Health is wealth and the best way to ascertain health is through lifestyle, in particular movement.
Hello to everyone reading this, my name is Laura. I’ve been a nurse for over 11 years now and let me tell you I’ve seen it first hand about a thousand times over: “if that patient had only done some specific resistance training they wouldn’t be here”. My passion, my reason for leaving a job that was comfortable and knowing my pay cheques would come in fortnight after fortnight was to go outside of the hospital! I wanted to Implement exercise programmes to prevent hospitalisation, reliance on our overburdened broken medical system and ultimately improve quality of life❤️
The movement would need to be specific to one’s needs. It needs to be a dose high enough to give you results and for it to be considered “medicine” example: a bed bound 70 year old who has no muscle mass post say sepsis tor 6 weeks will only need 2x10min slow walks per day to get benefits vs a 70 year old who is already up and about moving, they would need a dose that’s more intense such as weighted squats or fast walks up a hill
Movement or exercise that is a high enough dose for you will:
1) improve your mental health via release of dopamine (a hormone released that signals positive feelings in the brain)
2) improve insulin sensitivity: your muscles will be more open to taking of glucose so controlling sugar levels better
3) improved bone mineral density: weight training stimulates the formation of new bone making it thicker and stronger so when you fall etc you are less like to break a bone. One of the leading causes for hospital admissions and contributing to poorer quality of life
4) Decreases pain due to strengthening of the joints that become more stable via increased tendon and muscle strength that support the joint
5) Decrease body fat: by increasing fat mass, you can potentially decrease fat mass and look smaller as muscle takes up less space compared to fat
6) Improved heart function: did you know that if the heart is stressed appropriately you make it stronger by increasing the length of the ventricles in the heart so they contract with more force as well as creation of smaller blood vessels making it less likely to suffer from lack of blood flow (mostly happens with age, deconditioning and poor diet)
I don’t need to go on…you get the point!! Movement is the best medicine and it will give you excess wealth and quality of life.