Health and wellbeing: what exercise can do for them, and us

by Anne Ring

There is a widely promoted recipe for health and wellbeing, involving four main ingredients: exercise, good nutrition, mental stimulation and social connection. For me, the last three are a breeze – no problem to include an elegant sufficiency of each in my life. Where the hard work comes in is around exercise. It’s not that I haven’t always valued exercise. I’ve certainly fitted it into my busy younger life where possible, variously via bike riding, swimming and walking.

But it’s through some of the research that I did for my book about ageing that I learnt a lot of very useful stuff about the importance of specific types of exercises in older age. Some of that has been summed up by Dr Sherwin Nuland, the author of the 2008 book, The Art of Aging. And his views on exercise absolutely resonate with me, as a fairly healthy and fit old person, who is doing all that I can to keep on living a healthy and happy old age. As he put it, “regular exercise both allows for a more active life, and it significantly decreases the likelihood of osteoporosis and the consequent fractures which”, in his dramatic but not overstated description, “are the anxiety and – too frequently – the assassins of the elderly. In addition, certain of the brain-building protein factors are increased by exercise, as is one’s general sense of well-being, optimism and self-regard.”

Those are the sorts of benefits of exercise that have had me keeping up a regular six-day-a-week program (on the seventh day I give my muscles a recommended rest time), of a whole variety of exercises – each with specific benefits – for several years now, having first of all obtained what we all need to have, our appropriate medical advisor’s seal of approval. I do a range of recommended exercises to build up my muscles (while we can’t create new ones, it’s never too late to work on the ones that we have), and bone strength, maintain cardiovascular health, and balance, and then there is resistance training and stretching for general fitness, plus my special core building exercises for my back (about which more later).

I know that that sounds like a lot, and it does involve an hour a day, plus a daily walk outdoors for all the additional benefits that we get from sunshine and nature. And I should mention the added incentive – and to actually enjoy my round of exercising, I go with and orbit around the fascinating podcasts that I love listening to while I’m doing them (for the variety part, it’s classical music that does the same thing, for him). And I also enjoy the variety of additional sets of almost-high-intensity exercises that I do by following some of the fitness experts’ exercises on YouTube.

It’s a matter of choice. At this stage in my life, I have the time, and I can see the benefits of what I’m doing, which definitely incentivises me to keep up my program. To give two examples of that benefit, first how effective my falls prevention exercises have proved to be. I had my last bad fall just before my 70th birthday (I’m now 83). Since then, I’ve been doing a mix of balance and bone strengthening exercises (as well as fall proving our home, and practising what I call conscious walking which involves automatically scanning where I walk for anything that might trip me up), and have not had a fall since. Of course, there is no guarantee that I mightn’t fall some time, and so – as I’ve said – I’m also doing my best for my bones, just in case.

I am actually quite passionate about falls prevention, in the light of not only my own past experiences with falls, but with hearing about so many traumatic – and sometimes even fatal – outcomes that people have had from falls. Barry Humphries and Carla Zampatti come to mind, for example, as victims of what Nuland called this “assassin”. So, prevention is an important topic in the talks I give about ageing to older audiences. And I’m also happy to contribute to more information on how older people can stay safe, so I’ve just completed participation in a university study to develop a balance-improving aid for older people.

As my second personal experience of how specific exercise can make a huge difference, for many years I had an intermittently bad – and sometimes even crippling – pain in my left leg, referred from a chronic back problem. Eventually I mentioned it to my GP, who immediately referred me to a physiotherapist with back expertise. And she put me on to a set of core building exercises. Which, very soon, banished the pain completely. Great motivation for keeping them up!

When I was much younger my aunt – a retired doctor and an excellent role model in many ways – would happily show us the exercises that she continued to do. I think that she’d be glad to see me keeping up that tradition, and, consequently, now both very much enjoying my fit and healthy old age, while – perhaps, in my turn – serving as an example.