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Many of us feel our body getting “older” in live time. I’m only 26 and I can attest to this.
The interesting thing is, it’s not about your age. It’s about your lifestyle, your habits, your most common practices with your body.
What I mean by this is that your body will get really good at whatever it does most. Our bodies are unbelievably adaptable.
If you sit at a desk for around 8 hours a day, your body will get very good at doing that. Your energy levels will decrease, your hips will tighten up, and your posture will suffer. This is all in the name of adaptability as far as your body is concerned.
There’s no one thing that’s “bad” for you, as long as it’s not the only thing you do. This relates very well to the way we think about sitting today. We consider it the new smoking. But really, humans have always sat. They just didn’t do it for most of the waking day, for such long stretches, without adjusting positions.
This is why I’ll never be a committed stand-up desk person. I have a stand-up desk, but I only work at it momentarily. Then, I sit down, kneel, lay down, whatever.
I already stand up straight and stay in place at my job for a large part of the day so I don’t really need more of that. But adjust it to your own lifestyle. As I’m alluding to, maybe you sit too much at your job so when you come home you’d prefer to stand at a desk. It’s completely situational.
Another prime example in line with this blog especially is the shoes you wear. When you wear narrow shoes that squeeze your toes together all day, your toes and feet will adapt to become more narrow.
To elaborate with the feeling of “aging” in my life, I stand in place at my job for at least a few hours a day. I’m sedentary while standing to put it another way.
Since I’ve starting working there, my neck, upper back, and mid back all are noticeably tighter. I’m not as flexible as I was even a year ago and I can’t stretch as well as I used to. This is something I will be working on in the very near future and sharing what I have learned with you.
Because of the need to work and the sedentary nature of most jobs, I do what I can to combat this by taking up many different positions throughout my days. This includes different sitting positions, laying positions, and maybe even standing. This is how I can keep my hips and legs more limber and force my body to remain highly adaptive.
Without doing things like this, you will quickly notice your body start to atrophy. This may sound severe to some but it is the reality.
Many young people today don’t even feel confident enough to play in a pick-up sports game for fun. They are worried about hurting themselves by pulling a muscle, spraining an ankle, and so on.
When many of us were kids, however, we never thought like this. We played as rough as we wanted and rarely got hurt. I played tackle football with my friends for years with no pads and don’t remember getting hurt once. People will say that kids’ bodies are just more resilient and this isn’t false, but their level of activity is so high and the amount of input their body gets is off the charts. That’s the real difference maker.
Like I said, I’m 26. This is my “prime.” There’s no reason I can’t be as robust as I was when I was younger. But it comes down to the lifestyle differences between then and now.
I don’t have time to play sports for half the day with my friends anymore. I have to make do with what resources I have. That’s totally fine though because that is the purpose of this blog after all; learning how to take care of and repair your body on your own so you can live the exact life you want for yourself.
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