Mind The Monologue In Your Head. And Vacuuming Counts.

 

 1. The Process Of Discomfort And How Your Attitude Matters.

It is not one issue keeping you from upping your exercise. It could be a bad hip, 9-to-5 work overload, chronic fatigue, or arthritis.

It could also be a fear of discomfort or "pain catastrophizing".

I have written before about coaches who come across Geezer Jocks who were not on a team in high school or college and did not have the benefit of a sadistic coach to assault their willpower. So when it comes to exertion, these older people hit a wall and think "That's all I can take." They weren't trained up as youngsters. Discomfort stinks. It stinks bad enough that they back off and do not improve their fitness.

I was drawn into this paper on "pain catastrophizing" and "preoperative psychological distress." I had no intention of reading through this paper, but I kept reading for five minutes and it was a revelation. It's Saturday morning, for goodness sakes, do you want to take a glance at this link? I think you should.

If poor clinical outcomes can result from doomscrolling before a surgery and the impact it has on you post-surgery, imagine what impact YOU have on YOU as you are trying to walk seven miles instead of five?

Here, I remember the words of Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl:

"Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

2. Chores count toward fitness. You bet they do.

I just love these affirmations of my habit of suddenly pulling out the vacuum, or mopping the dirty kitchen floor without saying, "It's Tuesday, this is not the day to vac up dirt." I've done it for years because my office is in my home.

From Long Youthspan here is a study about those short bouts of energy you get in between football games or the baseball playoffs.

 A summary from the Long Youthspanhound:

• Brief bouts of intense daily activity — playing with kids, gardening, household duties — were tied to a lower risk of death

• Bouts lasting just 1-3 minutes of such activity cut the risk of death by 33%

• Bouts lasting 5-10 minutes of such activity cut the risk of death by more than 50%

So, next time, don't react with drudgery into vacuuming up your mess. Do it for your health.

3. Older Faster Stronger By Margaret Webb

Here is a link to the You Tube explaining Webb's thesis on achieving fitness into your 90s.

I have ordered the book because the storylines are compelling. I have talked to 99-year old Dixon Hemphill and 89-year old Flo Meiler, among others, about staying fit later in life. Here is another authority.

Webb focuses on fitness after 50. She wanted to be as fit at 50 as she was at 20.

"I wanted to achieve the seeming impossible," Webb said, "to enjoy the wisdom of a 50 year old but inside the body of a very fit 20 year old. So I set out on a quest to shake off my midlife malaise and get fitter after 50 than I was as a varsity athlete at university."