6
ONCE A DAY, A LITTLE INVISIBLE EXERCISE
What happens to aging dancers? If you are a professional ballroom dancer, probably you waltz into the sunset. But a professional ballet dancer, like most professional athletes, has a limited career in her prime, and often an injury ends that career, sometimes prematurely. Then what? Teaching? Or something completely new and different? Fortuitously, I have found them in the emerging bien-être (health and wellness) business. These superb, well-trained and -educated athletes know the human body well, know training well, and stand out as yoga or exercise or Pilates or gyrokinesis teachers. They coach breathing and movement and even massage at an unusually high level in a field where too many relative amateurs with modest credentials tell you what to do with your body.
As part of my longtime lifestyle approach to taking care of my nothing-special body (it has always needed help), I’ve needed a little external coaching either to learn the right type of exercise or for imposed discipline (read overcoming inertia). I’ve required the mental push of a scheduled session, and from time to time I have needed help climbing the knowledge ladder. Living in New York, I have been fortunate to meet some of the finest teachers and coaches anywhere. Alicia is one of them.
Alicia is an ex-dancer from the New York City Ballet who, after a dozen years on the professional stage and at only age thirty, succumbed to injury (and a heart broken by a long-term lover) and transitioned to a career as a certified teacher in a number of the bien-être areas I mentioned. She is truly committed and gifted. Born in northern Europe, she decided a year ago she needed a change and moved to Paris, though she did not speak French.
I reconnected with her in Paris and found she is teaching in a center for Pilates. She loves Paris, is very happy, and has started to study French. “But how can you teach in Paris when you don’t speak French?” I asked. “Easy,” she said. “Most of my clients are expats or hotel guests and tourists.”
Et voilà. Most of the French women I know, no matter their age, don’t like the idea of “exercising” or “doing sports” in a room. It’s cultural. Let’s face it, for too many it’s also a question of time (we’d rather do something else?), laziness, being a non-priority, requiring too much effort…and French women are notorious for avoiding anything that requires too much effort for too little pleasure.
And yet…exercise slows the aging process. Proven. That’s why I believe in incorporating movement (i.e., exercise, but I avoid that word because if physical activity is part of your lifestyle, it is not exercise) into my routine activities, like taking the stairs for a couple of floors rather than the elevator.
Conscious and habitual movement is a must for aging well, whether it is walking, taking the stairs, practicing yoga, dancing, swimming, biking, having sex—and, well, formal “exercising,” especially post-sixty-five—or whatever it takes to move your derrière with joy (but please don’t sweat and stress like so many celebrities who torture themselves a third of each day to stay fit. They’ll die, too, no matter the intensity). Gravity spares no one.
Slow and easy wins the race (remember the tortoise, a French woman, and the hare?)—from walking to swimming to gyrokinesis. Shape your body. Breathe better. Sharpen your senses.
I love the recent French TV and movie theater campaign message with one little line: “Manger…bouger” (Eat and move your butt). The French are succumbing to globalization, and many are getting un peu rotund and some trop. Too bad the message is so often shown below junk-food advertising (and no bureaucrat sees that the government is wasting money as one is mesmerized by the junk above?). These two verbs, eat and move, go well together, and if done consistently (yes, moderation in both cases), you are bound to hit your last decades in good or even great shape. And you will also be happier: How is that for an added bonus? Tax-free!
SCIENCE (OR NATURE) SAYS
Let’s not belabor the physical realities of growing old. If you have a little difficulty moving when you get out of bed and get going in the morning, you know what I am talking about…and if you don’t, you will. But let’s be realistic and recognize some of the physiological symptoms of aging and thus the advantages of an appropriate lifestyle incorporating physical activity.
We can understand wear and tear, especially in our joints and notably in our spines. Our connective tissues become less elastic, our lubricating fluids decrease, and our muscle fibers shorten. We slow down, enfin. Provence is just the place to experience this. The local motto is “Doucement le matin, pas trop vite l’après-midi, lentement le soir” (Gently in the morning, not so fast in the afternoon, and slowly in the evening).
