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The Healing Power of Sports
⛹🏼‍♀️

The Healing Power of Sports

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Source

Cindynhiart (2020, October 08). Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/de/illustrations/frauen-yoga-fitnessstudio-gesund-5635784/

Sports kills or rather sports save lifes?

👴🏼 Max, 75 (Mohamed_hassan, 2017)
👴🏼 Max, 75 (Mohamed_hassan, 2017)
🤾🏼‍♂️
Let’s start with little anecdote of my life:

My friend Mr. Oakley (I’ve mentioned him before) has always been a couch potatoe. John and I have often asked him to join our sports sessions, but he always rejected.

I told the beginning of his story before (in case you forgot click here).

As I mentioned earlier, his health deteriorated and he was limited in his movements. But he was able to overcome his physical obstacles. It is time to hear the last part of his story:

“’ …’ No matter your age or issues, yoga has something for you. The health benefits of yoga are seemingly endless. ‘…’ Without going to yoga, I never would have experienced my out-of-class magical moment which happened after walking up a flight of stairs. Like many people, I used to walk up my basement stairs slowly and sluggishly with one hand on the rail. Then one day, long after I began attending yoga classes, I was going up the basement stairs and suddenly realized that I seemed to be gliding up the stairs effortlessly. ‘…‘ ” (Oakley, 2021)

As you can see sports can lead to many many health benefits. So in this case it is definetely sports save lifes!

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Source

Source of content: Oakley, L. (2021, August 18). Finding the Fountain of Youth at Yoga. Healthy Aging. https://healthyaging.net/personal_best_articles/finding-the-fountain-of-youth-at-yoga/

Source of image: Mohamed_hassan (2017, September 20). Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/de/vectors/alt-mann-gehen-anzug-binden-2769666/

🚀 Let’s learn more about the health benefits of sport…

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🫀„Sport is a preserver of health“ - (Hippokrates, w. D.)

Hippokrates was one of the first ones to promote sport as part of our health and well-being.

There are many reasons for this. Here are the most important ones:

🧠
Prevention of cognitive decline

When we exercise, we also train our brain, thus reducing the risk of memory loss.

🧘🏼‍♀️
Increases resilience

When we are physically active, our resilience is increased. We will find out what resilience is and why it is so important later in our journey.

👴🏼
Increases life expectancy

All the reason mentioned here increase our life expectancy.

🌻
Increases life satisfaction

One of many reasons is that physical activity releases the happiness hormone dopamine. So sports makes us happy

🫀
Reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease

Exercise reduces the risk of cardio-vascular disease. It lowers our heart rate and blood pressure for instance.

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Sources

Diaz, R., Miller, E. K., Kraus, E., & Fredericson, M. (2019, Jun). Impact of Adaptive Sports Participation on Quality of Life. Sports Med Arthrosc Rev, 27(2), 73-82. https://doi.org/10.1097/jsa.0000000000000242 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31046012/)

Dominguez, L. J., Veronese, N., Vernuccio, L., Catanese, G., Inzerillo, F., Salemi, G., & Barbagallo, M. (2021, Nov 15). Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Other Lifestyle Factors in the Prevention of Cognitive Decline and Dementia. Nutrients, 13(11). https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13114080 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8624903/)

Eckstrom, E., Neukam, S., Kalin, L., & Wright, J. (2020, Nov). Physical Activity and Healthy Aging. Clin Geriatr Med, 36(4), 671-683. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cger.2020.06.009 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33010902/) Li, Y., Schoufour, J.,

Hippocrates. (w. D.). Sport is a preserver of health. A-Z Quotes. https://www.azquotes.com/quote/543426

Wang, D. D., Dhana, K., Pan, A., Liu, X., Song, M., Liu, G., Shin, H. J., Sun, Q., Al-Shaar, L., Wang, M., Rimm, E. B., Hertzmark, E., Stampfer, M. J., Willett, W. C., Franco, O. H., & Hu, F. B. (2020, Jan 8). Healthy lifestyle and life expectancy free of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes: prospective cohort study. Bmj, 368, l6669. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.l6669 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7190036/)

👴🏼 Max, 75 (Mohamed_hassan, 2017)
👴🏼 Max, 75 (Mohamed_hassan, 2017)
I asked my friend Mr. Cleaves if he has some advice on well-aging and sports for you. Therefore he sent you a postcard about his most valuable advice to you:
image
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Sources

Source of content: Polo, A. & Zargar, C. (2021, September 24). Inspiring Senior Stories About a Life Well Lived. Experience.care. https://experience.care/blog/senior-stories-about-a-life-well-lived/

Source of images:

Mohamed_hassan (2017, September 20). Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/de/vectors/alt-mann-gehen-anzug-binden-2769666/

Schmidsi. (2016, May 24). Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/de/vectors/postkarte-karte-vektor-zeichnung-1412352/

So please remember health is key to well-aging. Without health we cannot take care of our relationships and all the other things we want to do in life. So please appreciate your health and celebrate it by exercising!

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📈 How much is enough to promote health?

⚠️
When it comes to sports we find many advices and recommendations on social media and the internet. Often it is not clear whether the advice is valid or not.

Therefore always pay attention on the source of your information and whether the person recommending something is a professional or not (also when it comes to youtube videos about how to do sports!).

