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You might not be able to exercise your way out of bad diet, but you can definitely greatly accelerate your journey to physical fitness if you work with – or, more correctly, against – gravity. G-force is something few personal trainers or fitness professionals talk about, but the science is all there, and it can act like a silent health and fitness partner. It’s a best kept secret in the wellbeing space, but our relationship to gravity is pivotal to our health and longevity.
Astronauts suffering gravity deprivation syndrome suffer symptoms just like we see in ageing or chronic disease. What’s more, they start showing symptoms after only 3 days in space. It also doesn’t matter how old they are. Young astronauts develop the same symptoms as older astronauts - but they also both recover with a lot of help from gravity.
None of us in the ANH office have gym memberships and we try to avoid using the word, exercise. Even the word sounds like hard work and something no one wants to do! Yet, we’re all really active, we love the outdoors and ever since our ‘gravity epiphany’ some years back, we leverage G-force for time.
How does G-force make us healthy?
Well, NASA’s Skylab Missions found that astronauts grow older faster in space - even the young ones. They also found that the lack of gravity wreaks havoc on their bodies with a list of symptoms that looks very similar to the symptoms associated with chronic disease. Research in the 90’s led them to look at the effect of gravity on the bodies of returning astronauts and they discovered that G-force really is our friend.
NASA discovered that astronauts begin to decline physically because their bodies have no need to resist anything when in weightlessness. Living in a state of suspended animation in fact causes their bodies to become completely immobile. The brain begins to decline in this state and bone density is lost at a rate of approximately 1.6 % per month and in some cases, per week. This opposed to a loss of bone density, which amounts to around 1% per year (after the age of 20) for those of us within the pull of gravity.
Without the Earth’s gravitational pull on our bodies, we’d just atrophy. Gravity has an effect on our lives every moment of every day. This can be very positive where it impacts our vitality, stamina and health or it can be negative where it weighs us down and tires us out when we don’t make the most of it.
Being sedentary, particularly if you sit for long periods, makes you a bit like a weightless astronaut in space. Gravity works against us, but it’s so easy to turn it to our advantage where it can greatly enhance our health and longevity and to live pain free lives with healthy bones and muscles.
Making the most of our stone age genes
Our bodies are designed to be in constant motion and our muscles understand how to be lean and strong when they exert effort against gravity. Muscles can only grow and rebuild themselves if there is gravity, and when leg muscles, bones, the brain and the spine are no longer needed for holding us up and making movements, they start to deteriorate. This in turn causes problems in organs and tissues that rely on muscular contraction for function.
Our ancestors relied on gravity to live and survive in a challenging world. They moved their physical bodies constantly, to find food and shelter, migrating to follow seasons and herds, and to avoid danger or to defend themselves. Our bodies, and our genes, evolved long ago to be in a state of perpetual motion. We thrive on activity and movement and we age rapidly and get sick from being sedentary.
Our latest Health Hack video gives you a flavour of what you can do to make sure you enhance your relationship to gravity in your daily life. We also share a bit about our own personal favourite G-force activities!
May the G-force be with you…
Comments
your voice counts
19 September 2019 at 10:07 am
'Use it or lose it' has merit.
Its corollary is
'What you neglect to use, fades from non use'.
This is a powerful tool for releasing negative definitions and beliefs.
Fear and guilt can usurp a true motivation, and so every time we notice they are interjecting or being triggered, we can instead choose to align in wholeness and health of being who we truly are and acting from there.
The other side of this is:
'What you resist' persists'.
This also has positive and negative application.
If we frame our life in a fight against sickness - we persist the frame of sickness as our motivation - which is exactly what the corporate pharmaceutical cartel embodies.
Challenge and stress can serve to deepen and strengthen us in life - but that is up to each of us and as a cultural sense of worth, together. Survival of the fitting is of course the flexibility and balance within change. The systemic managements of Big Food and Big everything else - is developing as a systemic management of human engineering that seeks to bio-hack life for the sustainability of a 'possession and control' mindset that is revealing itself as a 'Foxy Loxy' working the farmyard animals through 'Chicken Licken'. Where the very few outsource toxic consequence of driven greed onto the very many AND induce the people to want it, buy it, and sacrifice themselves and their fellow human beings to it.
Deceit or self-illusion is the most insidious way to lose health and wholeness because it can mask AS them, or as their priesthood or power of protection. Socially engineered deceits have been technologically enhanced and extended while for the most part the people consumed what was extended in trusting their authorities.
The right and the freedom of decision is our inheritance - and this includes what we do not accept and do not give allowance for. If we do not live our own responsibility, we give it away to others who will take over decisions until their fear of consequence for delivering bad outcomes leads them to abnegate decision making to a structure of 'post truth' thinking from which right and wrong have been subordinated to the goal of their own sustainability!
21 September 2019 at 3:38 pm
Ahhhhhh....G-Force! Yes, we have been recommending 'rebound therapy' for many years to our clients. Certainly, bungee cords are preferable to metal springs for most people - including those who suffer from osteoporosis or joint problems. Anyone on medication should first consult with their doctor or CAM Practitioner and ask for health & safety guidance. For those who are elderly or physically challenged we always recommend using a stabilising bar to prevent falls. One person we read about actually broke their ankle because they fell awkwardly. Many GP's still don't understand or care about the many physiological interactions within the human body. These subjects should be taught in every school in the world. Give each child a 5 - 10 minute workout on a rebounder before starting lessons and their performance and concentration will benefit significantly during the day - it's a fact! And not only does vertical movement via a rebounder stimulate osteoblasts to make new bone cells, but every part of the body will benefit. Cell membranes need to be stretched - especially those in the eyes, lymphatic system, cardiovascular system and so on. When cell membranes are 'exercised' the cells stay healthier for longer... simples!
Your voice counts
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