Not an advisable thing to do, but something many do every day, ultimately leading to seeking an osteopathic consultation, and it’s not just for a headache! As the years pass, from our early twenties onwards our physiological ceiling gradually gets lower. Now, depressing as this may seem, most instinctively accept the reality when asked whether they’re physically doing what they did in their twenties. They’ll admit to a certain ‘throttle back’, almost without realising it. This moment of insight though, is usually drowned out by the cacophony of ‘life, the universe and everything’. The last thing anyone wants to acknowledge is that at forty they have less elastic than at twenty. So the the physical endeavour whether in the gym, the garden or the sports field continues apace with a gradually increasing rates of injury, slow recovery and fatigue until sometime in the late forties or early fifties the light goes on.

Although they’re less ready to acknowledge it, the reality is that physical perception and ambition begin to collide more forcibly with the physiological ceiling. It’s head banging stuff and as I mentioned, it gives you more than a headache. Actually, it’s a multiple ‘biggy’ in a culture that is ‘youthcentric’ and obssessed to the point of delusion with appearence and the prowess of physical youthfulness and beauty.

The truth, as many painfully learn with acute back pain or other joint pain, is that one cannot avoid the odometer reading; and clock winding ain’t possible! Recording less mileage against distance actually travelled is slightly feasible…but only if you live ‘right’ and herein lies the trick. Avoiding the repeated collision with your physiological ceiling means you have to throttle back on the rate you do things and celebrate the fact that you’re still moving! Stop trying to go-one-better, to improve endlessly, to add an extra kilo to the lift, to run that bit faster. You’re kidding yourself because you’re only running from reality. The truth is if you keep trying to raise the bar you will inevitably meet injury, fatigue and frustration, where you physiological ceiling collides with your misguided or misinformed aspirations.

So relax. Celebrate the fact that you’re healthy and moving, and that you’re exercising without thrashing yourself to injury, fatigue and frustration. Enjoy your exercise, whatever that exercise, and reap its benefits; but do so in balance and counterpoint (see previous blog)! It’s the enjoyment you’re really after; happy people really do live longer. After all, life is far too short to be wasting time feeling miserable in some training program that increases your injury risk, fatigue and frustration because you’re chasing an unreachable goal in an unsustainable way, even though you may be feeling entirely self righteous in a ‘new-age puritan’ kind of way.

So get over it, get moving and get a life that you enjoy and relax!

Arguably, some of the most beautiful music to ever be written is that of Johann Sebastian Bach. The form in which he often wrote is referred to as ‘counterpoint’, described as the relationship between two or more ‘tunes’ (within one piece) that are independent in form and time and interdependent in harmony (see Wikipedia for further info).

Possibly one of the greatest challenges we face in this age is to run our lives in a so called ‘balanced’ way. This simple and somewhat meaningless term nevertheless succeeds intuitively in embracing a host of complex health-related and stress management issues that are in detail uniquely individual but in general, follow common-sense precepts. The implication of ‘balance’ is the successful maintenance and on-going management of our health and well being. When we demand excessively of our natural resilience we eventually wind-up paying a price expressed in terms of our psychological, spiritual or physiological well being.

One way of looking at life that I have found helps some patients toward enhanced self-insight and ultimately an improvement in their well being, is the idea that we endeavour to seek a counterpoint to the greatest demands and stresses of daily living. For example, if you’re sedentary, under pressure and a bit isolated, find some daily time when you move or exercise, you’re relaxed and you’re with friends. If you work surrounded and dependent on others, constantly on the move and barely ever still, ensure you have some daily time that allows you to enjoy some solitary time, sees you at rest, quiet and relaxed.

In our daily life, through observing our dynamic daily existence, construct a counterpoint that balances noise with quiet, movement with stillness, excess with paucity, action with rest, the sedentary with the active, stress with tranquility. Through this counterpoint, we can nurture our well being, preserve our health and sanity, and recover our physiological resources.

As the musical perfection of JSB and his counterpoint illustrates, engaging the independent opposites provides for the healthy maintenance of our interdependent systems (psychological, spiritual, physiological) and the resultant harmony of health.