Exercise. A thorny subject. If we’re not doing it, part of us knows that really we should be. If we are doing it, are we doing enough? Are we doing too much? Are we doing the right sort?
How many people do not sleep well?
How many people have gut issues?
How many people are not exercising because, basically, it hurts when they do?
Now, where there’s a will, there’s a way. For some of us, we really want to do a reasonable amount of exercise, and some of it, demanding. We would like to sleep well and we don’t really want to wander about with a big, bloated belly.
So we may well try to Do Something About It.
For physical problems, there are many choices: massage, chiropracty, physiotherapy, plain old stretching and strengthening, acupuncture, surgery, steroid injections, pain killers, anti-inflammatories. And still we hurt. Round and round mending ourselves.
Sleep: pharmaceuticals, natural remedies, magnesium (this works), good sleep protocols (dark room and so on). And still we don’t sleep reliably well.
Guts: suffer.
Everything that we do to ourselves matters -very much including how we live our lives and what we eat. Much of what we do to make ourselves better helps.
The problem: we all think only about the messages coming from our body. It hurts, therefore the answer has to lie in working on it. We don’t sleep well, therefore address only that.
Very basic Z-health teaches us that there are three systems with major input into the brain: the body, which we all know about, the visual and the balance systems.
Put it this way: if we blindfold ourselves, soundproof our ears so no sound can get in at all then go into a flotation tank- or maybe learn how to do a tumble turn in a pool, our brain has no input about the outside world at all. It has no idea what on earth is happening out there. Very crudely, our brain is like unbelievably complex, electrical jelly living in a bony box. Its eyes are your eyes, ditto inner ears and body. Without good, reliable input from them, it gets a bit confusing in the bony box.
The things we try to do to address our problems only look at one system and not the interaction of all three.
So if we’ve ever known anybody with severe inner ear problems, we know that life was utterly dreadful whilst they were playing up. The world spun, no matter what position the person was in. Horrible.
Phew, I thought. Nothing wrong with my inner ears!
Then I did this little test, which we can all try if we like:
Either get someone to watch you through or set up your mobile on video camera, prop it on a bookshelf or whatever and video yourself doing the following:
Pick a finger and stick it up at arms length in front of your eyes. Stare at it.
Whilst staring at it, turn your head a couple of times to the right, returning to the centre point each time,
Then do it to the left.
Continue in other directions: up, then down, each time returning to the centre point. (Up, centre, up, centre and so on.)
Now try taking your nose on the diagonal lines, whilst still staring at your outstretched finger. So we have up to the right diagonal, back to the centre; then up to the left; down to the right diagonal, and finally down left. Incidentally, there should be no head bobbling about between the change of directions. Easy Peasy.
Or was it? Have a look at the video. Usually its quite amazing. It certainly was for me. Where on earth is that centre point? Did the chin remain level to the floor when turning the head right/left? Or did it tilt? And as for the diagonals. Holy Moly.
Now for some, some of the movements will have been good and others dodgy. For some of us, it was all quite ridiculous. Basically, we have no idea where our head is in space!
Does this matter? Does it matter that a primal reflex doesn’t work very well?
So if we think we are turning our head to the right cleanly whilst looking at a target representing our imminent doom – maybe an enraged warthog – yet in fact as we turn our head tilts, what message is that jelly in the bony box getting? A muddled one.
If the head tilted as it turned, there were messages sent to the brain from the various muscles and joints involved in this telling the brain the movement the head performed. Clearly, those didn’t get through.
The inner ears work on a push/pull system. Turning the head right increases the signals from the right horizontal/lateral ear canal and the signals from the left go down. If we add in a bit of a tilt as well, now we add in the right posterior canal. The eyes and the inner ears are intimately connected. If we think we are turning our head cleanly to the right, this fires up the corresponding eye muscles to move our eyes to the left to keep them on the target (think about it – the eyes have to be moved by muscles, just like our arms and legs). Inadvertently add in a bit of tilt, and other eye muscles have to do a bit of work too. It really is all a bit muddling.
So the brain is now getting mixed information. The eyes tell it the head is level, the inner ears and the body movements tell it there is a bit of tilt going on: there is the oncoming warthog, but I hear a wasp over my right shoulder. Is it going to sting me? But is it directly behind me, or my inner ears are telling me its a little bit up and behind. So what is going on out there?
The eyes win the battle everytime.
The brain places great importance on its visual system. The main part of the visual system is at the base of the brain and it has maximum protection in our skull. We need to see what is going on out there. And the information needs to match up with the information coming from our inner ears – and, of course, our joints and muscles.
When it doesn’t match, the brain gets worried and starts to slow us down, it stiffens us and weakens us so we can’t go as fast or as dangerously. What was a game of squash turns into going out for a run, which turns into cycling or swimming and ends up in spinning classes. If you can fall off a spinning bike, then we could say that things are really not looking good for being healthy and extremely active at 80. (( I would also argue most strongly that we are heading for a dodgy old age if the only way we can significantly raise our heart rate is by going to a spinning class or by swimming.))
The brain is confused and worried. Stress levels start rising. Pain levels go up due to inappropriately and confusedly working muscles. Injury rates start climbing. Sleep worsens. Gut health declines – stress has the most powerful input to messing up the guts. Posture gets worse. The list goes on. And we turn only to mending our bodies by looking at muscular imbalances, getting a pair of orthotics fitted, giving up on exercise, or contributing to the Ferrari Fund of the local osteopath. Or maybe spending a fortune on getting a steroid injection.
Getting ourselves fitted with a pair of glasses can only make things worse. And we may not need glasses at all, but still the visual system is not working optimally.
Which system looks at not only the body, but aims to fix the eyes and inner ears – and therefore fixes the old parts of the brain, the brainstem and cerebellum?
Z-Health. A huge and sometimes overwhelming system. But by using it, we finally find that wondrous person who can sort out our own brain and stop those mixed messages: myself.
Put simply: ultimately, the only person who can sort me out is myself. Only then can I become warthog and wasp proof.