We lose muscle mass through the decades (it starts in our twenties, alas), and with that, strength and endurance. It is not uncommon to be down 30 to 40 percent in muscle mass by age seventy. And since motor neurons die, particularly after age sixty, and we also lose more fast-twitch muscle fibers than slow-twitch, we lose quickness as well as balance.
Starting as early as twenty-five, our cardiovascular systems begin to decline. Our heart rates decrease by five to ten beats a minute per decade. Our oxygen-intake capacity decreases about 5 percent per decade. Big oxygen-carrying blood vessels stiffen, and blood pressure rises. Our respiratory systems can decline 40 to 50 percent from peak capacity. Enough.
If we were still living in an agrarian society, our lifestyles would presumably involve the equivalent of cross-training, but, of course, we would then not likely die of old age, rather of disease or accident. But living in a knowledge economy, we experience a sedentary lifestyle that correlates with increased education. Yes, there is a price you pay for everything.
WHAT TO DO? AND THE BENEFITS
If you drive to work or shopping and drive around looking for the parking space closest to where you need to go, may I suggest an attitude adjustment and just take the first space and walk from there? You may have heard that before. I know I shared that tip in 2004 and it seemed like a novel idea; now it is a common recommendation. But do you take it? The point is to look in the mirror and ask yourself if your normal daily routine involves at least thirty to sixty minutes of physical activity. If not, why not? Less is not healthy. Here’s an instance where less is not more. Why are you living an unhealthy lifestyle?
Using our bodies will not stop the aging process, but it can slow it down…beaucoup. And we not only can add a proven year or more to our lives compared to those with a more sedentary lifestyle, but we can significantly increase the quality of our lives during our advancing years.
Physical activity can increase muscle mass and strength, increase metabolic rate, decrease bad cholesterol, decrease memory lapses, increase the quality of sleep, decrease blood pressure, decrease muscle stiffness, and increase mobility and balance. Need any more convincing?
When we think about using our bodies, we need to recognize:
Strength
Flexibility
Aerobics
Breathing
Your daily healthy lifestyle should involve body movements that will increase your strength, increase your heart rate, fill your lungs, stretch your muscles and connective tissues, and if not, you need to fill in the gaps. That means add an activity that addresses the weakness. Walking up three or four flights of stairs would seem to hit all bases. But there are times and situations when you indeed decide to “exercise.”
Strength training is a likely candidate. The very good news is there are dramatically good results and benefits to muscle buildup, balance, posture, gait, and musculature via strength fitness throughout and especially late in life. So there may be some free weights in your future as well as the standard resistance training exercises. I have come to appreciate of late the supreme value of strengthening my core, and its value in maintaining balance, posture, breathing capacity, and avoiding back and other pains and increasing flexibility. So now I have tuned in to a regular series of Pilates movements in my weekly at-home, anti-aging or, rather, living-healthy-to-the-max campaign.
Generally, people do not injure themselves walking, taking the stairs, or swimming. “Gym” exercises are something else. At some point you will need a trainer or physical therapist or to attend a class to help you select the right exercises that will address your particular body needs.
My husband has a short routine of morning exercises to stretch and strengthen muscles to address lower back issues. His exercises evolved a bit over a decade and recently a few preventive sessions with a physical therapist revealed that a couple of the exercises right out of classic exercise routines were exactly the wrong ones for him.
The Internet is incredible and can be a great resource that has made physicians and exercise therapists out of many. It is wonderful to be informed about causes, options, and treatments. It is also a dangerous thing, as we Internet-MDs are amateurs. Somewhere in solving our equations, we need the value of a trusted expert to work with, especially if we have any history of health issues or concerns.
