Welcome back to our conversations with Mother Nature.
Over the past few episodes I’ve been discussing with Mother Nature her guidance for vibrant wellbeing.
Last week we discussed diet, which can be an emotionally charged subject to say the least.
This week we’re looking at a similarly provoking topic. Exercise.
This third rule is called “Exercise as if living in nature”, which might have you thinking that we’ll be stripping down to our loin cloths and swinging through the trees.
Well, luckily for you this is an audio only podcast. And luckily for me, this kind of exercising in nature is not quite what we have in mind.
We’re going to help you reframe what exercise really means to the wellbeing of the human body, and help you find ways to bring your own passions to your physical activity.
Loin cloths are optional!
So without further ado, here’s my uninterrupted conversation with Mother Nature.
Chris: Hello Mother Nature. Welcome back to the show.
Mother Nature: Thank you Chris. It’s nice to be here.
Chris: So we’ve been gradually working our way through your five guidelines for wellbeing and gaining a little of your reasoning for suggesting them.
We’ve spoken about the Governing Rule of maintaining a sense of Playful Curiosity on the wellbeing journey. And life in general for that matter.
We’ve spoken about the importance of living more slowly and prioritising our sleep.
And in the last episode we spoke about diet, how simple we can make it and how it weaves its way into all five of your guidelines.
This week we move on to your third rule: To exercise as if living in nature.
I’m really curious to see where this one goes because, let’s face it, very few of us live in nature these days.
So could you start us off with what you mean by “exercise as if living in nature” please?
Mother Nature: Of course Chris.
When I gave the guidance to “Exercise as if living in nature” I also expanded on briefly that by saying:
Walk lots. Run a little. Dance and lift heavy things often.
This is how you lived in nature once upon a time.
You walked every day, often 8-10 miles or more in search of food and water.
Sometimes, to catch an animal, you ran after it. Tiring it out so it was easier to capture. You rarely ran just for the sake of it though.
Very often you had ceremonies that involved hours and hours of dancing, which kept you fit for running.
And life was very manual for men and women alike. So you lifted heavy things, many times each day.
Therefore, to exercise as if living in nature is to walk a lot, run a little, dance and lift heavy things often.
Chris: Oh. That makes sense now. Our body was conditioned in strength and fitness through these four common activities.
But when I think of the modern human I feel the urge to say, “well that’s great but what if I don’t want to run, or lift weights in a gym, or go to a dance class?”
Mother Nature: Well the beauty of being a human is that you can think creatively.
So today, you can think of these activities more as metaphors. A metaphor that describes the types of exercise that condition your body.
Chris: Ah, yes. You did say exercise “As if” living in nature.
Mother Nature: Exactly, Chris.
So dancing, for example, can be anything that involves lots of diverse movements and gives you a sense of pure joy to do.
Chris: Interesting. So if you play tennis, for example, you could consider this as dancing around the court, moving forwards, backwards, sideways, reaching up and down etc.
Mother Nature: You’ve got it. Tennis can very much be thought of as a dance activity.
Dance is simply joyful and diverse movement. That could apply to tennis, climbing, yoga, soccer, gymnastics, Tai Chi, martial arts, or whatever you find fun.
You name it, if it’s joyful to you and has lots of diverse movements, then as far as I’m concerned, you are dancing.
Chris: I love that idea. Even riding a mountain bike through a forest could feel like a dance.
Mother Nature: Very much so. If it feels like a flowing dance, then it’s a dance.
But you could also use running as the metaphor for endurance activities like cycling.
Chris: How so?
Mother Nature: Think of running as a metaphor for conditioning your endurance in a more structured way.
Running isn’t for everyone. As a metaphor it can be analogous to any activity that causes you to sustain a raised heart rate, whilst not having a wide diversity of movement.
Chris: So swimming, cycling, hiking, spin classes, roller skating. They all fit into this category?
Mother Nature: That’s right. You’re getting it.
If it keeps your heart rate up for 30 minutes to an hour or more, then you’re exercising as if running in nature.
Chris: Okay, I get it. You’re saying that to run as if living in nature means to do some kind of sustained endurance exercise.
In that case, could I ask you Mother Nature, are running type activities more beneficial than dance type activities, or vice versa?
Mother Nature: No. Each form of activity has its own unique benefits but they also have some overlap with each other too.
Running and Dance both condition the heart for example. Running, however, keeps that heart rate relatively even, which has unique benefits. Dance activities allow the heart rate to go up and down, which is good too, but dance’s main benefit is in the variety of movement and the social interaction associated with it.
Chris: Interesting. So what kind of benefits does sustaining a raised heart rate give you?
Mother Nature: Well it specifically conditions the heart. Like any other muscle the heart can grow and shrink based on the usage it gets. So asking it to pump a little harder helps to keep it strong.
You’ll also benefit from more flexible veins, arteries and blood vessels, which wards off the possibility of heart attacks. Additionally, you develop more cells called Mitochondria, which help you make energy.
All this together make endurance activities like running give you more overall energy when practised often enough.
Chris: That’s interesting. So we gain energy from things like food and sleep. But we can also gain energy from exercise?
