Can the way we walk influence our mood?

Walk away the Blues

Can way we walk influence our mood? So suggest Johannes McCulloch in a study of behavioral therapy that I read in the Wall Street Journal. If you engage in a happy walk with a strong gate and arms swinging like a power walk may lift mood and help elevate your mood.

Have you ever watch somebody who was depressed walk? Their eyes are cast downward, they're walking slower, they may be swaying side to side. The study suggests changing the way we walk may in turn may change your mood.

Studies have shown talking to strangers, matchmaking with our friends, successfully abstaining from chocolate can all lift our moods. 

The article shares people with a slumped poster posture will recall more negative words from a list of words equally negative and positive. People who have a confident posture smiling will recall more positive words. If you are depressed you're thinking depressed and it shows in your body language. If you were happy you are probably thinking about good things that make you happy and that will show up in your body language. Can changing the body language, the way we sit or walk change the way we think?

More studies would be needed to test the hypothesis of changing the way we walk and how it affects her mood.

If you want to learn about behavioral therapy this is a very good example. My personal experience with cognitive behavioral therapy in depression and anxiety would give a strong testimonial to the value I'm applying principles of cognitive behavioral therapy. Within days of applying some of the therapies I was learning my mood began to lift long before the antidepressant medications kicked in.

I have read many studies that show that walking aerobically can actually change body chemistry to more positive outcome with mood. There is an elevation in her mood as a result of the walk. Could taking a break of 20 to 30 minutes, where we are on purpose raise our head to look out instead of look down, tummy tuck our core and align our shoulders over her hips, swing our arms as we walk stepping out with a hop in out step and physically change the way we are walking, would we see a change in our mood?

To guarantee a real break, I call it a retreat moment, listen to the wind moving through the trees, look for the birds and down the trail at the flowers. Notice other people and their pets walking on the trail. Give a slight smile and say hello to people as they pass, looking out and not down. If you're walking was someone, don't talk about problems or conflicts, save that for a cup of coffee. If you are a little down try it and see if it helps. Let me know your thoughts on this.

Here is a link to the article from the Wall Street Journal.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/walk-this-way-acting-happy-can-make-it-so-1416263697

Keep walking

retired life has its disciplines

C. S. Lewis writing letters

I was reading how about C. S. Lewis retired from Cambridge in 1963. He had about six months of retirement before he passed away. He was a great letter writer and yet he had difficulty with the rheumatoid arthritis. Apparently he had ambitions to continue writing before he died the same day that John F. Kennedy was assassinated. In my motivation poster I have a picture of Lewis writing. Apparently he wrote his work out longhand and I'm not sure if he used the typewriter, but I don't think he did. What would he had thought about today’s computer dictation? 

You may have very excellent keyboard skills. No, the keyboard was only possible to me when I started working with the word processing. The little typing that I didn't wasn't worth all mistakes and white out. My typed papers looked like a canvas in modern art. But with a word processor you could type away and correct later. I am sure some of my coworkers chuckled at my efforts as I worked with six fingers. Through the years I finally figured out how to use all 10 but I never did master keyboard skills. Now that there's voice recognition forget about it.

What Lewis reminds me of is a disciplined life and one who works at his craft. I can imagine standing up to the writing group which Lewis belonged to. The British biting wit would have had to been brutal. They obviously enjoyed it. I have been reading Lewis work on medieval literature and my lit teacher from JuCo, Peter Neff would had to laugh. He was my tennis coach, he called me out in class for being full of BS trying to discuss the assignment without actually reading it. He was a good sport, and he did me a great service that day. 

It was actually during those years that I began to read. When I found a good writer I tried to read several of his or her’s books. When I studied psychology and theology I tried to read the works of the people that I was reading about in class. 

For seven years working my way through school I took care of people being treated for mental illness. Most of the people being treated in the hospital would have very little contact with her therapist or doctors. About the only people really listening to them were people like me. My co-workers more enthusiastic in sharing what they have learned and read. We bantered ideas and therapies. It was back then that I knew mental disorders we're biologically rooted, and for most people talk therapy had to be educational and fit the needs of the person. Therapy works, but the real progress would have to be made medically. 

These days, I am trying to make transition to be better at writing. It is a lot like my blog, being the fat man walking I am attempting to do things to help my health. It somewhat an uphill climb, being on uneven terrain. Health as we get older isn’t exactly easy, and in the same way writing isn't exactly easy for me either. But if I keep putting one foot in front of the other maybe I can improve. The bottom line is by making some better choices and do what's good one day at a time, a few years may be with it.

One tip Lewis gave about reading, when you read a writer from a different time period keep them in their time period and enjoyed them for what they are writing about. Enter their TimeZone and enjoy your visit. Keep walking!

CooperAerobics - The Link Between Depression and Heart Disease

CooperAerobics - The Link Between Depression and Heart Disease

Reported 25% of  us are clinically depressed at 65. Depression can increase risks for heart disease and heart disease can factor in on depression. Treatment and lifestyle changes is something we can do for a better outcome. This is why the fat man walks.

Treat depression - choose not to live blue or tap out like Hemingway or Robin Williams

Change lifestyle

• smoking
• overeating
• obesity
• sedimentary living

1. Walk!!!

Unwanted things OK, but live anyway

What is it about a pipe and
thinking. 

We are halfway through fall and it reminded me of how great it is to walk this time of year. The sun was shining this afternoon and it was refreshing to see the lakes on our walk. The water was rich blue. I am getting the timing down on my walking with the cane where it is there if I need it and not for weight-bearing. My goal is to have my gate remain the same, as if I wasn't walking with a cane. In the 19th century people use walking sticks rather commonly. I think my make over would be complete, all I need is pipe and the game is a foot.

