The 30 Day Plank Challenge

A reader recently drew my attention to the 30 day plank challenge, which you can read about here:
http://fitnessgoals.com/30-day-plank-challenge-exercise-workout/

What I like about this exercise is that it strengthens several important muscle groups, but it doesn't cause wear to the joints because there is no motion involved.  My guess is the forearm pose would be much better since it puts no strain on the wrist, so try that if you have any issues with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

What other exercises do you like?  Let me know!

How to Maintain Brain Function

The current issue of Neurology Now magazine includes an article on how to maintain cognitive function.  "Staying Sharp: What you do during your free time could help save your brain" lists the following "brain-boosting activities":

• Learn A Second Language
• Become A Social Butterfly
• Play Music
• Exercise

The article also claims that heart-protective measures may also protect the brain.  For example, it recommends:

• Don't smoke.
• Sleep 7–8 hours a night.
• Keep your blood pressure and cholesterol levels in check.
• Eat a low-fat, healthy diet.
• Get plenty of exercise.
• Maintain a healthy weight.
• Limit alcohol consumption.
• Get blood sugar levels (and diabetes, if you have it) under control.

Yes, cholesterol is still a villain, despite assertions from both cardiologists and neurologists that high blood sugar causes damage, and it's the cholesterol that aids in the repair of that damage.

The biggest payoff is to stimulate your intellect while elevating your blood flow.  Learn to dance or practice martial arts for example.  I try to meditate while I walk, or walk mindfully.

What to do When You're Always Tired

People often ask "Why am I so tired?" Of course they're really asking, "What can I do about feeling so tired?"

When someone asks "Why am I so tired?" on the diet-related forums I visit, folks usually respond with food-related advice, such as, "Cut back on your carbs," or "Eat more raw vegetables," or "Eat more iron-rich food."

Diet is only a small piece of the vitality puzzle, so I usually glaze over while reading the repetitive (and sometimes contradictory) dietary responses.  Then I weigh in with the other basics: water, sleep, exercise, and especially breathing.  This is how I reply:

Water
Drinking plenty of water will make it easier for your body to rid itself of toxins.  A secondary effect is that the cool sensation of water on your lips, in your mouth and penetrating more deeply, provides a brief refreshing break from whatever hypnotizing monotony happens to be dragging you down.  Personally, I follow some experts' rule of thumb of dividing my body weight (in pounds) in half and then drinking that many ounces of water.  Since I weigh about 160lbs, I plan to drink about 80 ounces of water every day.  Turns out that I get about 30% of that before I leave for work in the morning.

Sleep
Well, lack of sleep is the obvious answer to being tired.  Does anyone out there not feel a bit weaker and sluggish the day after going to bed a few hours later the night before?  But even if you've been going to bed and getting up at the same time every day, you might be getting less sleep than usual.  Foods and beverages that contain caffeine or alcohol can alter sleep patterns, reducing quality of sleep.  Sleeping with a light on can prevent your body from achieving the most deep levels of sleep.  (I highly recommend reading "Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar, and Survival" and "Good Night: The Sleep Doctor's 4-Week Program to Better Sleep...")  Finally, a condition called Sleep Apnea, in which your airway is partially obstructed during deep sleep, can rouse you several times each night -- not enough to make you fully wake up, but just enough to restore muscle tone to your airway so that you can resume breathing. I wrote about the sleep study that I experienced as well as the solution I adopted.

Exercise
Yes, I know, the last thing you want to do is exercise when you're tired.  But the exhilaration you get from a single bout of exercise can last for hours.  Your body produces wonderful chemicals that course through your body when you exercise, and these chemicals linger.  Blood flow improves, too, bringing mental clarity.

Breathing
My Water, Sleep and Exercise advice all have one thing in common -- improving breathing.  Of course, during exercise your rate of breathing will increase, as well as how deeply you breathe.  When you sleep, breathing slows down and your breaths become shallow.  And if you have Sleep Apnea, breathing stops.  But what about water?  You might not think drinking water is related to breathing.  But imagine drinking, not sipping, a several gulps of water at once.  It's almost like diving into a deep pool.  You breathe in deeply as you bring the tumbler to your lips, hold it while gulping the water, and gasp after you're done.

Breathing is the most important part of survival.  Humans can survive for days without eating or drinking.  But survival time is measured in minutes when breathing is involved.

Most people never learn to breath properly.  They fail to use the full capacity of their lungs.  A proper breath first starts with expelling all the air from the deepest recesses of your lungs.  Then draw breath in deeply into your belly through the nose before allowing your chest to expand.  A beginner's yoga instructor might tell her students to lie on their backs and place their hands on their belly buttons and then tell them to breathe so that their hands rise into the air.  She would also tell her students to exhale fully, pressing the small of the back (lumbar) into the floor.

So try working on these four aspects of basic living to improve your vitality.

Exercises For Your Brain

As an engineer, I rely on my brain just as much as Aretha Franklin relies on her voice.  So it behooves me to not only keep my brain in good shape, but also to improve it if I can.

That's why I signed up for Lumosity.  The games on Lumosity are actually exercises designed to stimulate and improve one's brain.  To paraphrase from their website, the games on Lumosity "improve key abilities such as working memory, visual attention, and executive function in people of different ages and from different backgrounds."

Here are screenshots of my "Brain Performance Index" and "Training History"...

