energy – Resilient Edge Wellness

Last Friday, I flew from Austin to Panama City Airport (ECP) to visit my parents and brother. My brother picked my up at the airport and we made the drive from Florida up to the lower southeast corner of Alabama where they live. As we drove, I observed that there is STILL damage visible from Hurricane Michael, a devastating CAT 5 storm that hit the Florida Panhandle back in October 2018. Never expecting that…

…we would be in the path of a hurricane now!

Yes, Hurricane Helene is currently approaching the Florida panhandle, this time drawing a bead on the Big Bend area of the coast. She’s expected to grow to a CAT 4 storm with tremendous, possibly record-setting storm surge along areas of the Florida coast. She’s a “big girl” too – a huge storm whose winds and rains have been hitting our area in Lower Alabama for the past four hours. With more to come.

Our impacts here are yet to be seen, but we’ve been told to expect CAT 1 or CAT 2 hurricane effects. Fortunately, we will be on the west side of the hurricane and not feel the full force about to be endured in Florida and Georgia. Nevertheless, we completed our preparations yesterday. The schools and many businesses are closed today or are closing early. We’re as ready as we can be.

I feel for those folks along the Florida coast, many of whom have endured an increasing number and severity of hurricanes in the past five years. Idalia is the one most cited by folks in the Big Bend area, especially along the barrier islands such as Cedar Key. I hope and pray these folks battened down the hatches as well as they could – and then got the hell out of there!

I understand the desire to stay and ride it out, in order to protect your home or business and be on the ground to begin recovery. We went through the same when my parents first retired and build their dream retirement home along the coast in North Carolina. The decision to stay or evacuate can be an agonizing one. You scrutinize each new update, trying to decipher whether you can ride it out safely OR you better leave. If you wait too long to make that decision, you then get stuck in massive traffic as folks evacuate. Or, worse yet, you are stuck and forced to ride it out.

One more data point: when I was age 9 to 11, we lived in Tallahassee, Florida. One of the key things I remember about living there is the proliferation of beautiful, stately trees. Especially the oaks with the Spanish moss hanging off the branches. Tallahassee will be right in the eye of this storm as it passes through. I fear many trees will be uprooted or damaged.

Anyways, I wish the best possible outcome to the people about to be impacted.

In the meantime, I did a little training out on the back porch. It’s the first time I can remember actually working out during a hurricane.

A little back story: It is said that the founder of Shotokan Karate, Funakoshi Gichin, would stand out on the roof of his house on Okinawa during monsoons (the Pacific ocean version of hurricanes). He would grip a tatami mat with both hands, which acted like a sail, and would strive to hold his horse stance on the roof.

As described by an observer and martial arts colleague:

“Now the young man on the roof assumed a low posture, holding the straw mat aloft against the raging wind. The stance he took was most impressive, for he stood as if astride a horse. Indeed, anyone who knew karate could readily have seen that the youth was taking the horse-riding stance, the most stable of all karate stances, and that he was making use of the howling typhoon to refine his technique and to further strengthen both body and mind. The wind struck the mat and the youth with full force, but he stood his ground and did not flinch.”

OK, I know my performing techniques and forms on my parents’ back porch – BEFORE the hurricane even arrives – is nothing like what Funakoshi did.

However, I can report that, energetically, training in the wind and rain felt different. It felt exhilarating. You can sense the current energy as well as the impending energies to come. I plan on periodically going outside for as long as I can and to breathe, stand, and experience the wind, energy, and power of Mother Nature.

Bless all of those in the path of this storm.

You Can Do It!

Dr. Karen

What is the biggest, most major, number one factor in determining
your longevity and quality of life?

According to research over the past 5 to 10 years, it’s your muscle
mass.

Your muscle mass is determined not only by the quantity and quality
of your physical activity. It’s also determined by your metabolism.

More than even your genetics, it’s your metabolism that determines
how quickly you age. Metabolism is the sum total of your body’s
processes of converting food and drink into energy for building up
your body, less the breaking down and getting rid of old cells and
waste products.

The greater your metabolic drive – that is, your body’s ability to
rapidly and efficiently repair and rebuild your tissue – the slower
your body ages.

Building up your body’s anabolic capabilities and building up your
strength – through deep breathing, proper exercise, good nutrition,
and adequate rest – is one of the two major factors you control.

The other factor is mental: staying curious, always learning and
doing new things, and being enthusiastic. In other words, keeping
your inner child awake and alive, rather than buried under adult
pressures and responsibilities.

You – yes, you! – have the power to make profound changes in your
body composition, mental clarity, vitality, and sense of personal
power.

In fact, from studies on identical twins, scientists have learned
that aging is about 35% genetics, and 65% how we live.

I remember a great example of this from one of my biology courses
in college. (I was a Psychology and Biology major, and have always
been fascinated by these subjects.)

The professor was discussing the fact that lifestyle and other
external factors, such as life events, have more influence on our
health and aging than do our genetics.

He held up two pictures of two different women. One looked like she
was old enough to be the other woman’s mother.

We were shocked when the professor told us that both women were
exactly the same age, born in the same month in the same year.

Wow!

As they get older, people tend to allow their level of physical
activity to decline. Or they may avoid activity altogether,
especially if faced with a health challenge.

Then they wonder why they feel so tired, stressed and worn out
all the time, with aching backs and joints. They have forgotten
that our bodies operate under the “move it or lose it” paradigm.

Cultivating energy through dynamic exercises…building and
maintaining muscle mass…and maintaining your range of motion,
particularly through the spine and core, are keys to ensuring
enduring vitality.

Not only will you slow the degenerative processes of aging. You
will also provide yourself with a higher quality of life.

Bottom line: if you haven’t already, begin today to take action to
build yourself up. You have more control than you think in how
well – or poorly – you age. Simple lifestyle choices can make all
the difference.

I’ll have more to share with you on this in coming tips.

You Can Do It!

Karen

“Best Breathing Exercises: Transform Body Mind and Spirit with
Dynamic Energy Exercise!”
www.BestBreathingExercises.com

Tag: energy

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