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The weekly blog is sent via weekly email and archived here. Topics range a wide spectrum of prevention and health tactics, following best evidence research as a framework.
On Saplings, Stiffness, & Self Care
On Saplings, Stiffness, & Self Care
I love being outdoors. I think that's been the case most of my life. Many years ago that came to life by trading chores with my siblings; I'd take the outdoor projects if I could unload the ones inside. In fairness there are things I don't love "about" the outdoors.....gnats and mosquitoes, poison ivy and deer who think everything planted is for their consumption......but generally speaking, if given the choice, you can find me finding the fresh air. And so with the nearly perfect sunny skies and relative low humidity this past long (Labor Day) weekend, it was a great opportunity to get a bunch done.
Although my mind and soul were more than willing to get "out there" and log long days, my body, the third leg of the stool, was a little less ready as I was reminded when the alarm rang out on Tuesday morning. The hours of bending, twisting, lifting, lowering, carrying and crouching that the tasks of the day (critter-proofing the yard with a fence and planting some sapling trees) demanded had left me in the throes of recovery. Muscles that took a little time to get going (classic stiffness), a few cranky areas to remind me a few days doing something different would be wise (soreness/mild discomfort) and an energy level that snooze buttons were made for....all signs I had over-reached.
As a generally desk-bound human whose primary tool of the trade is a laptop, I am very well conditioned to sit at a desk and point, click, type and note. By the end of the day my brain is tired but my body feels fine. HOWEVER, as a person who is past the age when we naturally get stronger and more adaptable (sadly that age is around 30 years old after which we lose 3-8% per year), I am learning (and relearning at times) the lesson that expecting my body to just "go" and not yell at me later might be a poor assumption.
But here's the best part.....if we take the warning bells of stiffness and mild discomfort seriously, apply the right self-care tactics and nudge the body move through the RECOVER process....we can not only get through to the other side, but emerge stronger.
The basics
1. MOVE - day 1 was low intensity, high frequency - nothing too regimented, rather I just thought back to the "offending" movements I was doing over the weekend (lots of bending and stooping) and tried to counterbalance by nudging things in the opposite direction. This meant "standing tall" by gently pulling shoulders back backward, sticking chest through and tucking my chin to elongate my neck (I like the headrest on the car for this). On day 2 I avoided heavy loading exercises but opted for an easy run instead.
2. FUEL for recovery - I tried to eat especially clean (low process, low sugar, high fiber) and drink enough water ("straw" urine color) which helps provide the right nutrients without the inflammatory bump.
3. RECOVER with sleep - I couldn't get to bed early unfortunately (best option) but I was able to ramp down earlier than I normally do. This helped me to get the highest quality sleep possible.
The result?
By day 2 I was mostly back to normal.....and by day 3 I was feeling nearly recharged.....just in time, if the weather cooperates, to do it all over again this weekend :)
Maintaining health & fitness is complex, but definitely not impossible. A little push here and some pullback there and we can expect to stay stronger, longer.
Have a great weekend,
Mike E.
Bend, Don't Break
Bend, Don't Break
Sept 4
8 months in the books. Labor Day weekend is here and there are only a few official weeks of Summer left. With any luck, we are through the heat waves and the devastating storms. With any luck we have been stretched but not torn, challenged but not beyond our limit.
A person's "ability to manage and positively adapt to adverse conditions", known as resilience, has been shown to support both physical and mental well-being as we go through life.....and it is one of the critical strengths we can hope for during periods of prolonged uncertainty like the kind 2020 has seen.
With that in mind, and with a holiday that celebrates hard-working-people providing a perfect backdrop, now may be a great time to reflect on where we stand in this category and make some adjustments if needed.
So how do you know whether you're resilient?
In truth there's probably no perfect way to know, but we can get close by rating ourselves on the following 14 statements on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree):
1. I usually manage one way or another
2. I feel proud that I have accomplished things in life
3. I usually take things in stride
4. I am friends with myself
5. I feel that I can handle many things at a time
6. I am determined
7. I can get through difficult times because I've experienced difficulty before
8. I have self-discipline
9. I keep interested in things
10. I can usually find something to laugh about
11. My belief in myself gets me through hard times
12. In an emergency, I'm someone people can generally rely on
13. My life has meaning
14. When I'm in a difficult situation, I can usually find my way out of it
Now add up your scores. Did you score above 82? If so and you can maintain that outlook as you age (so says the research) you are more than twice as likely to report good health later in life.
Maybe more importantly, the following factors are known to underpin this capacity and high rating:
Optimism, adaptive coping styles, community involvement, social support/connectedness, physical independence, high mobility, physical well-being and self-rated "successful" aging.
