simple exercises

I find that it is quite easy to experience regret in retirement.  Not so much regret about what was or wasn't done before retirement.  I was pretty busy then and didn't have time to do much else.  Besides, I was sufficiently focused on what I was doing that I didn't think about doing much else.

But come retirement, and I am free!  Free!  OK, now what?  Well, there are tons of opportunities.  And as time goes by, you discover more.  You really don't have to think all that broadly.  Just being interested in your church or in travel or in old cars or writing or any subject or two, will quickly result in tens, then hundreds of possibilities that seem attractive.  

Plenty of older people are interested, among all the possibilities, in the health of their brains.  The best book I have read about brains is still The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge, MD.  The book focuses on the meaning and uses of neuroplasticity, the fact that the brain continually modifies itself to the best shape for the tasks and activities the mind and body work on.  The book, and many other sources on both brain or body, emphasize that we use our abilities or we lose them.  This can sound negative but in some cases, it seems just nature anticipated.  I read recently that a young child's brain has many more connections between its neurons than that person will have as an adult.  The brain is born for all sorts of possibilities that aren't needed by that person in that culture but the excess is dropped.

One of the best things we can do for our brains and our whole bodies is exercise.  As we age, we tend to focus on certain activities and our bodies sometimes need to stretch and accommodate large amounts of sitting and deskwork.  Just a few exercises seem to make a big difference in keeping some of the fundamental possibilities for movement and health open.  

I am a fan of resistance bands and this blog about their use.  Recently, two posts on that blog discussed exercises that have a high payoff.  The first shows the W exercise for shoulders and the clamshell exercise for hip.  The second shows a simple exercise that helps arms, shoulders and neck.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety