Chose your Exercise Wisely!

I recently read a guest essay in NYTimes titled “No One Told Me This Would Happen To My Body In My 40s.”  Despite the title the article is uplifting and empowering.  Rarely Do I see in Western models a philosophy that aligns with the teaching of ancient Chinese Medicine.  This article is one of them.  So it inspired me to write a blog about a conversation I’ve had with multiple of my clients who come to me after having physical injuries.  

There is usually a big emotional sense of grief, of aging, of being forced to be limited by our physical body.  We realize we cannot go for a run, row or do kong fu any longer the way we used to.  Some of my clients tell me that they take anti-inflammatories before heading out for a run.  Which just blows my mind and also makes me feel sad for their degree of desperation.  You might have done that…. And you might know what I’m about to write but I’ll do it anyway.  The point of feeling pain in our system is to alert us in order to avoid specific activities that are causing more harm.  To numb that important sensor and keep doing the things that would bring it on just creates more complications in future.  Which brings me to the main promise of Ancient Chinese Medicine:

The Bible of our medicine is the book of Yellow Emperor, from around 200BC.  We still go by the main rules and practices of this book to this day.  The book starts with the Yellow Emperor asking his physician, Qi Bo, why some people age so gracefully with no issues and some have to go through a lot of pain and misery?  In answer to his question Qi Bo starts to explain the cycles of “Jing” or essence.  He goes on to describe seasonal practices that help Man live in harmony with Nature.  The book evolves into more specific theories of Chinese Medicine and eventually acupuncture meridians and cycles of qi or energy in the body.  

The cycles of Jing or essence is the most pertinent theory to our modern life style.  The idea is that we are born with our essence, and through our childhood this essence helps us grow, and after a certain time, cycles of 8 years for men and 7 years for women, it plateaus.  Eventually it starts to diminish.  So for the first 3 cycles of our lives, ages of 7-14-21 for women, and 8-16-24 for men, our essence is in abundance and creating lot’s of qi and blood that helps us grow.  We are full of yang energy when we are young.  You might have noticed how your kids bounce back from an illness or injury, or how easily you can prevent illness with proper food.  On the 4th and 5th cycles our Jing plateaus.  So ages 21 to 28 and 35 for women and 24 to 32 and 40 for men are the ages where we usually become aware of our limitations.  We are not bouncing back after a night of partying, or we cannot eat the same amount of junk food that we used to!  After this our Jing or essence starts to decline. 

You can think of our essence as our hormones, reproductive organs, brain, cerebrospinal fluids and bone marrow.  All of these are the deepest layer of our physical body and affect all other layers and functions.  From densest to lightest is jing, bones, muscles, blood, cartilage, fluids, and finally the lightest layer that is qi or energy.  The main purpose of the Chinese Medicine is to live a balanced life that helps us preserve our essence.  Every time we have an illness or imbalance, too much stress, overwork, or trauma, we are taking away from our essence in order to function in our daily life.  Like a reserve for emergency purposes.  The jing is stored in the kidneys, you can think of it as the adrenals. Everytime we are stressed there is more cortisol secreted from our adrenals to keep our balance going. So the best way to live is to accumulate so much energy in our day to day life, that we rarely need to take away from our reserve.  We cannot really increase what we come to life with, our DNA is not going to change, but we can work on our lighter layers of energy and physical body to preserve the essence and not use it constantly.  That is the simple yet complicated answer on how to attain longevity which humans have been looking for thousands of years in all cultures.  

According to the Yellow Emperor, the “seven emotions” and the “six evils” are equally able to injure our qi and throw us off balance.  Each emotion in excess is harmful to an organ, for example anger injures the liver, sadness depletes the lungs, excitement harms the heart, trauma shocks the kidneys, worry and anxiety harm the digestion and grief injures the large intestine.  Out relationships are a big part of keeping our emotions balanced.  The Six Evils are the affect of our environment and food. Too much cold, heat, dampness, fire, dryness and wind in our environment or in the food we eat can throw us off balance. Also moving the body according to the seasons helps us stay in balance.  In the summer it’s advised to go for a walk and deep breathing in the morning and avoid sweating too much.  In the winter it’s better to keep gentle exercises that are warming the body such as qi gong or tai qi, to exercise the lungs in deep breathing and strengthening the immune system. 

Sexual practice also has to follow the cycles of Jing.  If in our 20s and 30s we are sexually active every day or every other day, in our forties and fifties it winds down to once or twice a week in order to preserve our essence.  In some martial art and spiritual traditions, the practitioners avoid sexual activity in order to preserve their essence in their youth.  Sometimes women who practice kung fu or qi gong don’t menstruate, which is a form of preserving the essence in those traditions as well.  Contrary to our modern society’s  general belief system that the more the better, a lot of traditional practices and ancient belief systems guide us to keep our balance in all aspects of life in order to live a longer life and age gracefully.  

This applies to our idea of exercise as well.  From the Chinese Medicine perspective, running a marathon every year, or when we are in our 40s or 50s is not a sign of health but an omen to what could go wrong in later years.  In fact leading an athlete’s life style in our youth is not usually keeping us in balance and leads to more imbalances in our old age.  Usually the message we get in our modern society is that acting young in our old age is a sign of health.  You might have seen the instagram posts of old ladies who are in the Gym lifting weights.  That’s why I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the NYTimes article reminding us that in our 40’s it’s ok and actually a smart choice to exercise more gently and focus more on strength training as opposed to pushing our body into practices that create physical injuries that can lead to long term imbalances in future.  I often say to my clients, chose your exercise wisely!