Prime Time - Jane Fonda [41]
Physiologists have grown perplexed about the rapid increase in obesity in the developed world. How, they ask, can this be so, when the percentage of people who perform the minimum half hour of daily moderate activity has remained relatively stable? This phenomenon has led scientists to define a new health risk called inactivity physiology.
It is now believed that even if you devote thirty to forty minutes daily to exercise, if the rest of your day is spent in a sedentary position, you are at risk of poor health. Well, it’s no secret that too many of us spend too much of our time sitting. We sit in our cars or on buses to get to work; we sit at desks once we’re there; and we sit in front of the television when we get home. The average adult spends 9.3 (61 percent) of their waking hours sitting. Scientists are starting to believe that simply getting up and walking a few steps every hour can mitigate the negative effects of this inactivity.
In airports, I always walk rather than take the “moving sidewalk” and use the stairs rather than the escalator. And if I do have to take an escalator, I walk up it instead of just riding passively. These little decisions can really add up to your becoming more physically active.
Interoception: The Deeper Meaning of Body Awareness
I feel strongly that this is the time in our lives when getting “into” our bodies is less about being into our bodies in the “How do I look?” sense, though that is a part of it. But there can also be a psychic effect of physical activity.
So many of us have, to greater or lesser extents, become numb and cut off from our bodies. This lack of connection often increases as we age. We may be saying to ourselves, “Why deal with our bodies now? We’re through having children. We’re beyond trying to appeal to someone else. We don’t even appeal to ourselves!” Numbness especially occurs with people who have been abused or are burdened with obesity, but it is more widespread than that. We can be alienated from feeling our muscles, our heartbeat, our breath within the body. Obviously we are aware of these things, but it can be only on a superficial, disembodied level.
My friend Joan Halifax, a Zen master, has challenged me to consider a deeper significance of body awareness. “We think the mind is between the two ears and is the expression of the brain,” she told me. “But neuroscience shows us that the mind isn’t just in the head; it is throughout the entire body, informing the entire organism.” When we are cut off from our bodies, our thinking becomes disembodied.
I know what that feels like. For years, I suffered from anorexia and bulimia. Food addicts, like all addicts, are inevitably disembodied. By the time I started my Workout business I was not engaging in my food addiction, but I was not healed, either. I guess I was the equivalent of a dry drunk (but for food, not alcohol): one who is sober but has not worked through a twelve-step program. The result was that I spent a lot of time taking up residence next door to myself—disembodied. As I look back over those years of building the Workout business, I think I was instinctively searching for a way to heal myself, to get back into my body. Discovering that I could be in control of my body through exercise, and thereby learning to accept and even love my body, was a first step in making that happen.
I ask you, right now, to put your index and middle fingers on the artery at the side of your throat and feel your pulse. In a moment, I’m going to ask you to stop reading, close your eyes, and sink into your body. When you do, be aware of your breathing, the rise and fall of your chest, your pulse, the sensations inside your body, the feeling of the flesh of your buttocks against the seat, the bottoms of your feet. Don’t rush and don’t forget to breathe. And, with your breath, bring forgiveness into your body for perhaps not being everything you wish it was. Smile into your body. It’s gotten you this far. It deserves your love, respect, and attention.