Dangers of Sitting; Benefits of Standing

"Sitting for long periods of time — when you don't stand up, don't move at all — tends to cause changes physiologically within your muscles," says Reynolds. "You stop breaking up fat in your bloodstream, you start getting accumulations of fat ... in your liver, your heart and your brain. You get sleepy. You gain weight. You basically are much less healthy than if you're moving."

Reynolds recommends standing for two minutes every 20 minutes while desk-bound — even if you can't move around your office. "That sounds so simple," she tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "But that actually has profound consequences. If you can stand up every 20 minutes — even if you do nothing else — you change how your body responds physiologically."

Studies have shown that frequent standing breaks significantly decrease your chances of getting diabetes, she says. "If you can also walk around your office, you get even more benefits. You will lose weight, you lessen your chance of heart disease, and you will improve your brain. But if you can do nothing else, stand up!"

- Gretchen Reynolds, Interview with NPR



Edited on 2013-05-02 to remove a link to a related blog post from InsuranceQuotes that discusses the health dangers of inactivity.

The Bicycle Ride

I had my first bike ride in twenty years yesterday.  Two days earlier, one of the young engineers at work encouraged me to come with them.  So I dragged my dusty bike out from the garage, brushed off the spider egg sacks, and slid it into the back of my car along with a pump to inflate the tires, which were flat.

I had tossed out all my old bike shorts years ago.  I had hopelessly out grown them anyway.  So I would have to wear regular, un-padded pants.  Luckily, I found my gloves and shoes.  (They're special shoes that grip the pedals better.)  And I chose my wife's helmet over my own, which had deteriorated.

About fifteen minutes before lunch time, I managed to inflate the tires.  They protested with a few alarming popping sounds as the bead settled into the rim.  Although they're rated at 90psi, I decided to stop at 70.  After all, I wasn't competing at the velodrome!

I mounted the bike.  The seat seemed impossibly high, and if I hadn't ridden this particular bike before, I'd've sought out a wrench to lower the seat a few inches.  In an act of faith, I pushed forward, trusting that I wouldn't topple over.  It's not the fall that hurts as much as the embarrassment.

The five of us set off out of the parking lot, and they took a sharp right turn onto the main road.  I lagged back, still unsure of my balance.  This was always a tippy bike with over responsive steering and now, ancient tires.  I didn't want to push the tires to the limit, and I didn't want to bump into anyone else.  So I rode the turn slowly and upright, as a pipe-smoking gentleman might.

They were already halfway to the next turn, a left.  They were riding with exuberance, looking over their shoulders and boldly signaling the turn with their left arms.  I was still afraid to let go of either handlebar.  And looking over one's shoulder on a road bike takes practice.  Yet even without looking, I could sense the car that was about to overtake me, so I didn't follow.  And the car didn't overtake.  I coasted.  The car held back.  A dreaded stalemate ensued, and I started to worry that I'd have to stop and dismount to encourage the car to pass.  "No that's fine," I'd cheerily say.  "I was actually planning to stop here, really!"  But no, the car took the turn I had hoped to make seemingly ten minutes earlier.

Thus I ended up far behind the others, pedaling like mad to keep up, let alone catch up.  Eventually I caught up -- they had waited for me at the stop sign.  I was already out of breath, and I told them I was going to head back.  They continued on the trail, and I took the road back to work.

The slight incline on the way back was nearly too much.  Fortunately I got the hang of the derailleur and found the low gear.  At least three times I told myself to get off and walk it.  But instead I focused on just the first three feet directly in front of me.  Eventually the pedaling gradually got easier, and I knew I was going to make it to the crest.

Finally, I got back to work, and I pulled up to the front door and dismounted, taking great care not to fall over or collapse.  I walked the bike in and parked it under the back stairwell.  I climbed the stairs with my wet noodle legs to get to my upstairs office, pulling myself up with both hands on the handrail.

I drank loads of water, but I felt too nauseous to think about eating lunch.  Eventually I gained back strength in my legs, and I took some lunch.

And I started to look forward to the next ride.

Winter Weather

Our winter is off to a great start thanks to two snowstorms that blasted through our area on Friday (9") and then again on Sunday (6"). I enjoyed shoveling our double-wide driveway by hand, even though I was bothered by a sinus infection.

Please don't read sarcasm into this. I really did enjoy it!

So many elements come together to make it a special time for me.

There's solitude. All my neighbors have snowblowers and prefer to wait until the morning to clear their driveways instead of going at it at 7:00pm to 10:00pm. And the busy bodies in their cars, minivans and SUVs have abandoned the roads, leaving them desolate.

There's Nature's dominance over Mankind. No matter how smart we think we are, and how much control we think we can exert over our environment, Nature demonstrates that She's The Boss. We are completely at the mercy of the elements.

There's unpredictability. All our carefully crafted plans are swept away. As an abjectly poor planner, I feel strangely vindicated by this.

There's the beauty of the snow-covered tree limbs, the sparkling icicles, the gentlest hiss of falling snow. We get a bit closer to Nature -- the secret lives of wildlife are unveiled in the tracks in the snow.

There's the exhilaration of intense exertion in the pushing, lifting, hurling of snow. And from the sting of cold pellets of snow assaulting the face. Yet, I'm sweating from the workout. I shake the ice and snow from my coverings before I stomp inside, and strip off everything, because it's all wet, either from melted snow or from sweat.

Ahhh, my weekend was awesome! How was yours?