Exercise: Use it or Lose it & How Exercise Improves Our Immune System.

Think of exercise as an essential nutrient for your brain, mind and body.

Wolf's Law: If you don't use it, you'll lose it.
You can relate this to almost anything in the human body; muscle bulk, bone mass, learned skills in work and sports. Our body are constantly adapting to the stresses we place upon them daily. When we consistently exercise the cardiovascular system and train our weight-resistance our muscles and bone get stronger, and our mental health improves too. 

The brain, mind and body adapt to the demands that you expose them to. All of us can appreciate how inactivity - be it due to injury or personal choice and other commitments - over the matter of a a few short weeks will see a decline in fitness and de-conditioning of the size and strength of our muscles.

Now, it's true that not everyone enjoys exercise, sadly this becomes a problem after years of inadequate activity for the body's functional requirements. All systems of the body can be detrimentally affected such as sleep, regulation of blood sugar levels, stability of the musculoskeletal system.

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What We Can Learn From The Elderly

• Exercise can protect us from cognitive decline & help Alzheimer's patients thanks to brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) - Read this article published in The Scientist (2018) How Exercise Reprograms The Brain.
• We tend to lose muscle mass - known as sarcopenia - as we age. In real life this means finding it increasingly difficult to get up from the floor or a chair and potentially sustaining more serious injury from a fall. The good news is it's never to late to begin turning it around with simple exercises. 
• The less physical activity we are the weaker our muscles get, the weaker we get, the less we do...

My advice is to explore how to look after your body so well that you remain fit and active and injury-free - physically and mentally. This means getting in tune with our body and recognising the body signals that alert us that things are beginning to 'go-downhill' and take steps to resolve the issue rather than waiting until a problem really takes hold.

Japanese doctor and longevity expert, Shigeaki Hinohara lived to the age of 105. Read this article for his top 5 recommendations for a long health-span. I particularly like No.4 'Rules are stressful; find a way to relax them'.

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What's your mobility like?

When you think about the long history of humans, it has only been an incredibly short time that we have been using furniture, seating in particular. This has meant most of us Westerners have not been using the full range of movement of our feet, ankles, knees and hips. This has massive repercussions for the low back and whole of the spine. 
In this video, Kelly Starrett explains how important it is to be able to relax in a 'bottom squat' and what our bodies are capable of when we work on our mobility.

Yoga & Pilates

There are many yoga and pilates exercises which are great for your body. For those of you receiving care at Unwind I will make specific recommendations to modify some positions to ensure the progress of your treatment.

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What Exercise To Do

Zach Bush MD designed the 4 minute workout. This is a great place to start no matter what base of fitness you are starting from. 

Sport & The Gym.

Find a sport or gym workouts that you love doing so much that you forget it's exercise. Be kind to yourself and your body and build up slowly, listen to your body, feel how it responds to exercise. In the beginning this may be that 'good soreness' initially and if you're unsure of what this feels like we can discuss it together.

​Once you've been consistently exercising for just a handful of weeks you will start to see and feel the difference in your body and mind.

It is important to mention that I am not trained in personal training, I do know people who are so can make recommendations if you would like to use a tailored workout plan. 

You could try bouldering at Eden Rock.

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Forest Walks.

Getting out into the forests is so good for us. Click on this picture to take you to the research.

A pre-breakfast morning walk. Ideally walk in the forest as research has shown that 'forest bathing' reduces blood pressure and activates the 'rest & repair' parasympathetic nervous system and increases vagal tone (your body's ability to relax after a stressful event).

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Exercise & The Effects On The Immune System.

Personally, a lot of my motivation to exercise comes from understanding the science and research into how exercise affects all body systems including the immune system. I'm currently reading Dr Jenna Maccoichi's book 'Immunity: The Science of Staying Well.' Click here to read her excellent blog post Exercise & The Immune System.