Mother Nature: Yes.
Although exercise is an energy expense at the time of doing it, as you recover over the following few days your body makes the adaptations we mentioned, giving you the energy to exercise more easily next time.
Chris: Got it.
It’s like climbing the stairs. The person that takes the stairs more often, finds them easier to climb than the person who always takes the lift.
If you spend energy on exercise, you’ll create more energy reserves and find the everyday tasks less taxing.
Mother Nature: You got it!
Chris: Thanks! And do you need to have that heart pounding out of your chest for an hour to get the benefit?
Mother Nature: No, not at all. In fact these benefits that I listed come most easily at a moderate heart rate.
Chris: To give the listeners an idea of what you mean by ‘moderate’, could you give us an example of what that might feel like?
Mother Nature: Sure. At a moderate heart rate you should still be able to hold a conversation. You would just need to catch your breath every 15-20 seconds to keep it going.
Chris: So if you can speak freely, like you would in a coffee shop, then you’re exercising at a low intensity. And if you struggle to say just a few words at a time, then your intensity is too high.
I often say it’s like you can hold a conversation, but you don’t really want to.
Mother Nature: Perfect. At that intensity exercise is not a great effort, it can be enjoyable, and you’re getting a great deal of benefit out of it.
Chris: So it sounds like that’s the end of the “No pain, no gain” way of thinking then.
Mother Nature: Well, think about it for a moment. Nothing else in nature subscribes to that adage in order to be abundantly healthy, now does it.
Why should you?
Chris: That’s very true.
So we’ve discovered so far that dancing activities include anything with diverse movements, which is good for coordination, agility, reflexes, and having fun with exercise.
And running-like activities are less diverse in their movements but they enable a sustained raised heart rate, which helps condition our heart, vascular and energy production systems.
So this leaves us with walking and lifting heavy things.
Let’s cover lifting next and we’ll finish with walking.
So what do you mean by “Lift heavy things often”? How does that play into our physical well being?
Mother Nature: Imagine this.
Until very recently in history, life was very manual for both men and women alike.
A hunter gatherer woman would fetch water and food, and carry it several miles back to camp.
She’d also dig for the starchy roots of plants.
She would sharpen a large strong branch of wood and repeatedly lift and pound it into the dirt, slowly digging down to the roots of that plant.
Try doing that yourself and you’ll soon realise how strong a woman can be.
Men and women dug for food, shifted rocks, butchered and moved heavy animal limbs, climbed trees, built mud huts and much, much more. All in a day’s work and without any machinery to help.
Suffice to say, people lifted heavy things often.
Chris: Wow. When you put it like that it makes me realise just how capable the average person is.
Mother Nature: Yes. Even the kids were extremely strong.
Chris: Haha. I have first hand experience of that.
In my early twenties I went on a hiking trip to Peru with a group of friends.
We’d camp in the mountains and these kids would turn up out of nowhere. Kids of all ages from maybe six to fourteen or fifteen.
We’d always end up playing games with them and one day we somehow ended up arm wrestling.
The 12 year olds could easily hold their own with us. And the teenagers could rip your arm clean off!
Mother Nature: Well they weren’t lounging on the sofa watching Saturday morning TV, like you did as a teenager Chris.
Chris: Yeah, you got me. They were in the fields with an Ox and a heavy wooden plough.
Okay, so when you say lift heavy things often, what does that mean in the modern world? For example, does it mean we should all go to the Gym?
Mother Nature: Well, yes, the gym is a great place to lift heavy things. But did you notice the people of old didn’t do reps of bicep curls?
Chris: No, they just used their body’s to move things around.
Mother Nature: Exactly. My advice for today is to lift and carry as often as possible, rather than using equipment to lift everything for you.
Chris: So if I was to interpret that I might suggest carrying your groceries to the car, rather than pushing them in a trolley.
Or lifting a heavy load of washing, or the vacuum cleaner up or down the stairs.
Wash your car with a bucket of water you have to carry over to it.
Regularly dig and weed your garden if you have one.
Or carry a heavier load in your rucksack to work, rather than trying to minimise it.
Mother Nature: All great suggestions Chris. See how you’re lifting heavy things often now?
The more you shy away from day to day manual labour, the weaker you become. Making the simple everyday objects in your immediate environment a challenge in later life.
Chris: And that’s the key isn’t it. “Use it or lose it” as the saying goes.
And this is important for women to understand particularly, right?
Mother Nature: Absolutely, Chris. As women age and go through menopause, they weaken faster than men. Particularly in their bone density.
By having a life where you actively seek to lift and carry every day, you are much less likely to develop osteopenia or osteoporosis.
Chris: Yes, in fact, if you do develop osteopenia then weight lifting is what is recommended.
This is such an important take away.
Women evolved to be immensely strong. Just think of the archetypal African woman carrying a gallon or more of water effortlessly on their head.
It didn’t just appear there, balancing away all on its own. She filled it. Lifted it above her head. And gently lowered in place. Then lifted it back down to the ground a few miles up a rutted dirt track.
All whilst talking and laughing with her friends. These slender women are stronger than we can even imagine.