THE MINIMALIST (IT USED TO BE ME)
Every Sunday morning when I walk through the Luxembourg Gardens near my home in Paris, I see a group of men and women, some quite elderly, doing Tai Chi. In the park, under the trees, this slow-motion choreographed movement is engaging and somewhat amusing to see. Is it exercise? Strength training? Balance fitness? Is it a leisure activity? Fun? For these people, no doubt all of the above. One hundred meters away, people are having their Sunday morning tennis matches. To me, both beat going to the gym. They are pleasurable lifestyle activities that are part of a healthy routine.
Walking is a part of being for most French women. We walk everywhere (at least those who are living French Women Don’t Get Fat lives), and if we feel there is not enough of it, we create it. I see countless French women walking the stairs, not riding on escalators. I cannot say enough that walking is one of the best of exercises and movements, but too rarely do people in much of the world say, “I am going for a walk.” Americans go hiking or work out on treadmills—again scheduling a workout rather than making it part of their routine movement. Really, all one needs to do is take a twenty-minute walk most days. Before breakfast is best, but anytime is good. Need a bit more of an unusual twist to motivate you? Try pole walking or aqua gym. They have caught the attention of the French. And then there is the universal approach: get a dog!
So let us be clear: walking at least twenty minutes a day is the very best nonexercise exercise you can do for your health and fitness. It is also the best weight-loss program. I do at least forty minutes of walking a day and some days, two hours. New York has subways, but on a nice day (and New York has comparatively good weather ten months a year), I plan to walk back the half hour or hour from wherever I am during the daytime. You can comfortably walk miles in that time. I have a friend who lives in Florida and meets her neighborhood girlfriends before work each weekday morning for their thirty-minute walk and talk. Excellent. Lots of benefits, and I am reminded of the old Mexican proverb: “Conversation is food for the soul.” So walking and talking is soul food of more than one kind when we age with attitude.
I am simply amazed by people in apartment buildings who live on the second floor and take the elevator up and down. That is just about everyone in America. In my apartment building in Manhattan, it is not uncommon to see people, many in their twenties and thirties, take the elevator in their workout clothes to go to the gym in the building. I have yet to step into that gym…and I suspect they have yet to step into the perfectly clean, safe, and well-lit stairwell.
Again, a mirror question: Do you include this simplest and best of movements in your daily activities? One can start adding a walk to one’s daily routine at any time. Certainly, in spring and fall in most places it is lovely to be outside, plus we absorb the light, which helps us mentally and physically. Again, a walking routine made up of a mix of warm-ups and stretching, cardiovascular effort (use a brisk pace for a while), muscle strengthening, and relaxation can do wonders.
I don’t mean to suggest that everyone can fit all their exercise into routine activities; some must schedule a few or all times of exercise.
While working a normal business week, which for too many of us means long hours, the option to embrace physical activity can be a challenge. Personally, I added twenty minutes of yoga or a walk first thing in the morning before going to work each day (and more during the day on weekends). It became a religion.
Dr. Miracle (of French Women Don’t Get Fat) gave me the best advice early on: whatever you do for twenty minutes or so, do it before breakfast. Except he never explained why, and young me never questioned him or thought about asking, “Why before breakfast?” My cousin, once a professional athlete, explained recently (he is in his fifties, fit as a fiddle, always in a good mood, and funny nonstop) that the method is ideal to shed a few pounds easily. (Yes, can I share a secret? I now strongly believe that twenty minutes or so of exercise or yoga before breakfast has allowed me to keep my weight steady throughout life.) He explained to me in simple terms that doing any sport before eating breakfast is a winner, as during the night, the body gets its energy from the reserve in fat and it continues when we get up as long as we have not eaten. Thereafter it takes energy from our recently ingested food. So try adding some movement before breakfast for a few months (don’t forget a glass of water first, though), and watch your middle melt down.
If you can’t get up early (or early enough) in the morning, though, don’t give up. It still is better to do something in the evening or at lunchtime than to do nothing at all. But I didn’t need to tell you that…or did I need to remind you?
