May
12
By Jack Krayenhoff, M.D.
(This is for seniors, folks. But you may want to read it anyway to get an idea of what's awaiting you down the road...and how to prevent it!)
Think back to that last time your friend called you to say he or she could not get to that meeting you always go to together. What was the reason? I'll bet you it was a doctor's (or therapist or laboratory or hospital) appointment. And if not that, it was a fall. Nothing broken, thank goodness, but hurting all over. Was I right?
That is just to illustrate what all of us already suspected: statistics have shown that during the last ten years of our lives we use up a lot more health care dollars than the rest of the population. In other words, we spend a lot of time being sick or unwell. And that is really too bad, for we usually don't mind dying so very much, but the getting there - that is the hard part.
So the question is: can we improve that process of "getting there"? My answer is yes! Let me tell you why I think I can say that with confidence. Number one: I worked for 45 years as a general medical practitioner and during that time saw a lot of sick seniors. I gave them advice on how to improve their health; some took it, and it worked. Two: I did take my own advice after I retired (when I got the time for it!), and here I am close to 20 years later, and I feel fine. I have to take eye drops and at night I take pain killers for my back, but that is all. I can walk 5 k at a good clip and don't get puffed, which not many my age can do any more.
So let me tell you what that advice was that seems to work so well. It's the voice of experience. It can be summarized in three words: be fit, lean, and at peace. Let's start with FIT.
Everybody knows that being fit makes you a more energetic, youthful-appearing and cheerful person, but there's more:
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They say physical fitness keeps our brain cells from dying off, as they normally do with age, and now they even claim your brain will grow new ones! But even if this is not yet proven beyond doubt, for brain fitness the principle still applies: 'use it or lose it.' Exercise our brains with reading good books, with good conversations, or with playing bridge, chess and doing puzzles. For my wife and me, it's Scrabble every day, religiously at 8 pm. Please don't phone us then.
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Fitness gives us muscles that don't groan when we get up from a chair, or when we kneel down to pick up something from the floor.
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Physical fitness means a fit heart, which is a muscle too after all. We used to think that stress is bad for the heart, but though it's true that an occasional jogger has died on the chip trail with a coronary (he started too suddenly and too old; he should have checked with his doctor); the normal heart actually likes stress. It keeps it from getting flabby, and it functions better.
Next question: How do we get fit and stay fit? One simple answer: WALK! Walk, walk, walk. Walk shine or rain (a floppy, wide-brimmed hat and a waterproof rain jacket keeps you comfortable). Walk day and night, walk to the store and through the park, walk every day of the week. OK, you can take Sunday off. But become addicted to walking, like me. It's not only good for you - it's fun and invigorating.
Isn't a fitness centre better? Let me tell you a story. One of my favourite walks is around the Cedar Hill golf course. At one point you come down a hill and there you look into the windows of the Saanich community fitness centre. While you are striding along the chip trail on a sunny day in April, with the dogtooth violets in bloom along the path, and the red-winged blackbird warbling its lovely song, you see grim-looking people on walking machines doing the same as you but going nowhere and missing out on all the beauty. And paying for it! No wonder that after three months of this rigor they decide enough's enough. By now it's summer and you are still walking, smelling the wild roses along the trail.
And another thing: walking keeps the calcium in your bones because it stresses them. Yes, your bones want some stress, too. And with calcium in your bones, you can fall, but you just get up and keep walking. But if you have always driven your car everywhere instead of walking, the calcium has leached out of these bones. Now, when you fall, you break a hip or a wrist.
Fortunately, it is never too late to mend your ways and become devoted walker. It will still help.