THE EARTH GYM

No, this is not a new health or fitness club downtown! Its a way of incorporating exercise and fitness into our daily lives by utilizing everything around us, in our yards, at work or around the community. I'll explain this is in a minute.

But first, Dr. Henry Lodge and Chris Crowley in their wonderful book "Younger Next Year" say:

* 70% of what we feel as aging is optional

* 50% of all illnesses and injuries in the last third of our lives can be eliminated by changing our lifestyles.

* 70% of premature death is lifestyle related.

* 70% of the normal decay associated with aging can be forestalled until almost the end of our life--the weakness, sore joints, feeling crappy, lousy balance, etc.

So one of the things we can do to change our lifestyle is incorporate the Earth Gym into our daily lives. What this means is to climb the stairs instead of taking the elevator, park far away from the stores at a Mall, use a rake to clean up the leaves instead of a leaf blower, use a push mower instead of a sitdown mower, use a hand trimmer instead of a weed-wacker, till and turn over the garden with a shovel instead of a roto-tiller, walk to as many places as possible instead of driving, especially short trips (every minute of walking adds 3 minutes to our lives). You get the idea!!

We can still go to a gym or health club, but by incorporating the above into our daily lives as well, we are helping to delay or reduce all the attributes associated with aging. And we should try to make our exercise fun--kayak the rivers and ponds in the area, hike and walk in the nearby parks and trails, snow shoe and cross-country ski at Maudsley.
I know a lot of folks are busy and some of the conveniences make it easier and save us time, but in the long run, we are letting muscles atrophy, we are getting less exercise, and letting those attributes associated with aging creep slowly into our lives.
If we do all of the above, combined with eating right, we are increasing our chances of living to a ripe, old age, in good health and fitness. See you at the EARTH GYM!

I like the Make One Change that is on the AJH Homepage. That can apply to so many aspects of our daily lives. It can be our diet, our overall health-physical and mental, our exercise routine, volunteering or how we approach life. And that’s what I would like to talk about today-our attitude, especially having a positive attitude. When we get out of bed in the morning and put our feet on the floor, we can have a positive attitude or a negative attitude. The choice is ours.

Scientific studies have shown that there is a definite correlation between a positive attitude and good health and happiness. And studies have shown that having a positive attitude in business is an attribute that leads to success and is looked for in job applicants over many other attributes.

Charles Swindoll said “Attitude is more important than the past, education, money, circumstances, failures, success, what other people think, appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break an organization, a school or a home.” He goes on to say “I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.” These are pretty good words to live by each day!

Here’s how we can all have a great day—Awaken early, do some inspirational reading, exercise, listen to a positive CD, have a nourishing breakfast, have wholesome, positive thoughts, pleasant greetings to everyone we meet, appreciate everything we have, listen more, talk less, see work as pleasurable, count our blessings, have a moderate lunch and dinner, relax and play, review our accomplishments, give thanks and go to sleep.

Two books that I have read and re-read are Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking and Napoleon Hill’s and W. Clement Stone’s Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude. These are classics in the field and have meant a lot to me. I read them often to re-charge my batteries and fight off the bombardment of negativity that we all are subject to.