Exercise is the remedy for all that ails you, or so they say. From strengthening the immune system and blunting a whole cascade of stress hormones like cortisol, to sparking anti-inflammatory effects, so much so that you’ll be rewarded with enhanced resilience; as long as you’re willing to push yourself just a little bit more into a consistent workout routine, the benefits are there — going straight into your pocket.
Scientists even suggested that exercise exerts a calming effect in the same manner as commonly prescribed anti-depressants would, but without the side-effects of those drugs.
Indeed, for decades, human society has been saturated with lasting benefits of exercise. Spreading through word-of-mouth and banner slogans from your favourite celebrity to local health campaigns, people couldn’t stress it enough about how crucial it is to exercise if you aim to increase your health status. At this point, you might’ve heard more than enough.
But ... are these sufficient? Do they appeal to people who’re likely to live in disbelief because they’re yet to fully trust that exercise goes beyond improving the body?
“How about the hot weather, I simply couldn’t deal with it”, “I have no time, my job has taken up 90% of my time and patience”, “I don’t have a workout buddy, it’s not going to be funx if I have to do it alone” … we hear these all the time, don’t we? We have flimsy excuses coming from anywhere, to defend our purpose of not exercising and getting off the couch.
Above all, there’s perhaps one legitimate reason that some people feel as though they couldn’t afford to exercise. “I’m dealing with physical pain, that’s what’s stopping me.” And we’re referring to the ones who’re dealing with chronic illness; who’s having an uneasy relationship with the body because of how it has been the site of agony, like searing pain and breakdowns in basic functioning. They’re facing a conundrum of whether or not to start exercising in the face of distress, panic, and worry.
Keep reading. Whether you’re living a sedentary lifestyle or having chronic diseases, in this article, we’ll bring you everything you need to know about fitness — and most importantly — how could you approach a healthier, more active lifestyle with resilience despite having both of the pre-mentioned conditions. It doesn’t have to be hardcore, you just need to start small.
Issue #1: How to navigate fitness with chronic illness?
“Our bodies may be fragile, weaker than we would like, stiff and in pain. We may not ever be able to run a marathon, and that’s okay!” Kate Willard Virant shared. As a clinical psychotherapist who has been working with adults, adolescents, and children on a variety of issues such as loss and grief as well as living with chronic illness, she understood how often chronic illnesses accompanied by chronic fatigue could leave one to struggle silently, resulting in an isolating experience.
The one struggling is left reeling, desperate to re-adjust to a mind and body that doesn’t work the way it used to. Consequently, this often puts forth a state of grief, coupled with vulnerability over a life that can feel limited in comparison to before. “But can we move according to our capabilities to enhance — not just our physical health — but also our emotional well-being?” she suggested.
The good news is, people with chronic illness are encouraged to progress towards a goal of staying as active as they possibly could, in a manner best suited for their level of motivational readiness for change. In other words, one shall take his or her body condition into account and look for a movement xplan that best meets the goal — that is to move — nothing more, nothing less. In this case, consider physical activity rather than exercise.
Focus on consistency: This time, going fast or doing more isn’t always better
Did you know that although exercise is a form of physical activity, physical activity doesn’t necessarily involve exercise?
Let’s get one thing clear from the start: there’s a difference between “working out” or “exercise” and “physically moving the body” or “physical activity” — so whenever you think of moving your body or fitness — you don’t have to be daunted by the idea itself.
According to the fitness dictionary, physical activity is any movement that’s carried out by the muscles that require energy. It could mean riding a bicycle regardless of whether it’s stationary or on a path; doing some gardening activities like watering the plants, picking flowers, etc; practicing yoga, Tai Chi, or Qi Gong.
On the other hand, exercise is, by definition, a structured workout routine where you’ll be breathing heavily, sweating, and feeling a certain degree of mild discomfort. Depending on different body conditions, this could awaken a stress response in the body. When people are healthy, the body is then able to adapt to this irritation as long as it’s bearable. This progressive adaptation is precisely what makes people fitter and stronger.
However, people with chronic illness might need to handle their body — a militarized zone — where peace could be short-lived and tenuous. Again, as determined by an individual physical state, some people with chronic illness might be experiencing their breath shortens as they exert themselves, while their heart beats faster before their muscles ache. These can in turn create terrifying sensations for those who associate bodily discomfort with impending doom.