Mother Nature: Yes, and it’s a very important observation. You’re all more capable than you think.
Chris: So let’s finish this conversation off with a quick discussion on walking. Why do you say “walks lots”?
Mother Nature: Because it’s so good for you.
Walking can be a social connector, enabling conversation to flow easily.
It gently mobilised all your joints, giving them a massage, and easing stiffness and pain in most people.
It can get you into that moderate heart rate we spoke about, building your fitness and energy reserves.
It can improve people’s mental health because it gives you time to think, become quiet and be somewhat meditative.
Chris: Wow, that’s a lot of benefit from something most of us can do easily. And the mental health part is important to recognise too.
I read a great book by Jake Tyler called “A walk from the wild edge” where he credited walking for bringing him back from his deep depression.
Mother Nature: Yes. Walking, and particularly doing so in nature, can have profound benefits on your physical and mental wellbeing Chris.
Chris: Okay. So we’ve covered many different ideas here and it’s starting to feel like a full time job bringing exercise into our lives.
And, to be fair, when we see exercise through the lens of our wild ancestors, it actually was their full time job!
So how can we bring exercise into our modern busy lives? Especially if it doesn’t come naturally to people.
Mother Nature: That’s an excellent question Chris. I’m glad you brought it up.
First of all, walking and lifting heavy things are the two most important exercises you can do with very little effort at first. They can both fit right into your life without changing much at all.
Chris: So use the car less, or park it further from the shops. Take the stairs rather than the escalator. Meet your friends for a walk instead of a coffee. And take every opportunity to lift and carry things.
Mother Nature: You’re getting it. And if you want to add more purposeful or structured walking or weight lifting then go for it. This will just increase the benefits.
Chris: Okay, that makes sense. Just be as active as possible each day and if you have time, find a structured exercise plan that works for you.
So what about running and dancing type activities?
Mother Nature: Well both of these activities aim to get you out of breath, which not everyone likes to do. So my advice is to do whatever activity you enjoy most. Getting out of breath is better if it brings you joy.
Chris: So run if you enjoy running. Dance if you enjoy dancing. Play tennis, or badminton, or netball, or swimming, or basketball, or whatever you think might bring a little fun to getting out of breath.
Mother Nature: There we go. And remember the governing rule – Playful Curiosity.
Make a list of activities that you feel might bring you joy and get curious about them. Then go have a play with each of them.
Some you’ll enjoy. Some you won’t. So just continue the ones that do.
Chris: Brilliant. I love that because it turns exercise into an opportunity for Adult Playtime.
Okay, this has been an intense conversation, so I think it’s time to do a summary.
Mother Nature: Okay, Let’s see what you’ve learnt.
Chris: You can think of Nature’s guidance to “exercising as if living in nature” as a metaphor for physical wellbeing. One that helps bring purpose to why we might exercise in different ways.
So…
Walk lots – Walking has the greatest benefit on your physical and mental health. It conditions your heart. It enables social interaction. Massages your joints. And it relaxes and rests the mind.
Run a little – means to do any form of movement that evenly raises the heart rate for 30 minutes to an hour. This will strengthen your heart, create flexible arteries and give you more energy in the long run.
And remember, it doesn’t have to be intense. So go for a jog with a friend and chat your way round.
By using the word “dance” we mean diverse, joyful movement. Anything that makes you bend, reach, skip, jump and smile will do. You’ll condition your muscles, joints and heart in the process.
And finally, lift heavy things often – Yes you can join a gym, that’s certainly the ultimate expression of this guidance. But taking every opportunity to lift, carry and do the things that feel effortful for your muscles throughout your day to day life is beneficial too. So don’t discount the simple opportunities to enable a stronger body.
When it comes to choosing what exercise is right for you, think first about what might bring you joy.
Exercising for the sake of exercising doesn’t have to come naturally to you. Having to do so is only a very recent part of our evolutionary history.
So use joy as your motivator. Get curious about what physical activities you might enjoy and go play with them. This way you’ll find out what you like and what you don’t like.
Maybe a new physical activity will alleviate stress in you. Maybe it provides an opportunity to hang out with your best friend or make new ones. Maybe it’s an opportunity to laugh a little.
And think about it. Anything you could possibly choose will fit into at least one of our four categories. So you’re fulfilling nature’s guidance too.
The physical benefits should just be the icing on the cake if you come at exercise as a chance to express joy in your life.
Mother Nature: A beautiful summary Chris. Well done.
Chris: Thank you Mother Nature. I have really enjoyed this conversation.
Next week, if it’s ok with you, we’ll take on the fourth guideline for vibrant wellbeing – Socialising in the company of others.
Mother Nature: I look forward to it Chris. Bye for now.
So there you have it. This is a big topic and one full of strong opinions across the internet.
Clearly there are deeper levels that we can go to on this topic but I wanted you to first grasp the underlying reasons these four categories of exercise are important to health.
I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments, so please share them if the platform you’re on allows it.
As always, you can learn more on my website with our free course, or through personal coaching. It would be my pleasure to offer you some deeper, more personal insights.
But for now, remember, your health will emerge quite naturally if you allow Mother Nature to guide you.
