Young vs Old

I have been given to "honor" of organizing our 30th high school reunion by default it seems. It has gotten me to dig out my old high school year book and relive some old memories.

And this of course got me thinking about how we live our lives in mostly a set pattern. The above graphic is a good example of the average human's advance through life. We are young, have all the energy, time and no money to do our dreams. As we advance through time, we work hard, we earn the money, but now we don't seem to have the time to enjoy life fully. Then finally if we did things right, we retire and now have all the time and money to do what you desire, but our bodies are tired and worn out.

Its not hard to see this in our everyday lives, just sit down at the mall one day and people watch, you will see the youngsters running happily, the busy adults rushing to get errands done on their lunch hour, and of course you will see the older generation, slowly moving through the mall too.

I used to do weekly talks with a financial planner years ago, he would talk about how you need to save for retirement so you have enough money, I would then talk about how you need to take care of your body so you can actually enjoy yourself and live life to its fullest in your golden years.

Our bodies unfortunately, are neglected by many of us in our younger years and we pay the price for it as we age. It's been said that movement is the key to life and I believe that's very true. Sitting at a desk in an office for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year is not movement. Coming home after a long day of sitting and plopping down on the couch to watch TV isn't movement either. Then you ad in diet (its truly hard to find healthy, non-chemically induced foods), life and more, its not hard to see most people need more movement in their lives.

When I was in school, they talked about a study done on college kids where they taped their elbows up to limit the movement in them, then every day or two they would draw some fluid out and see if the lack of movement was affecting the joint. At day 13, the tests indicated permanent arthritic changes had occurred in the joint. 13 days!!!

Now, as a chiropractor who preaches regular chiropractic care for everyone, this is one major reason to make sure your spine is moving properly each and every week. Most of the time you can't "feel" if your spine is not moving properly, sometimes a sensory nerve will be affected and you sense a pain or problem, but that isn't all the time.

I have been trying to teach (force, sometimes) my kids to build their brains and bodies each and every day somehow, even if its just learning one new word, or doing 10 burpee's, push-ups, etc. Its so important to understand that our bodies aren't bulletproof, they do and will break down on us, it should be our job to make sure we do our best when we are younger to take care of them. So when we are older, wiser and ready, we can just do and enjoy everything we have dreamed of.