Exercise Is Medicine

I walked twice the usual distance this morning. As I strolled the empty predawn streets, I found new energy to propel me past the pains and doubts that constantly push me to quit this effort. I marveled at the new spirit, then realized its root is in an old mantra, "Exercise is medicine."

A nutritionist told me those words in 2006, when diabetes joined rheumatoid arthritis as my affliction. Movement is key, she used to say.  Exercise fights sugar, stiff joints, poor blood flow, and the butt spread from sitting.

At points, the daily walk becomes an act of meditation. "Exercise is medicine," and other little things I say to myself help fight the sharp stabs and aches in my legs, knees, hips and back. Those hurts gang up on me and feed the urge to quit. The pain spurs the negative thoughts and the despair - which hits more often than you can imagine - that hangs you between the desire to live and die. That tedious imbalance and dissonance opens my impatient, doubt-filled consciousness to embrace defeat and stasis like a couple of long-lost relatives.

My experience is clear, but not isolated. A recently published study in a Sports Science journal cites the ties between self-talk and endurance. Thoughts can snatch victory from defeat.

It is a twisted cycle. The less I move, the less I feel pain. The less I move the more the physical, mental and spiritual sickness grows. The more the malady swallows my body, mind and spirit the greater I hurt until the decline hits my soul and chokes the existence out of my life.

I might never enjoy exercise, but what I tell myself about it is key. The steady steps, especially in the predawn silence, help me to build stamina, clear my mind, process ideas, and douse the cares of daily existence. The words in my head pump up this journey toward physical, mental and spiritual balance and harmony like fertilizer does plants. They can convince me that I will bloom.