Exercise and physical fitness are critical to maintaining good health. As you will see throughout this book, regular physical activity can not only help control weight, but also can prevent or delay the onset of disease, increase energy, enhance mood, and boost longevity. Unfortunately, as reported in a 2013 survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), only about 18 percent of American women and 23 percent of men get the recommended amounts of both aerobic and muscle-strengthening exercise per week.
Women need different forms of exercise for total body fitness. Aerobic exercise is especially good for the heart. It keeps your cardiovascular system in good shape. Studies show that as little as thirty minutes of exercise twice a week actually creates collateral circulation in the coronary arteries. For maximum benefit, aerobic exercise should be done three or four times a week for at least twenty to thirty minutes. Start slowly, increasing the amount of time and intensity by about 10 percent every two weeks. Among the specific aerobic activities are fast walking, jogging, swimming, bicycling, and jumping rope.
Weight-bearing exercises help to build up your bones, and prevent osteoporosis. They work your bones and muscles against gravity. Weight-bearing activities include walking, jogging, tennis and other racquet sports, and weight training with free weights or machines.
Yoga and qi gong are among the age-old methods that have been gaining popularity in recent years. Yoga has been found to help build and fortify bones, keep muscles strong and flexible, improve posture, and help with balance and coordination. Qi gong is an ancient Chinese practice that uses aerobic exercise, meditation, relaxation techniques, and isometrics to control the vital energy of the body. Like many Asian therapies, it emphasizes the unity of mind, spirit, and world. Qi gong is useful in relieving hot flashes and night sweats associated with menopause, menstrual irregularities, breast pain, kidney dysfunction, and sexual energy problems.
Dr. Joseph Pizzorno, past president of John Bastyr College of Naturopathic Medicine in Washington, says that strengthening exercises are the best defense against the increased frailty women face as they age. “It turns out that the majority of the debility of old age is simply due to people not using their muscles. The full strength of what one had at twenty and thirty is almost completely returned with weight-strengthening exercises. Weights are used in a very, very controlled, very, very intense way to get maximum effects from the exercise. I am quite impressed with what I have seen.”
Chiropractor Mitch Proffman says that traditional cultures have long appreciated the connection between physical fitness and longevity, making athletic activities a part of women’s ritual ceremonies. “In Navajo society,” he explains, “women would run three times daily as a formal part of the four-day rites of passage after the onset of menstruation. The first run was at dawn, and each subsequent run would be for a longer distance. It was believed that the total distance a woman could run would determine her longevity.”
Research supports the connection between exercise and a longer life. “The Journal of the American Medical Association has reported that exercise increases people’s life spans,” Proffman says. “Women walking forty to fifty minutes, three to four times per week, live longer. The same article claims that exercise decreases the chance of dying from all known diseases. This can be attributed to the fact that most major diseases, such as cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, are stressrelated, and exercise reduces stress.”
Another important function of exercising is improving mental state. There’s research in this area as well. “In a study at the University of Illinois,” Proffman explains, “Dr. William Greenboro studied four different groups of rats. One group led a sedentary life. Another group played aimlessly on wood and plastic in their cages. A third group was on a special motorized wheel, and a fourth group walked through intricate mazes and ropes. The finding was that all rats that exercised in any manner had more capillaries in their brains and better brain function. This suggests that exercise fuels the brain with more oxygen and increases natural growth factors, in humans as well as in rats.”
For people with mental health concerns, exercise is especially critical. “It is important for depressed people to get up and get dressed,” said the late holistic medicine pioneer Dr. William Goldwag. “They should not walk around in pajamas or nightgowns because this maintains that connection to the bed and the bed means inactivity. That’s the thing you’re trying to overcome. Exercise may take the form of walking, walking the dog perhaps, or going outside to do some simple gardening. These are all very important for overcoming that feeling of lassitude that is so characteristic of depression.
“Another benefit of exercise is a feeling of accomplishment. Even doing a little bit of exercise will make you feel more energized later on. Finishing an exercise routine, even one that’s fatiguing, after a brief period of rest, will give you a feeling of revitalization, of energy, and a psychological feeling of accomplishment. It gives a feeling of, ‘I’ve done it. It’s completed.’ For the depressed individual, the boost to self-esteem that this can give is important.”
An exercise program must be tailored to the individual. “There is no one exercise that is good for everybody,” said Dr. Goldwag. “Some people can just do a little bit; some can push themselves much further. Ask anybody who has gone from a relatively sedentary life to an exercise program and they will all report the same thing: more energy, more interest in what is going on, a clearer mind and less stress. Being active, therefore, is an integral part of any kind of medical program, particularly for people who are having mental disturbances.”
Dr. Judith Sachs agrees that exercise “triggers all of these brain stimulants that make us feel good, these natural opiates. This is another system we have in the brain that takes away pain and gives us pleasure. A lot of people who run say, ‘Well it feels so good when I stop,’ but even people who are not crazy about that kind of exercise are finding that they feel better. They feel efficient, like the body is not just this house that they happen to live in, but has actually become an integral part of their mind, their spirit, the whole way that they approach themselves and other people. That can really turn around a lack of self-confidence, a lack of self-esteem. When you’ve said ‘all I could do was to walk down to the mailbox to get my mail’ and suddenly you are able to run up five flights of stairs or run a minimarathon—that can make you feel very effective as a person.”