motivation

Research Round-Up

by ultrapeg

Just in case you need one more reason to sit less and move more, yet another study has just been published in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health which found that:

People who spent more time sitting were more likely to become disabled when compared with people with similar health and exercise habits who sat less. Each daily hour spent sitting increased the odds of problems with activities of daily living by 46 percent.

But here’s the good news – it’s never too late to get moving!  And anybody can do it.  The following comes from an article on the NPR website discussing the study’s findings:

The key to maintaining your muscles’ ability to do basic, low-intensity tasks is keeping them working, says Marc Hamilton, an inactivity physiologist at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La.

If you want to maintain mobility through life, Hamilton says, get your muscles focused on just that.

“Get nonfatiguing activity in as much as possible,” he says.

That can be as simple as walking around the office, or parking your car at the far end of the parking lot or even just standing up while talking on the phone.

Bottom line – just get up and move!  You don’t need to run a marathon, just get moving.  Any movement at all is better than none.  As you’ve all heard me say many times, getting started is the hard part.  Once you get up and go, the rest is easy.

And if that’s still not enough to motivate you – wait!  There’s more .  .  .

These two recent research reports from the Journal of Aging and Physical Activity may give you some incentive to specifically try Pilates. One study was conducted to “evaluate the effect of a program of modified Pilates for active individuals with chronic non-specific low back pain”.  This study found that

Pilates used as a specific core stability exercise incorporating functional movements can improve non-specific chronic low back pain in an active population compared to no intervention. Additionally, Pilates can improve general health, pain level, sports functioning, flexibility, and proprioception [awareness of the position of one’s body – important for maintaining balance while moving] in individuals with chronic low back pain.

Another study “investigated the effect of Pilates exercise on physical fall risk factors 12 months after an initial 5 week Pilates intervention”.  This study got the following results:

Balance improvements after a short Pilates intervention were maintained one year later in all participants, with increased benefits from ongoing participation.

So give it a try!  You might even find out you like it.  Don’t let fear hold you back.  I can promise you this:   no one who comes to my classes will bite you – or judge you.  Remember, the consequences of not moving are pretty scary, too.  Just come and do what you can.  You will be welcomed by all!

Of course there are many other research findings that support continued activity regardless of age or perceived limitations.  So take that first step.  Even if your first effort feels confusing or uncomfortable, you will improve if you stick with it.  Just making the effort will give you a sense of accomplishment.  But you’ll never improve if you don’t try.  So make the commitment and give it a whirl.  You’ll be glad you did!

Overcoming the Need to be Perfect

by ultrapeg

As we launch into the New Year, some of you may find that you are already faltering in your resolve to leave 2013 behind and find the new you in 2014.  There is no doubt that change can be difficult.  In part this is because any change involves loss.  Change implies letting go of something in order to embrace something different.  That means the loss of something even if that something is just an attitude.  In fact, sometimes an attitude can be the most difficult thing to let go of.  Especially if it is something that you believed in.

Trying something new often awakens a fear that we might not do it right.  Even if the new activity is designed to help us relax, like yoga or meditation, we worry.  Suppose we’re not doing it right?   Won’t I look bad in a class setting?  I will stand out and everyone will sneer at me.  This fear can cause us to set up road blocks like “I need to be in better shape first” or “when something outside myself changes, then I’ll be able to start”.  You know the drill.  We’ve all done this.  The problem is when you depend on something outside of yourself to change before you can change, then you are at the mercy of situations you cannot control.  Of course, there isn’t much in our lives that we can control (contrary to popular belief), but one thing we can control is our attitude.  Until you make a decision that you really do want to change, it is unlikely that it will happen.  Regardless of what happens in the world outside yourself.

If your desire to change is conflicting with your belief that you need to be perfect, perhaps you might find some solace in a recent Yoga Journal article by Sally Kempton entitled “Making Peace with Perfection”.  After describing herself as a “recovering perfectionist”, she provides some insights into the meaning of the term itself.  Here are some excerpts:

“In Sanskrit, one of the words for perfection is purna, usually translated as fullness or wholeness.  .  . . Contrast that to our ordinary idea of perfection. In our everyday speech, the word perfect means flawless.  . . . When we can’t make things perfect, then there must be something wrong with us or the world.

The irony is that our ideal of perfection—which arises from the ego’s need to explain and control—inevitably keeps us from the experience of perfection. Like any construct, it clamps the lid on the bursting, chaotic, joyous mess of reality, substituting a rigid, artificial notion of what is appropriate or beautiful.  Conditioned as we are by our upbringing and culture, most of us can’t help living under the tyranny of perfection. Yet perfection itself is not the tyrant. It’s our notions about perfection that tyrannize us. When we’re outside the experience of perfection, we long for perfection while idolizing a standard that separates us from it. When we’re inside it, the question “How can I keep this great feeling?” instantly removes us from the feeling we’re trying to hold onto.”

Although Ms. Kempton admits that not all perfectionism is destructive, for example, there are musicians, scientists and athletes striving for excellence, this is not the case for most of us.  When creating road-blocks to change, our notion of perfectionism is often “driven less by the pursuit of excellence than by the fear of what might happen if [we] fail. [We] measure . . . performance by the approval and validation [we] get from external [sources].”

But take heart – there is hope!  Ms. Kempton goes on to describe a path for even the most determined perfectionist:

“Perfectionism is a deeply ingrained way of being. And since it affects our thoughts, our emotions, and our actions, getting rid of negative perfectionism requires work on all these levels. It helps to have a quiver of strategies, so you can experiment and work with the one that works for you in the moment. Negative perfectionists nearly always hold themselves to unreachable standards. Then, when they fail to meet them, they beat themselves up. So remember, the first line of defense against perfectionism is to learn how to give yourself permission to be who you are and where you are. That level of permission, ironically enough, is often the best platform for change.”

Here are a few of the suggestions in the “quiver of strategies” she provides:

1)      Retrain Your Inner Critic – Find a positive counterstatement for every negative statement the inner critic makes. It may take a little time, but in the end you’ll retrain him.

2)     Allow Yourself Not to Be the Best

3)     Give Yourself Permission to Do the Minimum

You are all encouraged to read the rest of the suggestions in the article itself.  But I will add something that is incorporated in all of the ideas presented – recognize that you are enough just as you are and that everything you need to succeed is already within you.

It may not be easy to remind yourself of this, but as obstacles arise in your plan to implement change, rather than just accepting them as inevitable, perhaps you can undermine them and find a way to follow your intentions.  Just think how good you’ll feel when you actually begin to see – and be – the change you want to happen.