The Fountain of Youth

Right now, right in your own life, you have access to a rejuvenator more powerful than any medications or elixirs.  The human body is designed to move.  You can cultivate your appetite for movement in order to find your own personal fountain of youth.

Let’s look at what it happens when we age.  Our joints often stiffen with arthritis.  Our bones become brittle with osteoporosis.   Ligaments, tendons, and muscles shorten and stiffen.  Our metabolisms slow with each passing decade.  Even the synapses in our brain work slower and we do not think as fast.

You CAN turn back the hands of time.  You do have access to the fountain of youth that will improve all these functions of mind and body.  What is this powerful youth enhancer?  It is movement.  Yes, exercise.  Get up, get moving, and get feeling younger!

Sometimes, remembering that “every little bit counts” is what you need to get started.  If you can walk, walk.  If you like the camaraderie join a class.  Find a workout that is exhilarating, not debilitating.  When you tune in to how activity and movement help you, you may find yourself with motivation that lasts a lifetime.

Let’s look how activity and movement can be your fountain of youth:

• Reduce stiffness with any rhythmic movement:  When you move your joints, your own natural joint lubricant works to reduce stiffness and lessen soreness.    

• Prevent bone loss, maybe even increase bone density, with weight bearing exercises like walking, non-impact aerobics, and dancing.

• Increase your flexibility by gently stretching your warmed up muscles to elongate your muscle fibers, ligaments, and tendons.  Even if you have already lost your flexibility, you can gain much of it back.

• Boosts your metabolism and protects your joints, especially shoulders, from injury with safe and effective weight training. 

• Increases the flow of blood to the brain, improve circulation to the heart and the rest of the body, and stimulate the growth of nerve cells in the part of the brain involved in memory!

Try to make activity and movement easy for yourself.  Choose something fun.  Make it part of your every day.  Most of all, appreciate every little thing you do to take care of that wonderful body of yours.  You can feel more like yourself as time passes.  You can find your own fountain of youth.