“Weight-bearing exercises can help prevent osteoporosis by stimulating bone growth and increasing bone density. This is because weight-bearing exercises put stress on your bones, which signals your body to build more bone tissue to handle the stress.
When you perform weight-bearing exercises like walking, running, and weightlifting, the weight and impact of these exercises on your bones stimulate the bone-forming cells called osteoblasts. These cells create new bone tissue, which can help increase bone density and prevent osteoporosis.
Additionally, weight-bearing exercises help to maintain muscle mass and strength, which is also important for preventing osteoporosis. Strong muscles help to support your bones and reduce the risk of falls and fractures.
It’s important to note that not all exercises are weight-bearing. Non-weight-bearing exercises like swimming and cycling, for example, don’t provide the same impact on your bones as weight-bearing exercises. Therefore, incorporating weight-bearing exercises into your exercise routine can be an effective way to prevent osteoporosis. However, it’s always a good idea to talk to your doctor or a qualified fitness professional before starting any new exercise program.“
Tai chi, qigong, yoga and various other exercises from martial arts offer weight-bearing, and often low impact exercises. These systems have a wide spectrum of these types of exercise within their respective curriculum, for which I have been studying, practicing and teaching for almost 40 years, with truly amazing results.
I write often about topics that affect our health and well-being. Additionally, I teach and offer lecture about qigong, tai chi, baguazhang, and yoga. I also have hundreds of FREE education video classes, lectures and seminars available on my YouTube channel at:https://www.youtube.com/c/MindandBodyExercisesMind and Body Exercises on Google: https://posts.gle/aD47Qo
More people have been staying inside for much of the last 3 years, to avoid Covid19. As a consequence, people may now be suffering more from vitamin D3 deficiency (metabolism & bone issues), seasonal affective disorder (SAD) (depression), drug & alcohol overuse and overdoses, and many other issues relative to sitting far more than previously. These issues were already at record high levels before the pandemic, and now have continued to rise and will continue to contribute to the US’s losing rank of being a healthy nation, trailing many other industrialized nations.
Vitamin D Deficiency at Epidemic Levels
The US, and many of the world, have been facing an epidemic of vitamin D deficiency for many years, especially in areas lacking consistent daily sunlight such as the northern states of US. This trend is also seen in areas with much sunlight where people cover up their whole bodies from sun exposure. Now exacerbated by pandemic lock-downs and less outside physical activity over the last few years. Most people are unaware or care to ignore how vital vitamin D is to the immune system and overall health.
What can you do to prevent vitamin D deficiency – become educated, be more aware of your own health, get outside during the morning or late afternoon when sunlight is less intense, and get your body moving to engage your muscles and bones to tell your nervous system that you are still alive and need your body to maintain homeostasis through good health and lifestyle practices.
Get started with these three simple steps:
Consult with your doctor to manage your vitamin D levels twice a year — at the end of winter and again at the end of summer. Ask for a simple blood test called the 25(OH)D (25-hydroxy vitamin D) test. (Optimal blood levels are between 50 and 75 nanomoles/Liter.)
Commit to being in the sun 15 minutes a day without sunscreen. When planning on being outside longer, add some protective clothing, a hat, and sunglasses.
Consume foods high in vitamin D and/or supplement with 10,000 IU of vitamin D3 daily. This dose in a convenient, highly-absorbable liquid form together with the potent marine carotenoid, astaxanthin, for added benefits (Micozzi, 2018).
He, C. S., Aw Yong, X. H., Walsh, N. P., & Gleeson, M. (2016). Is there an optimal vitamin D status for immunity in athletes and military personnel?. Exercise immunology review, 22, 42–64.
Be more active, eat healthier, sleep better, stress less these are the key components to maintaining a strong immune system.
I am currently offering lectures and classes for group, small group & private instruction in Wekiva, Longwood and Winter Park.Mind and Body Exercises on Google: https://posts.gle/aD47Qo
I have commented on this topic in former discussions, specifically big pharmaceutical companies hindering expansion of the herbal market, where they either buy out the smaller herbal companies or use their vast resources to lobby against or stifle growth of alternative natural medicinal options. I really don’t think it is wise to take a ‘let’s wait and see where this goes” approach as opposed to a “be self-reliant in pursuing natural options through due diligence” type of attitude. I feel people need to be more accountable to themselves and their loved ones, for managing their own healthcare or more appropriately “self-care” program. Herbs and other natural remedies will continue to see more re-acceptance and growth as people increasingly become weary of the high costs, side-effects and politics associated with pharmaceuticals. This is evident from a past article on the global herbal medicine market is predicted to possibly become a $550 billion industry by 2030 (insightSLICE, 2021).
From my own experience, Western medical professionals are not going to offer or steer a patient towards herbs when the whole healthcare industry is based upon mostly quick-fix pharmaceuticals and most often at exorbitantly higher costs to the consumer. For example, my allopathic doctor prescribing Nasacort, Flonase and eventually Claritin for seasonal allergies, when I was able to replace these with a combination of ginger, turmeric and black pepper with great success. Another orthopedic doctor was intent upon me having surgery for a torn meniscus in my knee. I declined and practiced more qigong and applied herbs topically to my injured knee for 6 months, again with much success.