What does this mean for those of us who'd believe the next 8 months may require as much (or more) resilience as the last 8 have?
Well - getting moving, improving health and keeping life's challenges in perspective can go a very long way.....in a very short time. When you're ready, we're here.
Work hard and stay strong. Bend, but don't break.
Have a great Labor Day,
Mike E.
Respect the Fuel Light
Respect the Fuel Light
Aug 14
"Fatigue makes cowards of us all" as the saying goes....and no one is quite sure who said it first. Although it sounds like Vince Lombardi (one person it's often attributed to), the quote has also been attributed to US Army General George Patton. It probably doesn't matter. Whoever did actually say it first couldn't possibly have known how far down the rabbit hole the statement would take us.
Whether it be the quest to quantify and qualify the factors of fatigue which leave us uncomfortable, irritable and error-prone when we hit our threshold, or the endless supply of performances we hold up as "heroic" when people find a way to defy those same factors, it holds a place of importance and mystery in day to day life.
Take for example this week's prime time show of endurance - 5 overtime periods in a playoff hockey game - FIVE! Even in defeat, the losing goalie was breaking records for saves. How is this possible? What will it do to these players over the next games? Will injury rates go up? Plenty to speculate about there.
But it's not just "fun and games" (and professional athletics) is it? What about if it's experienced during high-stakes work like natural disaster restoration? Is it the same?
Well, no.....and yes.
No - disaster recovery work is rarely done by people with endorsement deals or deep interest in personal jersey sales. They are simply playing a different game altogether.
And yes, understanding the factors and knowing how to proceed is critical if we are to find that "zone" which seems to live in the space between hard-earned success and the risks of injury/illness/disease to get there.
Take for example this recent paper which profiled National Guard Medical Personnel during intensive disaster training. Highly trained people doing meaningful work who, when they got tired (as measured by a simple rating 0-9 scale which has been around since 1990), made substantially more errors......exactly as the researchers expected.
What really stood out to me was how significant the difference was - those who felt energetic averaged 91% accuracy (error-free) and those who felt really fatigued only 60% - a full 30% difference. Like many who perform high-risk tasks as part of their work, these included life-or-death decisions, so an error rate of 4 of every 10 chances is a little scary. If we were to give it a letter grade, the well-rested folks would be scoring an "A" or close to it where the tired folks would almost be failing....yikes.
What's the take-away?
We shouldn't be afraid of fatigue. As humans, our systems actually get stronger when we see it as a warning light and refill the tank with rest to RECOVER fully from it. However, as seen in research environments and the real world, since our performance clearly begins to degrade and the risk of failure climbs quickly when we begin to sputter and run out of gas, we should definitely respect it.
If you're running on fumes, please reach out to discuss a refueling and RECOVER strategy any time.
Stay strong,
Mike E.
From the Gut: Win the Summer
From the Gut: Win the Summer
July 17.
As I bit into a ripe peach on Tuesday I found myself with an urge to drive North. Not way North, like the mountains (although that sounds cool).....but just a few miles to a place where some fond family memories have been made. I flashed back to rows and rows of apple and peach trees and a time when my kids were young enough that I could lift them up so they could reach for the "really good ones" at the top.....and this is almost the perfect time of year to go.
Of course it's not only peaches. Gardens everywhere are starting to produce....another great sign that summer is in full swing and whether you're a fresh fruit/veggie lover or just someone who is trying to stay vibrant, young and healthy, this is great news.
In addition to the almost countless benefits of eating fresh, low-processed, high fiber foods (there are MANY), some recent research from the University of Colorado has given us an even better understanding of why - especially if, summertime also means barbecue.
For a while now we've known that consuming certain foods (especially red-meats and animal sources of protein) ramps up the production of a byproduct called TMAO, which has been tied to heart disease and accelerated aging at the cellular level. With that in mind, it's been suspected that foods that neutralize this production could help minimize that harm or even reverse the signs of aging. And now, with the help of certain gut bacteria, it seems the theory is right.
How can we nudge these bacteria into action?
Well, certain foods that contain a substance called dimethyl butanol, such as grapes & moderate amounts of red wine, certain balsamic vinegars, citrus and cold-pressed oils such as olive/grapeseed as well as certain fish-oils all have the track-record of getting this started.
It's not a cure-all. It doesn't mean the piece of parsley will counteract all the impact of a 40 oz. steak.....but what it does mean is we've got another solid tactic and a perfect time of year to experiment with it.....and since we know the same approach has a strong impact on priming the immune system and keeping it ready to fight whatever we might be exposed to.....it can help us win the summer.
A trip for pick-your-own may not be in the cards for everyone.....but picking up a handful of fresh veggies and working them into your summer meal prep can go a long way.