I was basking in the sun earlier. Now is a good for making vitamin D and bone health it also is good for seasonal mood problems. Brief times in and the sun can be healthy.

With the ability to take notes audibly with my phone I have been recording various quotes from books I've been reading. It's kind of fun recording things that you think are significant. You run the risk that nobody else thinks of it as significant but, the road to travel is your own anyway.

Years ago I started reading Robert Parker and the Spencer series, thanks to the acting of Robert Urich and Avery Brooks. Parker has a lively wit and he also  brings in a character who covers the plot from a shrink point of view. In the Jesse Stone series the shrink is an ex-cop, Dix. He is a crusty character who delivers Bob Parker one-liners. Therapy for Jessie Stone is a slow process. Change is hard for Jessie and I think that's the way it should be. "Why is this so hard?" The quote below was when the two of them hit a wall. 

“'Unresolved feelings don’t resolve themselves. Just because you shove unwanted things into the attic doesn’t mean they aren’t still there.’ Man, he especially hated those rare occasions when Dix would get folksy or metaphorical.” Bob Parker’s Jesse Stone 

Whatever the unwanted things are it is different for each of us. That usually only come out when something is painful or hard to deal with. We don't want them but there they are. I am beginning to think therapy is like me losing weight. It is hard to do and if it was easy this would've been a short blog. Put in the big picture doing things that are good for my heart is a day by day thing. Whatever the struggle is in “unwanted things” are or weight life goes along with it. Embracing today in-house remodeling, sitting on the porch, going for a walk, enjoying the evening meal and a ride in a car all became part of life embrace today. Simple stuff, Keep walking

“Should dead people be allowed to vote?” Term limit biodegradable graves

If I was allowed a marker

I was thinking today of the wonderful privilege we have as Americans to vote without fear of intimidation. Many places in the world voting is force and people are intimidated. When I lived in Liberia's there was one party on the ballot. Many people voted and the count was always unanimous and in this it seem like everybody was happy. Backed then Liberia was ruled by 15 families along the coast. 

We still have places like Chicago or Florida whom there are people in the graveyard still vote. Which brings up an interesting question, “Should dead people be allowed to vote?” I am absolute in saying my father-in-law would've voted Democratic. My grandmother would've voted straight Republican. Since they are still property owners with their graveyard plots don't they still keep their right to vote. We even know what party they would vote for. In places where the dead vote they may have been forced to vote for the  opposite party. Surely we should try and be fair and let the dead vote for the party of their choice. They were people of conviction, they knew why they were voting, they have principles. Today if you asked many people why they're voting they come up with pretty vague answers. They don't know what the candidates believe, they couldn't tell who the vice-president is, whose governor might be, let alone a congressperson. And a judge they would have no idea unless they appeared in the court. But the dead people I mentioned knew names, read the newspapers, follow the speeches and were quite vocal and fervent about there beliefs. 

There may be some of you actually think I'm serious and may say surely I am unconstitutional in my thinking. The great legal minds of our day have pointed out how hard it is to understand the Constitution. The constitution can read in less than an hour so after I write this piece I will see if it is actually legal to vote when you are dead. Pretty soon in America you'll be able to voted home and there will be no way to monitor who votes for who. At a polling place you have the privacy of booths. My wife and I vote together but the beautiful part is many times we voted different. I have to admit that I thought she was wrong until she tells me things that I never read or looked at then I have is sickly feeling of oops. Barb’s grasp of detail has always been better than mine. 

I've voted this week and I know I have friends and family who voted differently. Do I think they were wrong, sort of. That's the American way. Do I have to know or demand agreement with their vote? Absolutely not.

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson we're kindred spirits when they wrote the Declaration of Independence. Politically later in life they totally disagreed with each other. Politics severed a great relationship. These two great minds work against each other. I don't think I'm too far wrong in their regrets of the loss of their friendship. To their dying day which was the same day, July 4 1825 they were thinking of each other. We owe a lot to these men. 

I favor friendship over politics any day. The struggle of the American experience will continue long after I am dead. Some lowlife will put me in a Cardinal hat or White Sox hat and have me voting for a lessor lowlife from under the daisies or recycled graveyard. I am all for no chemicals in the body and give me a thousand insects in my biodegradable casket to assist me in a fast return to the earth. Then 50 or hundred years rototill the whole grave for reuse. That way there is a natural term of limit of my vote in death. 

Glad if you voted. Keep walking

Variety in circuit training

Seated curl can be done in chair, side of bed,
or a stabilizing ball. what is safe you choose

Today I visited two websites that gave a lot of how to new different band exercises. The other site gives dumbbells exercises, total gym exercises in other routines. As you build your own personal program there are a lot of exercises you can choose. You can do different exercises on different days Andrew do circuit training all you have to do is at 30 seconds of walking, running, biking in between the exercises. If you choose 15 different exercises and repeat another cycle you'll have 30 minutes of exercise. That's pretty cool.

Making the exercises work for you, choose movements that are safe and offers stability. Do the exercises that give you the best support and you're on your way. You can use a chair, counter top, wall. Get hey device that you can put it in your door to give you all kinds of starting points of the focal point of the exercise. Start out slow and remember you can do curls, presses, triceps all from a seated position. There are bands out there that gives light resistance. As always check with your doctor and think of controlled movements that are safe.

Keep walking

http://www.fitness.com/exercises/exercises.php?c=search&equipment=4

http://www.band-exercises.net/index.html