My botanical medicine history started when my mother gave me warm milk with honey for a sore throat when I was probably 4 or 5 years old. My mother’s family came from what was formerly known as Bohemia and now named the Czech Republic, and my father’s ancestors came from Germany, where decades back traditional medicines and herbal remedies were quite common. Around this same time, I was introduced to Jägermeister (probably considered child abuse these days), the alcoholic beverage that actually has medicinal properties from its herbal ingredients of cinnamon, ginger root, licorice root and rose hips (Arifin, 2017).
Years later when I was 16, I began martial arts training with Korean and Chinese kung fu. My teachers were very much Taoists and Traditional Chinese Medicine was inherently bound within our curriculum and knowledge base. I was quite naïve and impressionable at the time, having had little true-life experience. Fortunately for me, this was a very good education to have been introduced to at such an early age, as it gave me a firm foundation in health, fitness, wellness and nutrition for years to come.
I was taught (along with my peers and fellow students) that the body can innately maintain and cure itself if given the right balance of physical exercise, proper diet and nutrition (including herbs) and appropriate self-management of our thoughts and emotions. Our go to beverage and preventative, was ginger root tea, to aid in good digestion and overall reduction of inflammation relative to physical training. If overly sore or injured, we would use curcumin poultices or store-bought plaster patches with cayenne. We would use herbal extracts called Dit Da Jow, to apply to our hands, arms and other parts of our bodies for what is referred to as Iron Body training. These Jows are somewhat unique in that they reduce inflammation while at the same time increase blood circulation and promote natural healing. We ate kimchi, a known probiotic and were encouraged to eat and cook with garlic, ginger, turmeric, cayenne and onion as much as possible.
Years later, the training and knowledge increased to even more Traditional Chinese Medicine methods of moxibustion. This is a method, where herbs smolder on acupuncture needles or sometimes directly on the skin (direct moxibustion) or indirect where the herbs burn on a layer of ginger, garlic or salt which cover specific acupuncture points and meridians.
Additionally, we were prescribed or instructed on how to use particular Chinese herbal tea recipes for various physical imbalances. These teas were incredibly strong in flavor and potency, and were to help cure whatever issues of cough, allergies, tinnitus, irritable bowel syndrome, headache, and many other ailments. These teas looked like tar by the time they decocted down to a cup size serving and tasted pretty much the same, but they all worked amazingly well. Even more recently, I have been introduced to Ayurveda through my martial arts lineage as well as with my NVU degree program. Ayurveda seems to be the parent of TCM in many aspects, as I have found many of the same herbs and principles of treatment and prevention from using specific recipes.
I have been fully into the whole concept of phytotherapy for almost 50 years, for all of the reasons I have discussed over previous posts, distilling it down to less side effects, less toxins, less cost, more individual control over my own health and well-being. I see herbalism/botanical addressing the root causes of illness and disease as well as symptoms, versus conventional allopathic medicine treating of the symptoms with little or no expectation of addressing root issues. Herbalism seems to have its greatest benefits as a preventative for chronic and long-term ailments, however having benefits for some acute issues also. Conventional allopathic medicine’s greatest strength is in immediate treatment for trauma and acute illnesses.
Be more active, eat healthier, sleep better, stress less these are the key components to maintaining a strong immune system.
I am currently offering lectures and classes for group, small group & private instruction in Wekiva, Longwood and Winter Park.Mind and Body Exercises on Google: https://posts.gle/aD47Qo
“Health is more than the absence of disease symptoms. The true goal is sustainable balance, as recognized by chiropractors and other holistically oriented health practitioners.”
Micozzi, Marc S.. Fundamentals of Complementary, Alternative, and Integrative Medicine – E-Book (p. 544). Elsevier Health Sciences. Kindle Edition.
“The low-grade viral or fungal infections, the persistent catarrhal state, recurrent headaches or migraines, allergies, skin and arthritic disease and other chronic inflammatory diseases, stress problems and anxiety neuroses and cancer are all marked by a failure to cope or adequately to defend. One perspective on this development is that modern medicine has so effectively neutered the acute disease, especially in the too frequent use of antibiotics and anti-inflammatories, that most people in developed countries have never had to muster their defenses. Life is also much easier in these societies and there is generally less rigorous testing of physiological functions.”
Bone, Kerry; Mills, Simon. Principles and Practice of Phytotherapy (p. 85). Elsevier Health Sciences. Kindle Edition.
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I write often about topics that affect our health and well-being. Additionally, I teach and offer lecture about qigong, tai chi, baguazhang, and yoga.
Excerpt from: Principles and Practice of Phytotherapy, by Kerry Bone
Convalescence
It is ironic that at the very time that healthcare has to deal with so much chronic and debilitating disease it has abandoned the best strategic approach inherited from tradition. In the past it was taken for granted that any illness would require a decent period of recovery after it had passed, a period of recuperation, of convalescence, without which recurrence was possible or likely. For the really debilitating diseases convalescent care was the primary treatment, reaching its apogee in the many European sanatoria for tuberculosis patients.