Have a great weekend, win the summer,
Mike E.
Chirping Detectors & Barking Dogs
Chirping Detectors & Barking Dogs
FEB 14:
I woke up out of a deep sleep to the howling bark of Charlie. He’s a fairly generic “yellow dog” we adopted a few years back. He’s mostly a good pet and running partner who mostly respects the fact that in our house dogs live downstairs. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I didn’t need to get everyone out of the house or call 911; that I
must’ve missed one of the 9 volt batteries during the annual smoke detector refresh. It was now yelling at me in that chirping tone that only seems to happen in the middle of the night. I didn’t hear the smoke detector....slept right through its chirps, but I definitely heard Charlie and knew how to respond. I’m not sure if he just hates the chirp too or if he was really trying to make sure we reacted, but his amplification of the bells/whistles going off was enough to get me to act.
20 years ago I witnessed a similar scenario in a very different context. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was in Moorestown, NJ meeting a group of folks who did underground and buried electric cable work and casually asked if anyone had experienced something similar to the numb & tingly hands I had read about in a recent journal. One person nodded, the next person said “yeah” (almost like “of course....duh”) and then person by person, like the wave rolling through a stadium, nearly every person in the room that day said they had. Intrigued, I asked a ton more questions and was able to piece together that some people heard their body chirp, knew it was time to perform some routine maintenance and reset the sensor, while others had an amplified response that often included pain. Something we now know to be the difference between a normally sensitive and an amplified (“sensitized”) nervous system.
Fast forward to today. There I was, in front of a group I had never met before, demonstrating testing and correction techniques of the exact same structures and sensors. Their eyes lit up when they realized they could ”quiet barking dogs” and ultimately calm irritated areas, long enough to “change the battery” and get the system back into a rest mode. It only got better when I explained that certain foods, such as those heavy in nutrients & fiber and naturally low in sugar & processing (fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds, certain spices, etc) as wells as improved sleep, stress management and even human connection all could help make the changes permanent. It’s one of my favorite realizations to watch take over a room; almost like stress melting away as people understand that THEY are at the controls of most aches and pains. It’s one of the cooler things we get to see; people who with a little guidance and active nudging, reset their systems and get back to freely moving about their lives.
The human sensory experience is truly fascinating. It can be scary when the chirps and barks of pain are going off. The good news is, if we know how to interpret the messages and react appropriately, when to ask for help and when to just change the battery, we can usually reset & restore the system. Let us know if you need help getting started.
Have a great weekend,
Mike E.
TRAIN Movements, Not Muscles
TRAIN Movements, Not Muscles
JAN 31: I can remember like it was yesterday the first time I read the research on the sit-rise-test in 2012. As far as movement & longevity research goes, it was about as provocative as there is - after looking at 2000 people aged 50-80 and following them for 6 years, researchers found that those who had the mobility, control and balance to sit to the floor and stand back up with no use of support (no hands, knees, etc) has a substantially lower risk of dying than those who needed extra support (HERE)....wow.
Since then we’ve tested hundreds if not thousands of people not to predict their demise, but as a great way of helping them to learn exactly how mobile (or not) they are, and connect something they care about (future health) to something actionable today - their movement. It started a conversation that ultimately turned into a headline I’ve said aloud countless times: “Movement is a window into your future health” and it’s helped to show people real progress as they improve....so what’s not to love?
Well, like most things provocative, the details sometimes get glazed over when the headline is attention grabbing enough. There is a tendency to sensationalize (and “study for”) the test instead of what the test reveals: lower body movement, strength and power combined with aerobic fitness, balance and coordination ALL matter. Any one of them without the others is not nearly as effective. With that in mind, training movements and not muscles is a great way to add resilience against injury and improve overall athleticism and performance. This is particularly true for key zones in the body such as the hip and shoulder, connections and crossroads to the torso.
Squatting for example, that is the ability to achieve a hips below knees position with heels on the floor, is an excellent and highly functional mobility goal for many (maybe even most) individuals. It’s a classic fundamental human movement (like walking/running/reaching), something that almost everyone can do when we are kids but tends to get lost as we advance through our “working years”. It is also something that can, if dosed and graded appropriately, significantly impact pain at the knees and lower back because mobility there (hips) can help distribute forces that sometimes get focused at the joints above (lower back) and below (knees). Although we always suggest loose enough fitting clothes to avoid any wardrobe malfunctions (super bowl throwback), it’s one of the movements that are always near the top of the priority list.
So, as I shared last week, even if you struggle with the “test”......the news is good; progress is attainable for most, and incremental work can get us there.
Let us know how it goes….and, of course, if you need help with ways to improve.
Have a great weekend,
Mike E.
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