Jolt Your Health

New Year’s Resolutions for better health in 2023

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Okay, fellow Thurston County fellow residents, it’s three days into the New Year. How are you doing with those resolutions?

I know most of them are about health. If you are still committed, congratulations! If on the fence or you’ve already given up, keep reading. 

Last week I read yet another study on the benefits of adequate sleep, exercise and weight on quality of life as we age. We know from research paper after research paper that these as well as human connections are keys to health, vitality and happiness thru the lifespan. What we don’t know is how to help people sustain self-care and healthy lifestyles. Admittedly I don’t read the mental health literature, but as far as I observed in medical practice and life, that is where most of us are challenged.

Since no one seems to be an expert on getting others to succeed, here is my personal and professional guidance on maintaining those resolutions, focusing on exercise in particular. If you exercise every day, it will help you with sleep. Shoot for 7 hours minimum. If you exercise regularly it will help with weight maintenance – and  if you do not lose weight exercising don’t let that stop you from exercising! The exercise will have health benefits of its own in terms of cardiovascular health, lung capacity, muscle strength and mental health.

My own exercise commitment story

It’s about mental health:

I am a lucky one when it comes to motivation for maintaining exercise because I figured out early that, for me, it was crucial to feeling good. In my first year of college, I was wracked with anxiety by the academic load. I had to do something if I wanted to succeed. I cannot for the life of me remember why I did what I did but it was sanity- (and maybe life-) saving. I started lap swimming. I felt better after the first swim. My anxiety continued to lessen as I kept swimming, many days a week.

As natural for me as walking

Fortunately, I learned to swim as a child in summer camp and thus did not need to learn as swimming takes skill, practice and finesse (you can take lessons at any age). One of my adult RN friends did know how to swim, took lessons and learned to swim to participate in triathlons. For me, swimming was as natural as walking. At the time, I could barely step outside in upstate NY without having an asthma attack from the cold. Fascinating research had shown that swimming is the least likely exercise to trigger asthma which was true for me.  

I have sustained regular exercise in my life since because:

  1. I choose to exercise by doing things I find fun and
  2. If I don’t, I get very wound up and not as nice. Positive biofeedback.

There is plenty of research on exercise for anxiety and depression, so I know my experience will apply to many as we have an epidemic (not infectious for you regular readers of my column) of both in the US, both made worse since the start of the pandemic lockdowns.

Now an elder, my exercise routine has morphed over the years to adapt to physical limitations, but I am still exercising several days each week, with walking now first choice. I shoot for 7,000 steps daily, following the step counter on my iPhone.

Prescription for a dog

That number, 7,000, has been cited for its health benefits (cardiovascular and bone strength). The number keeps changing. Don’t worry about it. The point is to get out there (or in there) and exercise as much as you can. Have your dog take you on a walk! I used to write prescriptions for dogs to get people out walking.

The OLT (Olympia, Lacey, Tumwater) area is a walker’s paradise. When I moved here 11 years ago, my dog and I walked all over this place to get acquainted with the area. It was fun and we preferred the forests. Squaxin Park is my favorite and is close to home (the latter is important for the cost of time and gas). If it’s close and you’re tight for time, there’s a better chance you’ll get that walk in. Other favorites include Watershed Park, and the trails at The Evergreen State College. With your Washington Discover Pass, Tolmie State Park, Woodard Bay and Nisqually Wildlife Refuge – the latter two without the dog.

Once you have some fitness, you can wander farther into real paradise, one called Paradise (Mt. Rainier) and our magnificent Olympics just up the road. We have a wonderful resource in the Washington Trails Association. Check it out, and maybe download its app.

Other walkers prefer hard surfaces, walking around their neighborhoods, Capital Lake and the lovely trail along East Bay from the boat yard to North Point and along our downtown waterfront. It doesn’t matter where you walk, just do it! And please add your favorite places in the comments below for others to know about.

If you can’t walk or don’t like it or don’t want to go out in the weather, find some other way to exercise. (By the way, I call that a clothing problem. But I understand that some people are not so hardy or weather tolerant as I.).

Indoor exercise options abound. (You can even walk Capital Mall.) I advocate combining aerobic with strength and flexibility training.

Aerobic -  sustained movement with an increase in heart rate. It’s when you are breathing hard and sweating a bit).

 Options include swimming, walking, bicycling, running and all those aerobic machines available at gyms.  

Strength and flexibility activities include yoga on mats or hanging (we have Gravity Yoga in Olympia – amazing workout and fun), exercise classes (Zumba etc.), Pilates, weight classes and lifting and more for which I am not an expert as I am predominantly an outdoor exerciser.

Remember these key points in having and maintaining success in practicing healthy habits, especially exercise:

  1. Don’t make it ‘one more thing’ you add to your already busy life. Instead, let go of something less healthy, maybe, watching TV or screen time?)
  2. Do something you enjoy. For me, just walking into Squaxin Park is uplifting. In my former days of working 12 hours or more, I would come home exhausted, change my clothes and just go into that park, walk for half an hour and feel transformed and energized.
  3. Start with reasonable goals, work up gradually and don’t overwhelm your life or expectations by trying to do too much. That is a recipe for failure and you want to succeed.

Happy New Year and good health to all!

Debra Glasser, M.D., is a retired internal medicine physician who lives in Olympia. Got a question for her? Write to her at drdebra@theJOLTnews.com

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