BREATHING
The biggest discovery I have made as I have aged (here my self-conscious self wanted to write “matured,” not “aged,” but the mirror said “aged”) is the power and importance of breathing. I am not being silly—of course we have to breathe to live. (We do it about 21,000 times a day as our body and cells require roughly 88 pounds of oxygen a day.) But breathing properly and incorporating breathing exercises and techniques into our day can be transformational. That is why I included it earlier on par with strength fitness, aerobic activity, and flexibility training.
Breathing can be all three and certainly is a branch of mental medicine. And as we age, the working of our diaphragm and expansion of the intake into our lungs adds oxygen that gives us more energy and endurance. It is an anti-aging attitude and movement that also makes us calmer, less affected by anxiety. Stress is not good for one’s health, of course. Regular attention to our breathing literally improves our lives and health and our approach to aging. Why don’t they teach that in schools?
In Provence, my husband and I came across a massage “therapist” from Cameroon who is a priestess of breathing. Her sessions are a bit like a séance with scented candles and a mantra-like slow chanting of “Respirez…respirez” (and sometimes “Abandonnez-vous” [Lose yourself]). It works…relaxes you in a hurry. (Breathe…pause…breathe.) “Respirez” has become something of an inside joke for us.
For years I was reminded that my breathing was shallow, and it was. I’ve worked to correct it—I am still working on it—and have made slow yet amazing improvements that have affected so many parts of my life.
I’ve witnessed poor breathing countless times in all sorts of locations and settings, watching people performing some kind of movement from aerobics to Tai Chi to dancing, but also watching people talk at meetings, make a presentation, or sing.
We think we know how to inhale and exhale and breathe through our nostrils, yet most of us don’t do it well or even adequately. Watch an infant and you will see proper breathing, also called belly breathing, using the diaphragm (most of us breathe through our chests). Make it second nature and it will change your life. For one thing it will eliminate anxiety symptoms.
I learned about proper breathing and a host of breathing exercises through yoga. Yoga is not an invisible exercise; you have to carve out time for it. Yet apart from those who insist on squeezing as much as they can into the briefest of times…and breaking a sweat, it is a series of calming and relaxing stretches and postures.
Here is my yoga story: I had a class or two while a student in Paris. That’s when the trend started. I didn’t get it. So I forgot about it for almost two decades. Then in my late thirties and in New York, I suffered a backlash in a cab while on a job appointment, and for the following year the pain was constant (except for the hour at the chiropractor and the hour following), mostly brutal, and at times unbearable, until an Italian acquaintance who had lived here recommended her yoga teacher…two blocks from my office! Within two classes the pain was gone. Faith was the woman with the golden hands who did confess I may have to do some for the rest of my life. A new life, or my next life, as I felt so relieved, so happy, so overwhelmed that I could be myself again. I started practicing, first at her studio with thirty-minute private classes during my lunchtime, then in her small group evening class whenever I was in town. The more I learned, the more I loved it. After a few years, I started my own a.m. practice, and to this day can’t live without it. It enriches my life physically, mentally, and professionally, and much, much more. When I skip it, I know my day won’t be the same.
If you haven’t yet tried yoga, it may be a good time to do so. It will add to your life in ways you can’t imagine.
Some learn breathing techniques through playing a wind instrument and others through sports, including swimming. I am not much of an athlete, but I like swimming, even though I am not a strong swimmer. I paddle along. When I sync my breathing and movements and mind, I am shocked by how much my endurance improves. I just keep going lap after lap like I am walking. It’s all in the breathing. So much is all about breathing. Absolument.
A nice thing about breathing exercises is that you can do them almost anywhere and anytime throughout the day. Here are four that I do regularly: The first is a simple and calming way to relearn breathing by focusing on your diaphragm. This one certainly builds up stomach/diaphragm muscles and has the bonus of flattening one’s tummy and protecting one’s back. Another especially builds aerobic capacity, and the last exercise calms one and reduces blood pressure. Amazing.
