In previous posts briefly I touched on mindset and nutrition's roles in ageing. This time I'm going to go into activity and exercise's roles a bit more. In my research on various topics around physical and mental health conditions exercise, nutrition and sleep are the three things that always come up as playing a pivotal role in the health of our bodies and brain. This is true for any age, it's just that as we get older we feel the effects of neglecting them much more than we did as young adults.
Recently I've been listening to a variety of doctors and researchers discussing the causes of and interventions for the more common causes of mortality as we get older. These are all things related to age deterioration and the very things that help prevent and reverse that deterioration are the same things that help prevent those mortalities such as heart disease, dementia and even cancers. There is a common theme throughout every discussion and exercise is never missed. A doctor who specialises in Alzheimer's research brought up a study where people aged 45-64 improved their heart health over two years with aerobic exercise. They reversed heart degradation from a sedentary lifestyle by decades.
As we age we become more prone to osteoporosis and osteoarthritis as we lose bone density. We will also lose muscle mass at a faster rate. All this can be countered by exercise, but unfortunately light exercise won't cut it. Women are particularly prone to these issues due to the fact that around menopause they lose the hormones that normally regulate the building blocks of the body.
Recently you may have come across more advice that women should lift heavy, especially as they age. The reason for this is that recent studies and research on women have discovered that this is the best way for them to strengthen their bones and joints. The intense nature of it forces the body to react to the demand by strengthening the skeletal structure. It will also counter the muscle mass loss that comes with age. For a long time studies and research were only done on men and the results were merely translated over to women as if they were just small men. Therefore the recommendations we've had for women for such a long time have not been the best for them. Dr Stacy Sims has made it something of a life mission to get better knowledge and information out to women of all ages.
If you are a man reading this then most of the information out there is still pertinent for you, but even for men there is still a lot of new information coming out, so it's worth keeping up to date on that. I think the attitude of only gentle exercise for older people in case of fall or injury is changing more to exercise to prevent fall or injury. Training that reduces the likelihood of falls will also strengthen the body to reduce injury in case a fall happens anyway.
The word exercise can be off putting for many. It conjures up the image of tedious workouts and we don't always feel like we have the energy for it either. I'm not someone who can easily motivate myself to do exercise for the sake of exercise. Going to the gym just sounds tedious, but I enjoy climbing. So for me that's turned into a form of intensive exercise that I enjoy. Other ways I enjoy exercising are when doing it with others, because we can encourage and challenge one another.
Different people have different ways they take to exercising. There is a retired gentleman up the road from us who walks every day around the neighborhood. He likes to vary his routes and if you want to know where anything is within walking distance he's sure to know. My sister has done ballroom dancing for about 30 years now. My father has weights in his shed and likes to walk to collect and haul home fallen tree branches around our neighborhood for the combustion heater. I have an old friend who joined a group of older women who run and compete in half marathons. I think she's crazy, but she enjoys it. 😉
Coming back to the above mentioned study for improving heart health, it was based on aerobic exercise, so it requires getting the heart and breathing rates up. If you only like walking, then after a while this might not be enough to accomplish that, but you can tweak it by increasing your pace, going uphill or even adding a backpack/rucksack with extra weight. Weighted vests seem to be getting popular for this type of thing too, for those who can afford them.
Anaerobic exercise is just as important for the aforementioned bones and muscle, so think of resistance training like the heavy lifting and high intensity interval training, better yet sprint interval training, especially for older women.
I would like to think my climbing incorporates all the above things, but if I'm honest with myself, my climbing style and strengths don't really cover them all. So I've started to work on my weaknesses and try different techniques and styles. Even this is likely not enough, so I've been trying to add other training in as well, but I'm not very consistent in this. I'm more likely to accomplish it regularly if I incorporate it into what I enjoy, which is my climbing. That said, my daughter and I have started a tradition of racing back to the car after our climbing sessions, so maybe I can get some new habits forming.
It shouldn't go unmentioned how important exercise is for brain health as well. This is another area where we've come to expect deterioration as we age, but this needn't be the case either. The brain has a huge network of blood vessels supplying oxygen and energy, so it stands to reason that improving your heart health also improves your brain health. There has been a lot of research showing that aerobic exercise can cause the brain to form new connections and patients with Parkinson's disease can make improvements and slow it's progression through exercise.
I don't know about you, but I want to retain as much of my independence as possible for as long as I can. As I'm also prone to depression, an inactive lifestyle is going to make that even worse for me, so if I live a long life, but that comes with limitations on what I can do and on my health, then I'd rather live a shorter, but happier life.