Convalescence fell out of favour as powerful modern drugs emerged. It appeared that penicillin and the steroid anti-inflammatories produced so dramatic a resolution of the old killer diseases, including tuberculosis, that all the time spent convalescing was no longer necessary. Then, as healthcare provision became generally more effective and public expectations increased, pressure on hospital facilities led to shorter stays, whilst the increasing angst of the modern working rhythm has conspired to ensure that most people now could not consider time off to convalesce after a bout of flu. That this means they are more likely to get another bout the next year is a cruel irony.
A good convalescence is a marvellous thing. It rounds off an illness and gives it meaning; it makes the sufferer stronger for having had the illness. In a way no vaccination could do, it arms and strengthens the immune defences and provides real protection against recurrence, possibly forever. It is probably the only strategy that will allow real recovery from debilitating disease, fatigue syndromes, recurrent infections and states of compromised immunity. It is the therapeutic recognition that healing, like the growth of children, is almost inevitable but that it needs to be allowed to proceed. Convalescence needs time, one of the hardest commodities now to find.
There are four essential features of convalescence, in general agreed through history, though with many cultural embellishments.
Rest
This is by far the most important element. It should include maximum sleep, as physiologically this is the body’s time for repair. In the early stages of vigorous convalescence almost constant sleep should be encouraged (as in the former ‘sleep clinics’). Thereafter it should be promoted as much as possible. Rest also means less activity: if work has to be done it should be in brief bouts, switching frequently between different activities (‘change is as good as a rest’). Patients should be encouraged to pace themselves, to go to bed early, sleep late and not to volunteer for any work that is not absolutely necessary. As much as anything rest becomes a mental priority: all other considerations are secondary. That hour of more sleep is more important than a film on TV, a late-night conversation or night out.
Exercise
This is the flipside and necessary adjunct to rest, the equivalent to ‘turning the engine over’, to prevent congestion and stagnation. Essentially the body needs to be taken to aerobic exercise (defined for these purposes as any activity producing a pulse rate of between approximately 60–80% of 220 minus one’s age, e.g. 108–144 for a 40-year-old) at least briefly each day. Using the pulse rate to set exercise levels has the advantage of being self-adjusting: the very debilitated will reach high pulse rates with minimal activity. Nevertheless, caution is required. The debilitated will have very little stamina and even a minute may be too long. If exercise is followed by more fatigue, it is too much. Rather, one should build up to being able to undertake aerobic activity for up to 15 minutes each day. The main benefit of the aerobic mode is that it quickly dissipates sympathetic-adrenergic effects on the body (‘adrenaline’), constantly generated during the day in response to perceived stressors, and the enemy of convalescence. Timing one’s exercise for the evening will encourage better sleep that night.
Diet
The principle of the convalescent diet is that it should simply nourish. It should not stimulate or impose demands. Subject to individual dispositions, a convalescent diet is based on vegetables, especially root vegetables, cereals and pulses (if tolerated), fish and eggs, as the most easily assimilated protein sources, and chicken and other fowl if acceptable (chicken stock and soup remain one of the most universal and puzzling convalescent recommendations of history!). There should be no stimulants, caffeine, nicotine, alcohol or sugar, little dairy food and a minimum of convenience foods and food additives. Patients should thus be encouraged to take a simple peasant diet, sharing also with the peasant a simple respect for the food, taking time over it, building their daily rhythm around it.
Medication
It is obviously important to maintain treatment during convalescence: herbal or conventional. However, there is also a key contribution to the measures above in herbal traditions. It was accepted that rest, exercise and diet alone might not be sufficient to bring about recovery. A range of herbal remedies have been directed to facilitating the process, to drive recovery. Many of these are the tonics listed earlier. If recovery is from febrile disease, sustaining warming remedies like Achillea (yarrow), Angelica archangelica (common angelica), Cinnamonum zeylanicum (Ceylon cinnamon), Cardamomum (cardamom) or Foeniculum (sweet fennel) might be indicated. Recovery from low-grade assault on the immune system, chronic viral or fungal infections, conditions marked by swollen lymph glands, persistent sore throats or catarrhal states would need Echinacea, Picrorrhiza or Baptisia tinctoria (wild indigo). Digestion is often in need of support, whether from cooling bitters or warming aromatic digestives. Cleansing should be managed, above all, by gentle eliminatives.
For the phytotherapist convalescence is often the main strategy in making headway in chronic debilitated conditions such as a fatigue syndrome or persistent low-grade infections. Often these problems start with an infection early in life – a glandular fever or infectious mononucleosis, perhaps. The phytotherapist might suggest to the patient that the task is to go back and complete the convalescence from the original illness. The remedies available are probably
Bone, Kerry; Mills, Simon. Principles and Practice of Phytotherapy (pp. 86-87). Elsevier Health Sciences. Kindle Edition.
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I write often about topics that affect our health and well-being. Additionally, I teach and offer lecture about qigong, tai chi, baguazhang, and yoga.
United Martial Arts Association 