscle wastage that we experience past 30.

What this study found was that after a six months of programme of resistance exercise, the genetic messages for the mitochondria found in the older subjects more closely resembled those found in the younger subjects.  What this means is that there is a fundamental change in how the muscle cells are controlled at the genetic level.  This is very exciting news.  We did not previously know that we could affect genetic messages with exercise.

What we don't know is whether its the genes themsleves that are changed or the mechanisms that allow them to do their work inside the cell. More work in the future may well answer that question.

So the message is clear.  Exercise is good for you at an even deeper level than we had first thought.  Here is the link to the original paper in the Public Library of Science.

Life Checks

The government has announced personal health checks for those 40-75. Isn't that great. We'll be invited to have a blood test and given advice on alcohol, smoking, diabetes and heart disease.  How nice that we are now important enough for some special attention.  This is on top of the already piloting Mid Life LifeCheck system.

However the new initiative has been set up becuse the LifeCheck is an opt in system. It sounds as if it will be an online questionnaire that will assess risks and then give advice. The new screening system will actually write and invite you to attend. As women we are used to that happening. We have to go regularly  for cervical smear tests and mammography. This will now pull into that net the many, many men who haven't seen their doctor for years and probably can't even remember what they look like.

Really we all need to be looking after our health all the time. We all need to eat healthily, take enough exercise, exercise our brains as well as our bodies, get enough sleep and relaxation and have fun.  After all without our health life becomes much more difficult.

Bucket List

I’ve just been to see Bucket List with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson. It’s a great film and one that we should watch about every five years once we get past 30.

The bucket list is the list of things you MUST do before you “kick the bucket”.  It’s a great idea that I have seen people use often – things to do before I get to 40, 50, 60 or whatever.  But how many of the things on the list do you actually get round to doing and how many of them are worthy rather than fun, fulfilling, just plain daft and expressive of the inner you?

So here’s another idea. Write another list. This list is a Memory List. A list of things that you’d like other people to remember you for. I bet if you write this list it will get more to the heart of what you’re about at this stage of your life AND there will also be things on it that you still need to do, want to do, will do before the end. Many of us will find this list motivational, driving us on to action better than the Bucket List might.

Live forever

well nearly forever at any rate.  Who saw the Horizon programme the other night?

Well to  live to be 102 you need to

• live on tofu and soya for several generations and get your body used to physiological starvation
• live on meat and olive oil and have parents for several generations that have lived a long time
• believe that some greater being is always going to make it OK so your life has no stress and lots of good support

Thats it then - easy!! Well at least we now know what the answer is.  The great thing about the residents of Okinawa, Sardinia and Loma Linda is that as well as living to a great age they also remain active in mind and body.  So the real secret is to keep using both mind and body as you get older and they will repay you loads. And if you're doing that then you need to look after both mind and body. 

Most of us are getting wise to looking after our bodies these days, going to the gym and eating sensibly.  We often forget that our minds need workouts too, particularly as we get older.  So keep playing your nintendo brain training games, doing sudoko and crosswords and writing haikus.  Don't forget the socialising as well since our brains benefit from contact with others.  Right I'm going out with my 100 year old parents now for some soya sausages eaten over competetive monopoly where we can discuss the political situation in the far east. How about you?  What are you doing to keep brain and body in tip top condition today?

The grim reaper

The idea of death is coming at me from several angles.  Last night on Radio 4 they were discussing living wills and this morning on the Today programme they are talking about assisted suicide. Although its not a subject that we in the West generally like to talk about, death is going to happen to us all (unless you know something that I don't and if so please email me now).

We plan for the significant events on our lives;  going away to college, getting married, children arriving and leaving, moving house or job.  Death should be no different.  After all if you were organizing a party to celebrate your life you'd probably have strong opinions about how it should go. If you have family and children you will also want to think about how their lives will be affected after you have gone.  Also, although we are now living longer and fitter, as a population we are suffering more from debilitating conditions that can rob us of our dignity.  Therefore in our end of life planning we should also think about how we want to be treated if we cannot make decisions for ourselves.

Although thinking about death may seem to be a morose thing to do when we are tripping around, hale and hearty, in fact its a really positive step to take, acknowledging the inevitable and having a workable plan.  So what are your options, oak casket or cardboard box, urn or plot?  Tea back at the house or a wake at the pub? Switch off the machine or keep me going?  Let me gracefully decay in my own home or amidst shiny medical technology?  These are all questions to be pondered and answers sought.

Keep smiling

In Japan they have a problem with an aging population that is even more acute than ours.  It has more than four times as many centenarians.  One women who was 100 in April was interviewed for a report in yesterday's Independent.  She puts her longevity down to having a happy-go-lucky nature.  She is cheerful most of the time and even if she is worried about something she gets a good night's sleep.  That, coupled with the healthy Japanese diet that is antioxidant rich, contains little animal fat and lots of soya, vegetables and seafood has resulted in her outliving her son, who died of cancer 6 years ago.

So the message from Asia is clear - be happy, eat healthy, live longer and fitter.

So what are you going to do today to bring a smile to your face? What are you doing to make your diet healthier to support you as you get older?  What are you planning for your 80th, 90th, 100th birthdays?

MOT and Service

Here in the UK we have to have our cars tested for road-worthiness every year and because I do lots of miles I also get mine regularly serviced.  However we often fail to treat our bodies in the same way.  My body is the machine that is going to get me through life so I feel that I'd better look after it.  That means that it needs regular servicing and MOT and an occasional polish, just like my car.  And as my car is getting older I am finding that I am having to do more at each service.  More parts require attention. And my body is just the same. As I am getting older I am putting more effort into looking after it.  I was chatting with a friend the other day who observed that I needed to keep working as long as I could just to pay for all the specialists working on my body - the osteopath, chiropractor, physio etc etc

As we get older lots of things that we used to take for granted with our bodies do start to change, metabolism slows down, muscles start to decay, joints become stiffer and everything then becomes much more effort.  However it does not have to be that way.  You can make a decision today to look after your sole life machine even better than you do your car.  You can make a decision to service it every day with exercise, to keep it operating smoothly with regular stretching, to give it the best fuels to run with by eating and drinking well and to pep up that metabolic rate through regular aerobic workouts.  You sole life machine will reward you for this by giving you better performance every day and you can then give it a polish with a treat like a day out, new experience or just some relaxation time.

So when did you last go for your well woman or well man MOT?  Ring your GP today and get it booked then draw up your body servicing and maintenance plan to follow.  And if you need more motivation just keep reading this blog and of course BlogPositive.

The back roads

I was driving across to my nearest town on Saturday to collect some great pictures that I'd had framed and I went the back way.  I chose the small winding road that travels along Hadrians Wall rather than racing along the main road.  Its about the same distance and a much more relaxing and interesting drive.  I get to see the abbey at Lanercost, the roman fort at Birdoswald, the tranquil River Irthing tumbling though the valley.

As I drove I reflected that in our grey and forbidding future we may be forced to all drive on the main roads because the back roads have fallen into disrepair when everyone wants to go faster, quicker more directly.  The same thing happens with pathways in your brain and your skills.  If you don't use those pathways that are conencted with all the things that you can do then they too fall into disrepair and get overgrown by the moss and grass of your sidelined future.  If you make a positive effort to keep using all those pathways then you will continue to have limitless possibilities.

So what are the back roads that you have been neglecting?  Where are those shady lanes down which you have not taken your thought processes for years?  Do you need a map now even to remember the way back to some old ideas, old feelings, old experiences.  Get out on those back roads of your brain every day and keep the neuronal traffic flowing.