Maybe you had the same experience. When I was a girl, there were two prompts my mother frequently gave me. The first: “Stand up straight; chin up, shoulders back, stomach in”. The second: “If you can’t say anything nice about someone, don’t say anything at all”. She might not have known it, but those two pieces of advice were more important than she imagined.
Good posture is often seen as a sign of respect and alertness; its absence a sign of laziness or apathy. Dr. James Proodian, a Chiropractor and Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist, compares the human head to a 10-12 pound bowling ball sitting on your neck. He points out that shifting your head forward slightly, a mere 15 degrees, doubles the weight of your head on your spine. A 45 degree tilt increases its weight to 49 pounds. The resulting stress on your spine, muscles and nerves can cause serious damage across time.
If you tilt forward while sitting, ever so common with today’s technology, there’s a whole new set of issues. Sitting has been referenced as the new smoking in terms on negative impact on health. We take our health so much for granted – we need to move!
The need to move is underscored by the work of Marshall Naimo, a fifth-year doctoral student in exercise physiology at West Virginia University’s School of Medicine. The American Society on Society recently recognized Naimo with its annual Graduate Student Research Award as producing the best unpublished graduate research paper in the field of aging.
Naimo has committed his study and future career to research on aging skeletal muscles to determine the best possible exercise prescription to stave off muscle wasting. He firmly believes that “exercise is aging medicine”. While resistance training is key, research is showing too much or too frequent can be a detriment depending on circumstance. Naimo believes that finding a proper resistance exercise prescription “…can show more improvements in strength and, even down to the molecular level, a better muscle growth response…in which older muscles are indistinguishable from younger muscles”. Cool.
So what about mother’s second piece of advice about not commenting on the negative? Shawn Achor, a Harvard author and researcher, believes that happiness is a choice that becomes key to health, wellness and success. His work looks at the physiology of why a person’s brain experience “…performs significantly better in a positive state than in a negative, neutral or stressed state.” In studying persons going through the hardest of times, he found people still could choose what to focus their brains on.
By changing the lens through which your brain views the world, Achor finds, “…not only can you change your happiness, but you can change every single educational and business outcome you’re involved in at the same time”. He offers a number of ways to train your brain to be more positive. To counter negative images of aging he shifts focus to resilience and healthy choices.
A recommended way to start shifting the brain’s focus is with gratitude exercises. “Gratitude experts” are evolving in the field of psychology at several universities.
Interestingly, the Aging Mastery Program [AMP], a nationally acclaimed curriculum on successful aging, begins in part with consideration of gratitude as a way to view the world. Aging Mastery Program classes are rolling out beginning mid-June at locations in Berrien, Cass and VanBuren counites. One 90 minute topic with outside experts per week, for 10 weeks, could change your life; so say initial participants in the class. One couple commented, “Even when you think you are perfectly prepared for your later years, AMP teaches you about 10 very important areas in your life… we have found the benefits to be huge!”
Check out the curriculum, location and times of classes at www.AreaAgencyonAging.org . Campus for Creative Aging – Aging Mastery is on the home page. For other class offerings click “News & Events”, then “Education & Training”.
Join us – life is good!