My mother’s favorite toast was “to good health.” Health was something she deeply appreciated. She was not a sickly person, but had her share of ailments, serious illness, and operations during the last 30 years of her life. To her good health meant having no major illnesses, a general sense of well being, and an ability to appreciate life.
Good fitness was a part of her definition of good health. My sister and I were raised to be well rounded. My family swam, bowled, played ball games. My mother loved to dance, and she taught my sister and me. When I was a teenager, she had the wisdom to know that exercise helped dispel depression. She never set fitness goals for us, but she wanted us to engage in physical activities with pleasure and competence.
Most people would probably have a similar understanding of good health. But the concept gets murky in the way our society uses words. We speak of “health insurance” and “health care policies,” as if having insurance and policies assure us of good health. These, actually, are medical care insurance and medical care policies. The relationship of medical care to good health is often inversely proportional. The healthier we are, the less we need medical care.
Good health is having systems that work well most of the time. Too often, we tend to think of good health exclusively in terms of “getting a workout.” A healthy cardiovascular system is essential, but so are respiratory, digestive, immune, and other systems. Good health requires more than merely working up a sweat a few times a week. A healthy lifestyle to keep your systems functioning has two main components: internal and external.
The internal component consists of what we do with ourselves each day. It includes having relaxed times, moving the body in a strengthening and flexing way so as to massage and support the organs and our muscular/skeletal system, maintaining a good structure so that no part of the body is over or under worked, and keeping the mind and body in harmony with each other.
The external components encompass inputs that enter the body and mind: good food, air, and water; not too much stress; supportive interactions with others; participating in activities that give us pleasure; enjoying our lives.
People with chronic illnesses—diabetes, high blood pressure, emphysema—and people with acute illnesses—cancer, heart attacks, strokes—often rely exclusively on medical care and medicine to manage their illness. But medical services alone are not enough to successfully manage illness or to regain or maintain good health. Seventy percent of illnesses in the United States, it has been suggested, are related to stress—negative inputs. Participating in mindful physical activities and otherwise leading a healthy lifestyle can greatly diminish the symptoms of many chronic illnesses. Learning to relax deeply, to breathe deeply, and to strengthen and use one’s legs to carry and support one’s upper body has been known to lower high blood pressure, improve balance, and decrease the symptoms of diseases like Parkinson’s, fibromyalgia, slipped disks, and arthritis.
As we age, the components of a healthy lifestyle become even more important. Women with close friendships live longer than women without close friendships, research has shown. In the past few years, research on seniors and tai chi chuan has shown that participating in a good tai chi class strengthens legs and increases balance significantly.
Mindful exercise and leading a healthy lifestyle help us move towards teaching our minds and bodies to work in harmony as a whole unit. And working well as a whole unit may be the key to good health, regardless of our age. Even when medical treatments cannot cure an incurable illness, living a healthful lifestyle can help us to lead full lives in the time we have remaining.
During my mother’s last three years she had lung cancer, and lived with my husband and me. During most of this time she practiced qigong and tai chi chuan with me. Her habit was to eat healthily most of the time, and she took delight in living. She was able to travel to see the rest of her family—to Florida, Texas, Detroit, even once to Japan. She needed oxygen the last four months of her life, but only in her final 10 days was she unable to manage the three stairs to the dining room. And only for the last three days was she confined to her bed.
My favorite picture of her hangs in our dining room. At 80 she had a small solo part in a benefit play at the Jewish Community Center in Orlando, Fla. She is dancing the Charleston.
As we age, we tend to focus only on our decline. And decline we eventually will. But the aging experience can be much more complex and richer than the decline in our abilities. It is also a great opportunity to learn to use our bodies and minds more effectively, to balance fitness goals with listening to our bodies, to pay attention to our well-being, and to find harmony and delight in our lives.