A valid source is for instance the WHO. They regularly publish guidelines on how much exercise is recommended.

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WHO guidelines on weekly sports

🏁 The goal of the recommendations is to be in a good health state

(WHO Nigeria, 2019)
(WHO Nigeria, 2019)
🏃🏼
The Who Nigeria (also the general WHO) suggests (on a weekly basis) for adults and adults aged above 65:
  • 150 min of moderate intensity physical activity

OR

  • At least 75 min of intensive physical activity

For children the suggestions are different

The WHO has a lot more information on physical activity. Go and check it out here.

✅ Task: Think about the amount of sports you are practising every week (be honest 😉) - Are you fulfilling the guidelines?
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Sources

World Health Organization (2022, October 05). Physical Activity. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/physical-activity

WHO [@WHO Nigeria]. (2019, July 16). @WHO recommends how much of physical activity individuals should get daily and weekly based on ages categories. [Image attached] [Tweet]. Twitter. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/physical-activity

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🏃🏼 Slowering aging by specific kinds of sports

So far we have answered the question of how much sport we should do.

❓ But are there differences in the sports we should do?

💡
First of all, every sport is good for your health and mind. But some of them have different effects on different parts of your body.

For example: balance training is good for coordination, and this leads to a reduction in the risk of falls in old age. (Siegrist et al., 2016)

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Sources

Siegrist, M., Freiberger, E., Geilhof, B., Salb, J., Hentschke, C., Landendoerfer, P., Linde, K., Halle, M., & Blank, W. A. (2016, May 27). Fall Prevention in a Primary Care Setting. Dtsch Arztebl Int, 113(21), 365-372. https://doi.org/10.3238/arztebl.2016.0365 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27504699/)

In this chapter we will have a look on the effects of sports on the aging process. For this we need some additional information:

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💡 Background information on cell aging

💡
When we are getting older. Our cells divide themselves by using an enzyme telomerase.

By every division the telomeres (they are part of our DNA) shorten themselves. We experience the shortening as aging.

There are different kinds of sports that slower this process and therefore lead to a slower aging process.

Telomerase is an enzym and responsible for cell division – a lower telomerase activity is associated with cell aging

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Source

Antwerpes, F. (2021, February 24). Telomerase. DocCheck Flexikon. https://flexikon.doccheck.com/de/Telomerase

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🧬 Endurance and high intensity intervall training slow down the aging of our cells

The study of Werner and colleagues explored which kind of sports slows down the cell aging process.

Methods

The study population exists of 4 groups. A control group, a group who is doing endurance training, a group exercising resistance training (f.e. gym) and a group who is doing interval training. They needed to exercise 3 times for 45 min per week for 6 months.

📖 Results

image
🧬
The study's key discovery is that endurance training and high-intensive interval training, increase the activity of telomerase and telomere length.

This means that in middle-aged individuals with limited prior training experience, participating in a moderate or intensive endurance exercise program resulted in significant "anti-aging effects" of their bodies.

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Sources

Source of content: Werner, C. M., Hecksteden, A., Morsch, A., Zundler, J., Wegmann, M., Kratzsch, J., Thiery, J., Hohl, M., Bittenbring, J. T., Neumann, F., Böhm, M., Meyer, T., & Laufs, U. (2019, Jan 1). Differential effects of endurance, interval, and resistance training on telomerase activity and telomere length in a randomized, controlled study. Eur Heart J, 40(1), 34-46. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehy585 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6312574/)

Source of image: OpenClipart-Vectors. (2013, October 08). Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/de/vectors/jogger-joggen-mann-person-laufen-147842/

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⛹🏼‍♀️ Takeaways The healing powers of sports

  • Physical activity has many positive effects on your health
  • Practice 150 min of moderate or 75 min of intensive physical activity every week
  • Many kinds of sports are helpful, endurance and intervall trainng seem to have the highest impact on slowering aging
  • Reflect on your personal goals of well-aging and your health and search for a sport technique which brings you there
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🏁 Goals: The healing powers of sports

This space is for your personal goals setting.

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💡 How it works

The aim is for you to think of at least 2 goals that are in line with the main question below.

After you have written down your personal goals, you should think of at least one task for each goal that you want to achieve this month.

At the end of the month, you can evaluate your actions and goals using the template below.

Below you will find some examples and ideas

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🏃🏼Let’s start

The main question is: What effect do I want to achieve?

✅ Tasks:

  1. Write down at least 2 goals
  2. Write down at least one to-do for every goal
  3. Evaluate your success after one month
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1. Your goals

💡 Some ideas:

🚴🏼‍♀️
I would like to exercise more to fulfill the WHO guidelines
😄
I want to find what my favorite kind of sports is?
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2. To-Dos

🚴🏼‍♀️ Take the stairs and not the elevator
🚴🏼‍♀️ Block 2 h for sport every week
😄 Sign up for different courses of the ZHS
😄 Try at least 2 new sports
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3. Evaluation

✅
What did you accomplish this month?
🤯
Where did you fall short this month?

🎉 Congratulations you finished the third of four sections of “Well-Aging: Embracing a good life”

Move on to “The Resilient Mindset: Unlocking the Secrets to well-aging“ 🚀