1. Diaphragm Practice
You can do this standing, sitting on a chair, or lying down. Do it regularly for a few minutes and concentrate on nothing else. If thoughts come up, just recognize them, put them aside, and continue focusing on your breathing. I recognize that this and the other exercises are incredibly basic, but proven. Give it a try.
Breathe into your diaphragm (feel your belly button go out then in with the tightening of your abdominal muscles).
Think belly breathing like a baby and use the diaphragm, as noted earlier, because it’s better than breathing through the chest. As you breathe in, place your hand on your belly and feel it expand with the intake of oxygen; as you breathe out, pull your belly button in toward your spine.
Inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth, taking more time to exhale than to inhale (you can slowly count to two for inhale and four for exhale).
Progressively slow your breathing per minute (with deeper breaths counting to four for inhale and eight for exhale).
2. Body Release
This exercise helps dispel tension in the muscles and joints. Some yoga teachers always end with this session; others start and end with it. It’s called “Savasana” and completely relaxes your body. Five to ten minutes is a good stretch. If you do it longer (especially at work!), watch, as you may get so relaxed you’ll fall asleep (I plead guilty to that one). The idea is to stay awake, so focus.
When I am working hard or traveling and feel stressed, this simple routine gets me back to normal in little time.
Position your body correctly on the floor, lying preferably on a mat (I’ve done it at work on my office floor or when on the road on a hotel towel) on your back, which makes the spine relax. Before starting the breathing routine, check the following:
Your head is straight, looking at the ceiling, and not tilted or rolling forward.
Your neck is lengthened.
Your shoulders are level/parallel and relaxing away from the neck.
Your arms are resting slightly away from your body, with elbows slightly bent and palms up.
Your hips are level/parallel.
Your hips and knees are hip-width apart, parallel, with feet falling outward.
Your pelvis is held in a way that maintains the normal concave curve of the lower back at the waist (until it becomes automatic, after the first time or two, this is the only part where you may need someone to tell you if you are positioned correctly—there should be a space between the floor and the curve of your back).
Now that you are comfortable on your back, close your eyes and mouth and start with a few breaths (remember to breathe with your diaphragm):
Inhale slowly, pause one or two seconds, exhale slowly, and repeat for a few minutes until you feel relaxed.
3. Alternate Nostril Breathing
This is another classic exercise to improve breathing that you can do anywhere and anytime, even sitting at a desk or the kitchen table. I do it every morning and it brings great calm.
To start, breathe through the left nostril. Close the right nostril with your thumb and inhale through the left nostril, counting to four. Exhale while counting to eight. Repeat six times. Do the same with the right nostril.
When you are comfortable with the single-nostril breathing, you can do the alternate one. Try to do twelve rounds for best results.
The next variation is to inhale through the left nostril while counting to four. Close nostrils and hold your breath, counting to sixteen. Exhale through the right nostril, counting to eight. Inhale through the right nostril, counting to four. Close both nostrils and hold your breath, counting to sixteen. Exhale through the left nostril, counting to eight. Do three repetitions and then do the reverse, starting with your right thumb on the right nostril.
4. Rapid Breathing
Known as “Kapalabhati,” this basic rapid-breathing exercise is a powerful one, literally a cleanser. This one certainly builds stomach muscles, and, yes, breathing burns calories, but who’s counting?
Find a comfortable sitting position. Make sure your spine is straight. To help you focus, put your hands in the yoga position: palms on your thighs and your index finger and thumb touching, and inwardly look at the so-called third eye between your eyebrows.
With your mouth closed, eyes lowered or closed, do short, sharp exhales through the nose while squeezing/tightening the abdomen. Push, push, push air out your nostrils. Do not inhale; it will occur naturally.
Start with twenty repetitions, then relax the abdomen, allowing the lungs to fill with air. You can build up to fifty or even one hundred repetitions.