Thursday, February 5, 2009

From the Heart

The heart is considered a muscle in "concrete" terms. The muscle beats for about 80 years; 70 beats a minute that will sometimes speed up with stress and exercise and slow down with relaxation and sleep. The more in tune the heart is, the slower the resting heart rate. (It is rumored that Michael Jordan had a resting heart rate of 40!) During high stress it can go up to 180.....just like the Steeler's James Harrison last week during that 100 yard return! Getting the heart fit will usually reap rewards in time. I always thought running was good enough but now with the way my mixed martial arts practitioners are pushing the envelop with full body involvement like the concept of "peripheral heart action", work outs like "the 300". These practitioners are showing the medical community that a different form of exercise is being utilized to keep the heart in excellent condition. And it's not just the 20 year olds.....more boomers are adapting this form of exercise. At Contender Boxing in Aurora where I trained last year, Mike Bardash was developing routines for conditioning the legs as well as the torso. (never thought 5 minutes of throwing hands would be so exhausting).

My point is that if I medically clear a patient for heart disease, sky's the limit! Pushing the envelop will yield a healthier heart and a more grounded spirit from the triumph of making through the routine. With a healthier outlook, stress is seen in a calmer vision and easier to neutralize. I speak of the healthy heart this month since it is "heart month". The concept of getting on a treadmill, bike or in a gym is the western way to figuring out what a goal should be and if we are hitting the goal 20-40 minutes, 5 days a week. The oldest exercises, Tai Chi, QiGong and Yoga have rewarded practioners with longevity without targeting the heart muscle as goal. As I have referenced in previous blogs, I started incorporating meditation into whole body healing when a patient of mine who had high blood pressure started with yoga. In three months, he actually gained weight, got off his medicine and lowered his blood pressure. I could see the transformation over 3 months and soon after I enrolled in Medical Acupuncture with UCLA. I have seen this repetition with several other patients.

The Saguil Approach would be, ask a doctor first. Once cleared, find an activity that is interesting and easy to perform (without going broke), find a group of others with the same mind set, stay away from those with bad karma, and eat things you dont feel guilty of. Don't fall into the mind set that age limits activity, embracing challenge is one of the ways people endure. The best anti-aging drug I can prescribe is "exercise".