What we want to do is to avoid engaging with being active out of fear while feeling these uncomfortable reactions. Therefore, the aim here is to enhance flexibility by way of ensuring a good range of motion in the joints, consider examples of physical activities above. It doesn’t have to be anything heavy, consider a gentler way to reduce stress and lift the mood.
Although you don’t throw yourself into speedy, high-intensity workouts, it’s crucial that you anchor on the idea of shaping healthy perspectives around an active lifestyle to ensure that it’s consistent and fairly sustainable. It’s purposeful for one to dedicate some effort, by a process of experience and introspection, to strengthen what counts as meaningful in one’s eyes so that one doesn’t fall short in one’s expectation. Moving steadily is a key factor here.
Issue #2: Sitting is the new smoking — Too Good To Be Too Comfortable?
In 2016, a local study conducted by Dr. Tam Cai Lian, an interim head over at the Department of Psychology, Monash University, revealed that our country has been identified as one of the least physically active countries in the world. Over 60% of adults either engage in long periods of sitting or lying down while watching the TV, playing video games, using the computer, and more.
After breaking free from the hustle and bustle of work or school, people seem to have a hard time gripping the slightest bit of motivation to move around.
To date, scientists have found that these sedentary habits account for a substantial portion of deaths triggered by coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and colon cancer — people have been risking their lives sitting around doing nothing for way too long than their bodies could take (scrolling the phone doesn’t count). Besides, in an official statement, the World Health Organization (WHO) has presented that physical inactivity kills more than 3m people worldwide annually as it’s one of the foremost risk factors contributing to forming chronic diseases, further supporting that exercise or physical activity should be recognised as an important strategy for disease prevention as well as management.
Increasing evidence shows this type of lifestyle involving little to no physical activity is itself a health risk, indicating that it should be a wake-up call for modern society. We must understand the causes of inactivity for this could help in developing physical activity guidelines to obtain health benefits in the people around us.
Don’t take health for granted: Start from easy movements
There’s a vicious circle related to the lack of physical movement — an unfortunate modern phenomenon that’s springing across globally and has been hijacking people’s internal health machinery to release more harmful hormones and chemicals.
While we strive to decrease the risk of one being susceptible to chronic diseases, strategies for preventing so are urgently needed. However, it doesn’t have to be overly complicated, at least when you first start. Consider what we’re about to share below.
As published on International Journal of Behavioural Nutrition and Physical Activity by Geert M Rutten, a researcher at HAN University of Applied Science, one of the straightforward solutions to tackle pressing posture problems and decreased physical capacity led by sitting is “interrupting long sitting periods by short breaks, for instance, standing for at least 5 minutes while interrupting sitting every 30 minutes.” As simple as it is, it isn’t that hard, right?
Furthermore, daily physical activity is associated with improved glucose metabolism and decreased blood pressure. There really is no reason for one to be reluctant of moving just above their severe and dangerous comfort level.
For years, news reports have been suggesting Malaysians are not paying enough crucial attention to physical health in terms of exercising regularly. And the truth is, people, reap what they sow. Little do some of the very few people who don’t care realise that poor health will eventually strike in the most unexpected way where subsequent illnesses such as hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease like heart failure are going to interfere with daily lives. As a result, this will become a dominating problem in life while potentially demanding one’s time, energy, and money; not to mention the pain, stress, and strain one has to endure.
Many people realise the consequences only after they fall victim to the ailment, by which time it’s already too late. If only bodies could talk, they would thank us profusely after each workout. The good news is that many of these risk factors are in fact preventable; it only comes down to an individual’s perspective taking and one last push to executing self-effort.
Many people realise the consequences only after they fall victim to the ailment, by which time it’s already too late. If only bodies could talk, they would thank us profusely after each workout. The good news ixs that many of these risk factors are in fact preventable; it only comes down to an individual’s perspective taking and one last push to executing self-effort.
Find Your Path To Fitness
Last century, Andrea L. Dunn, a physical therapy specialist who’s also the author of ‘Active Living Each Day’, conducted “Project Active,” a study that took over 24 months which included 235 sedentary, healthy adults. Throughout the experimental period, participants were engaged in a structured training session at least 3 days a week for 20 minutes. Each individual incorporated aerobic activities one most enjoyed, as well as fulfilling 2.3km of brisk walking per day.
In the end, Andrea and her team found out daily physical activities are not only as effective as exercise in decreasing blood pressure but also in increasing physical fitness. More importantly, this group of participants had a significant increase in VO2 max. What’s VO2 max by the way?
If you’re a fitness fiend, you’re probably always aiming to run faster and farther while pushing your limits by any means necessary. You might even wear a fitness watch to track your heart rate, calories burned, steps walked — but there’s one marker it can’t tell you: Your VO2 max.
VO2 max refers to the maximum amount of oxygen you can utilise during exercise, revealing important insights about how long you can sustain an exercise with particular intensity. For this reason, VO2 max is also what many athletes would be striving to enhance while placing an exclusive focus on the development of aerobic fitness and endurance during their training plans before a competition.
When you shouldn’t exercise?
Here’s a quick list for your reference:
1. You’re injured or you just completed a major sport event (e.g. jog-a-thon, marathon, triathlon, etc)
At times like these, your body needs time to recover. Focus on mind-body training like yoga or meditation while waiting for the body to heal completely.
2. You’re in extreme fatigue and exhaustion
Workouts are indeed a great way to boost energy. However, if you’re in a state that’s close to a burnout, you’re more likely to make mistakes with your exercise form, which could lead to injury. So it’s best to stay away from working out. A gentle reminder: you shouldn’t be scrolling your phone too because full rest comes first.
3. You develop a new and consistent pain
If the acute sharp pain is persisting, you should drop the dumbbell and head to the doctor immediately to check out. You do not want to push through the pain and cause sequela.
Note: Sequala - In medicine, a sequela is a pathological condition resulting from a disease, injury, therapy, or other trauma, aka the negative side-effects that follow a clinical condition.
4. When in doubt, check it out:
Last but not least, if you’re unsure of whether you should be exercising due to personal health issues, speak to your doctor and get clearance before you start.
Elsewhere, direct yourself right away to a 1 on 1 digital health consultation here in Naluri. It's simple, effective, and affordable as you take a good first step on your path to physical fitness.
Let us create a highly-personalised exercise program together with a holistic health plan for you that meets all your unique needs.
Physical activity or exercise: A powerful resilience factor
We were once believed that when neurons died, there’s nothing you can do about it, hence, there would be deterioration and progressive memory loss that will inevitably occur as part of our aging process. But scientists have found that it’s not entirely true now, especially if you exercise. This further enhances your brain's capability to rejuvenate and regenerate itself throughout your life.
Thus far, we’ve heard that exercise improves mood and sleep while reducing stress and anxiety. The problem in these areas frequently contributes to cognitive impairment which we’re seeing so much of. When scientists study about what exercise does to the human brain, they found that the parts of the brain controlling thinking and memory, namely the prefrontal cortex or the medial temporal cortex resulted in greater volume in people who exercise versus people who don’t.
Recently, what’s more interesting, is a study done by Princeton University actually revealed that exercising creates new, excitable neurons designed to release GABA, gamma-aminobutyric acid, which is a neurotransmitter that inhibits excessive neuronal firing. In simpler words, this helps to induce a natural state of being calm. You could think of exercise as a supercharged investment package for your brain.
In addition to the creation of new neurons, exercise boosts levels of potent brain chemicals such as serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine, which aid in buffering stress hormones. Not to mention that exercise is also one of the most effective prevention and treatment strategies for depression. Almost anyone who has been depressed could attest to it. When you can get yourself out exercising, you would feel better.
While speaking of offering protective coverage for your brain, during exercise nerve cells release proteins known as neurotrophic factors. One in particular called the brain-derived neurotrophic factor BDNF is in charge of triggering numerous chemicals that promote neuronal health by way of directly benefiting cognitive function including learning.
BDNF not only preserves existing brain cells, but it also activates brain stem cells to convert into new neurons that would make your brain grow larger effectively. So here you can think about the brain like a muscle. The more you’re willing to engage in a moderately active lifestyle, the bigger and stronger your hippocampus in the prefrontal cortex will get — these are the areas that are most susceptible to normal cognitive decline in aging.
You’re not going to cure dementia or Alzheimer’s disease entirely, but what you’re bound to have is to create the strongest hippocampus and prefrontal cortex as you exercise over time. In this case, it’s going to take longer for cognitive declines to affect – if they’re going to have an effect at all.
To lend further support to the spill-over benefits of exercise, we want to leave you with one last thought before ending the article. That is, bringing exercise into your life will not only give you a happier, more productive life, if that’s what you’ve been yearning for; it will protect your brain from incurable diseases in a way that will change the trajectory of your life for the better.
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Pictures via iStock
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