Superhealing: Engaging Your Mind, Body, and Spirit to Create Optimal Health and Well-Being (ARC) (19 page)

sidered the actual cause of the majority of human diseases. Being

sedentary has been proved to increase the risk of heart disease by 45 percent, the risk of osteoporosis by 59 percent, the risk of stroke by 60 percent, and the risk of high blood pressure by 30 percent.5

Although most people are clearly aware that exercise is essential, almost 75 percent of people don’t achieve the necessary level of activity to prevent these illnesses.6

CHAPTER FIVE:
Superhealing with Movement

121

THE PHYSICAL BENEFITS OF MOVEMENT

If you’re thinking about staying young at heart, fit, and strong as you grow older and want to engage your superhealing capacities, the best thing you can do is to get off the couch or step away from your computer or other favorite technological gadget and
move
. Many people now wear pedometers to measure the number of steps they

are taking. Guidelines published by the federal government state the importance of walking 10,000 steps a day. But the intensity of your exercise also matters. When you do moderately intense activity or

vigorous activity, your body will reward you.

The Centers for Disease Control define moderately intense exer-

cise as activities like walking at a brisk pace of 100 steps per minute (3,000 steps per half hour), biking five to nine miles per hour on flat terrain, doing light calisthenics or yoga, golfing, ballroom dancing, playing doubles tennis, canoeing, playing Frisbee, and swimming

recreational y. Vigorous activity is defined as activities like jogging or running five miles per hour or faster, biking more than ten miles per hour or on steep terrain, doing high-impact aerobics, jumping

rope, wrestling or boxing, playing singles tennis, playing soccer or racquetbal , and swimming steady laps.7

Moderate exercise is good for us. Exercising moderately for thirty minutes a day, five days a week, has been shown through projections and comparisons to population data, in terms of life expectancy, to lower rates of premature death by 19 percent in people who were

previously inactive.8 Vigorous exercise is even more beneficial. Fifteen to twenty minutes of vigorous activity every day produces im-

proved cardiovascular function, reduced abdominal body fat, and

lowered stress. Furthermore, studies have shown that short bursts of exercise, such as at ten-minute intervals, may be just as good for improving metabolic health and reducing the risk for chronic disease 122

PART TWO:
Your Superhealing Body

as longer durations of sustained exercise.9

Exercise is a characteristic of your lifestyle—entirely under your control—that will help you be healthier in ways you might not even imagine until you begin a regular fitness regimen. I’ve exercised

most of my adult life—except for a few years, and especial y since the vacation with my parents in Jamaica—and I can tell you that when

I’m not exercising vigorously several times a week, I simply do not feel as good. When I don’t move regularly, I feel both physical y and mental y stagnant. When I am active, in contrast, I feel confident that nothing is impossible for me to accomplish.

If you are not aware that exercise is one of the most effective an-tiaging strategies available to you, it’s probably because it requires more effort from us than the packaged creams, procedures, pil s,

surgeries, and everything else that’s advertised to us as a means to appear younger. Study after study has shown, however, that exercise keeps our cel s, organs, and bodies young. If exercise was a drug, it would probably be the bestselling drug ever, because it impedes the aging process, prevents the development of chronic disease, and, by virtue of the biochemicals and neural pathways it activates, relieves depression and anxiety and uplifts our moods.

One of the most important things exercise does is to protect our

telomeres, the caps on the strands of our DNA, from the damage

induced by stress, which makes it an important way to prevent ag-

ing. A study of women who were chronical y stressed from taking

care of a loved one with Alzheimer’s disease showed that exercising protected their telomere length.10 A study of middle-aged athletes showed that the telomeres in those who exercised were longer than

the telomeres of those who didn’t. The same researchers evaluated

mice and found that those that ran for three weeks experienced in-

creased levels of the protective proteins that maintain the length of

CHAPTER FIVE:
Superhealing with Movement

123

telomeres and postpone the process of cell death.11

People approaching the sixth and seventh decades of their lives

often become frightened and distressed about the prospect of losing their memories as they age and of developing Alzheimer’s disease or another form of dementia. People in their forties and fifties, especial y those with a family history of Alzheimer’s, often worry, too. As a doctor, I’m frequently asked, “Is there anything I can do to prevent myself from developing Alzheimer’s?” My answer is to reduce stress and begin a walking program.

EXERCISE AND MEMORY

Just a year of moderate exercise, such as walking, can increase the size of the hippocampus, which leads to improved memory. A study

followed a group of nonexercising adults ages sixty to eighty who

already were experiencing a natural shrinking of the hippocampus.

When they began moderately intense walking, the improvements

they experienced were the equivalent of turning back time two years.

The researchers found that walking up to five miles a week protected the brain in people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and with mild cognitive impairment for a ten-year period.12

Performing moderate physical activity during midlife and late

life appears to reduce mild cognitive impairment in people helping prevent the development of dementia, whereas a six-month high-intensity aerobic exercise program may improve cognitive function

in individuals who already have dementia.13 A moderate level of exercise during midlife has been associated with a 39 percent decrease in the likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s.14

Cancer survivors often experience treatment-related health is-

sues and a poorer quality of life. Exercise interventions are believed to help prevent these types of undesirable experiences, which are a 124

PART TWO:
Your Superhealing Body

particularly important factor in surviving cancer. A review of forty trials that evaluated 3,694 cancer patients (with cancers of the colon, breast, lymphatic system, head, and neck, among others) de-

termined that exercise had a positive effect on their quality of life, compared to those who did not. They also experienced improvement

of their body image, an enhanced sense of well-being, reduced fa-

tigue and pain, and better sleep and social functioning.15 A variety of activities was assessed, including strength training, walking, cycling, resistance training, yoga, tai chi, and qigong.

