Wow am I late on this blog this week! I have been in a week of stressful rehearsals
and a return from our Spring Break that took me for a ride when I
returned. The piece of advice I want to
focus on this week is daily exercise.
There have been a number of new studies that have pointed to the
effectiveness of exercise for a HUGE number reasons.
But…before I do that, I just wanted to quick update on my
last ten days or so.
What went well?
OK, so everything is fine, but I came into Spring Break with
a HUGE does of exhaustion and found myself ill the first two days of my little
vacation. This is a common physical
reaction, emerging out of stress.
Healthy amounts of stress from good work and an active lifestyle will
keep your immune system in tip-top shape.
Being OVERWORKED or OVER-stressed from too much exercise and a diet that
is unhealthy will make you sick. I was
just a bit over-stressed during the week prior to Spring Break, so my body
reacted by letting my immune system go lax for a moment and I caught a little
cold. So, then I just took a day of rest
and recovered quickly. In terms of
eating and sleeping and keeping my health journal and well-being journal….it’s
all going fine. I have a few days here
and there where I didn’t get enough vegetables and I didn’t maybe get enough
probiotics or protein. I am still having
my struggle with salty foods – sometimes I just really crave tortilla chips or
salty tomato sauce on pizza. I have read
that if you crave salt, you actually need potassium, calcium, iron and
magnesium. So, this next week I am going
to work at getting more natural sources of these foods. Beets, kale, greens of all kinds, hemp
hearts, black beans, coconut, etc. We’ll
see how that goes.
What didn’t go well?
Getting sick always takes me off track for a bit and I found
myself depressed and this made it difficult for me to get moving again and I
stopped lifting weights. Then, I seem to
have hurt my neck because I was not doing my normal routine, which gives a
tremendous amount of core strength. Do
you know that you lose core strength and flexibility in less than 5 days if you
are not exercising it? Yeah…just five
days. So, I fell off the wagon on weight
lifting. I did do a lot of yoga, but the
focusing in on specific muscle groups is necessary. I’ll get it back this next week. Promise.
Now, let’s get to the importance of exercise. First, there is a new study that if you
exercise, as a woman, for just one hour per day, you reduce your risk of breast
cancer significantly. Second, there is a
study out that if you begin to exercise in your 20s, you significantly increase
your chances of having a healthy brain in your 40s and beyond. Now, of course, any time you begin exercise
is good, so you should begin as soon as possible. Even elderly people who have not ever
exercised significantly do themselves a world of good by beginning to
exercise. Other studies recently released
show an increase of brain health generally from exercise. Exercise fights gum disease as well! Yes…yes it affects your teeth and your oral
health. People who exercise regularly
get fewer infections and are less likely to get communicable diseases such as
influenza. And the list goes on, but I
do think that THE most significant feature is that it radically reduces your
risk of cancer. Here’s the most recent
study on breast cancer:
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