health

Walking Outside

Walking outside is so good for us it seems too good to be true. It turns out walking isn’t just incredibly beneficial for our health, we were made to walk. Walking improves every single system in our body. Name a system of the body or a body part and walking improves how it works.

Systems of the Body

Consider your heart. It’s a lot of work for your heart to pump blood all the way down to your feet and back. When we walk our muscles act as a pump and help move fluid through the body. This helps our circulatory system and other systems like our lymph system (which basically pumps waste among other jobs).

When we walk every part of the body has to work less hard to do it’s job. This reduces our rick of cardiovascular disease of all kinds, reduces stress, reduces our chance of developing type 2 Diabetes or becoming obese, and reduces erectile dysfunction (since that ties in with heart health). On the flip side walking boosts brain health, immunity, and mood. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. But if that’s not enough to convince you to […]

Walking OutsideMaggie Downie2021-06-07T16:27:12-04:00

Chill Out for Better Results…It’s Not All or Nothing

The barefoot running movement got a pretty bad reputation because anecdotally lots of people got hurt barefoot running. If I got seriously injured doing something I attempted to do for my health, I’d stop too. If I loved running before I altered the way I did it and hated it now, I go back to my old ways. It makes sense.

One of my friends tore both his Achilles tendons running with minimalist shoes. But what he did and what many barefoot runners did was push too much too fast. The barefoot running movement and the makers of minimalist shoes all said if you want to make this change you have to start slow—really slow. Go too fast and you’ll get hurt. Taking on more than we are ready for is a major reason people new to exercise stop moving. They work too hard in a hope to get quick results, get hurt and don’t want to continue. Some people associate exercise with pain and getting hurt. That’s always been their experience. Moving doesn’t have to hurt, and should NEVER hurt in a “bad” way. The concept of no pain no gain has been disproved, but it is a really hard […]

Chill Out for Better Results…It’s Not All or NothingMaggie Downie2017-10-25T15:49:49-04:00

On Death & Mourning: A Little Comfort

Not our typical blog, but if it helps you feel better, it helps you move better.

I went to a funeral the other day. The role of the priest, minister or rabbi is always a tough one when someone dies. They have to console the inconsolable. The priest at this funeral wasn’t great. He kept insisting that the dead person was just sleeping, and that it would be accurate to tell kids the dead are merely sleeping. As a child that would have terrified me. I’d never go to bed again.

But then he said something that filled me with happiness. Ultimately, his words were not overly profound, but I’d never had someone put death quite this way. Full disclosure: I’m not religious or spiritual—a fact people are often surprised to learn. I don’t have that gene. But like Mark Twain, I appreciate people who do. There are moments I wish I could believe in something to experience a glimpse of comfort when tormented by grief, but more often than not I’m happy believing in the fallibility of science.

I’ve heard many people say we should be comforted to know that when we die we will be reunited with the person whose life […]

On Death & Mourning: A Little ComfortMaggie Downie2017-10-25T14:26:32-04:00

Why I Move

My Grandma at 88 on a Stability Ball.

There are lots of reasons I move. It makes me feel better physically, mentally and emotionally, and there are a lot of physical activities I think are fun that I want the freedom to do. I’m also really antsy, and I use movement to burn off extra, jittery energy.

But if I’m going to overanalyze it and step back into the reaches of my brain for why I move and believe it’s so important to creating a better life, I have to, at least in part, attribute it to my Grandparents. My Grandpa Downie was antsy too. I never saw him sit without a foot tapping, and he was really active until he hit about 80. But it was more my Grandma. When I was born she’d been wheelchair bound and bedridden for thirty years.

Why I MoveMaggie Downie2017-10-25T15:49:51-04:00

Meditative Gongs

Last week some of the PE staff went to a meditative gong concert at the Conduit Center in East Hartford. I’d been wanting to try it for months, but all day, I kind of felt like it was going to be lame and that I really didn’t want to meditate for 90-minutes. How was the girl whose record meditation is 45-seconds going to lie there for 5,400-seconds? That’s a lot more seconds.

Then I walked into the building, went up the stairs and immediately felt good. I saw the familiar faces of our staff and was hit with the feeling of warmth and comfort. Granted it was 30-degrees outside and they had the heat cranking, but they had the heat cranking and it warmed the cockles of my heart. They had me at heat.

The room had an option for chairs or lying down with blankets. I went for the floor and colorful […]

Meditative GongsMaggie Downie2017-09-12T19:34:29-04:00