Physical activity has been known for many years to be an effective tool in the management of depression and other mood disorders,

including anxiety and panic. All improve with regular engagement.16

What’s beautiful is that it’s never too late for anyone to begin to exercise, not even those approaching 100 years of age.17 It’s wise to start out gradual y and build up the intensity and the duration. If you’re a relatively sedentary person or someone over the age of fifty, you should discuss your exercise plan with your physician before beginning a new fitness regimen. Once you get the go-ahead, I’m sure you’ll find that setting up a routine gives you momentum so that it becomes easier, and as a result you will feel better and younger.

EXERCISING WITH AWARENESS

An interesting study was conducted to determine what role, if

any, the mind plays in receiving the health benefits of exercise. To investigate whether perception can improve a person’s physical condition independently of actual exercise, the researchers compared

two groups of hotel maids. The women’s fitness levels were measured at the beginning of the study, and all were in poor health and considered themselves sedentary. None exercised regularly, two-thirds did so occasional y, and the rest didn’t exercise at al . More than half

CHAPTER FIVE:
Superhealing with Movement

125

were told something they did not know: that cleaning fifteen rooms a day involves more physical activity than is required to meet the U.S. surgeon general’s recommendation of thirty minutes of daily

physical activity. They were also given details about the number of calories their activities burned. The others, those making up the control group, were not informed of these things.18

Four weeks later, the health status of the hotel maids was reevaluated. Those in the group that had been informed had lost an average of two pounds and experienced a 10 percent reduction in their blood pressure. They were significantly healthier, as determined by body fat percentage, body mass index, and waist-to-hip ratio, than the

maids who were not informed of caloric expenditures and daily ex-

ercise guidelines. The health changes they had undergone were especial y remarkable because they occurred so quickly and were much

higher than those experienced by the uninformed control group. On

some level, the simple act of explaining that what forty-four hotel maids were doing each day was significant exercise was sufficient to improve their health substantial y.19

This is a pretty amazing finding, in my opinion, and it comple-

ments other studies that have found that athletes benefit from the visualization they do of participating in their sports. Through brain activation by imagery, their muscles are stimulated as though they are physical y engaged in the sport.20 Before the U.S. Olympic trials and the Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea, in 1988, track

and field athletes found that preevent visualization improved their performance.21 A study involving elite gymnasts found that those

who made the Olympic team had ways of thinking, affirming, and

visualizing success that could be strongly linked to superior gymnas-tic performance. Affirmations and certain forms of mental imagery

seemed to differentiate the best gymnasts from the gymnasts who

126

PART TWO:
Your Superhealing Body

failed to make the Olympic team. These two types of gymnasts also

appeared to show different anxiety patterns and different methods of coping with competitive stress.22

Do you pay attention to what you’re doing? It’s easy for the mind

to wander off so that we become unaware of what’s going on in our

bodies. If you are usual y only partly aware of what you’re doing, especial y when you’re exercising, remind yourself that your perception can expand the benefits. Paying attention and engaging in

simple positive self-talk can lead to the increased effectiveness of any fitness regimen.

Our minds have a remarkable capacity to change our physiology

when we engage our bodies with awareness. This awareness has the

capacity to affect every aspect of our daily lives. That mental imagery affects motor skill learning and performance has been known since

the 1930s, and an analysis of sixty studies indicated that mental practice improves performance on cognitive tasks even more than on

motor or strength tasks.23

A core component of superhealing movement is body awareness.

For several reasons, paying attention to your body is a key ingredient of superhealing. As I often tell my patients, if you don’t pay attention to its signals, your body first whispers, then it speaks, screams, slaps, and final y stops you—usual y with an illness. That’s why it is essential to respect its messages as early as possible. Responding to the body is something our society doesn’t encourage us to do. In fact, we’re often encouraged, and sometimes even required, to deny the natural impulses and messages of our bodies. But we do so at our own peril.

In particular, I’m thinking about the dangers of ignoring the

stressful messages we receive. Of course, we can’t pay attention to every twinge and discomfort we get during the day, but when we see a trend of disharmony occurring, we need to listen more closely. In

CHAPTER FIVE:
Superhealing with Movement

127

our culture, we need to pay more attention to the body, to honor it with loving awareness, which is real y one of the simplest and easiest things to do.

Many mind-body movement systems, including yoga, tai chi,

and qigong, recognize awareness as a core mechanism of action.

For therapeutic effect, these approaches usual y combine intentional focus with breathing and movement. Practitioners of these systems

understand that body awareness plays a role in the unfolding of

greater self-awareness and the unity of body, mind, and spirit.24

Yoga, which is the Sanskrit word for “union,” is an ancient mind-

body-spirit healing path from India and Tibet. Although most West-

erners associate yoga with physical postures, it is actual y a collection of traditions related to, among other things, sound, breath, and movement. There are also yoga practices of action, devotion, and

intellect. The movement techniques of yoga strengthen and increase the flexibility of the physical body, reduce stress, and promote well-being in a unique way: the postures engage the mind and spirit in

the moment, which results in a biological shift that invokes the relaxation response by stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system.25

Yoga reduces stress, and in the process it decreases the levels of chemicals involved in chronic inflammation. This is not only an immediate experience that occurs while doing yoga. Yoga also regularly increases the practitioner’s ability to respond to stressful encounters in such a way that an inflammatory response does not occur in the