In this episode, Dr. Bryan and Dr. Jason tackle the concept of ” Motion is Life ” and how to start being the healthiest version of yourself.
Motion is life, you can listen to the episode using the player widget above
Episode Introduction
Dr. Bryan: Hello, here we are today with the Wellness Connection show. We’ve got, as always, Dr. Jason Hamid and myself, Dr. Bryan Joseph. We’re real excited today to share and expand on a concept that’s extremely important to living a healthy life and that is motion is life.
How do we incorporate motion? And what I want do today is start on the grassroots level. Meaning we live in a world and I think you would agree, that is extremely sedentary. Meaning we spend hours and hours and hours a day sitting. Not moving, right? Laying down, sitting in our car, sitting in our desk chair, wherever, our recliner chair. We don’t move.
Dr. Bryan: And in order to experience a good quality of life, or not hurt, or break down, we know we’ve got to move. What I want you to share, Dr. Jason, today, would be how does somebody start and live into the belief that motion is life? I mean, there’s so many levels of fitness, from the peak levels of Ironmans to all the way to just doing water aerobics. But where does someone begin that says,
“I know I need to move, but I don’t know what to do or where to start because it hurts?” What would you share with them if you just started there?
Movement is a Nutrient
Motion is life, and movement is a nutrient
Dr. Jason: If we’re talking about at a spot where someone’s already hurting and they can’t move, then very openly, it’s do whatever you can do. Right? I am, as you know, very, very passionate about motion and movement. I know motion is life. And literally even before we get to that point, Doc, to me, my hope and, I believe, one of my callings is to help people really embrace the fact that movement is a nutrient. Motion is truly life. If you’re not-
Dr. Bryan: Well, why? A lot of people are not going understand what that means. I’m following you, because I studied with you, but what does movement do to your physiology or to your body in terms of the chemistry that’s beneficial?
Dr. Jason: Well, first of all, let’s not even talk about chemistry. Let’s talk about just in general. A thing that I believe most people get, right? If you don’t use it, you … Dr. Bryan: Lose it.
Dr. Jason: Right. Everyone gets that rhyme. This is so true with the human body. People are upset when their bodies are breaking down in their 50s or 60s or 70s or even in their 30s or 40s, yet you haven’t used it. Alright, so even if someone’s already in a spot where they’re hurting, I honor where they’re at.
Dr. Bryan: Yeah, but I want to know, Jay, why do they have to move it? Again, if motion’s a nutrient, why do they move it? What does it do to their mind? What does it do to their endorphins or hormone structures? You’ve dove deep in this stuff. Give us some basics. At a kindergarten level, why is motion nutrients?
Movement Changes our Brain
Dr. Jason: Okay, to keep it top surface level stuff, so people can digest it, when we move, we change our brain. When we move, we change our emotional state to more positive ones. When we move, we change our hormones to ones that actually will build our body up and fight disease. I cant’s say it enough, motion is life.
Dr. Bryan: Could that be why, let’s just say for instance, you go to shoot baskets with your kids in the backyard, it’d be difficult to stay angry or mad or in a bad mood when you’re shooting hoops or moving around. Does that have anything to do with what you’re talking about for the mind and movement?
Dr. Bryan: Well, do you have any idea how?
Movement Changes our Mood
Dr. Jason: From what I gathered and from the research, the abstracts I did read, it was talking a great deal about in regards to just stimulating some of the neurologic activity. It’s like when you’re stimulating movement, when you’re moving your body, you are stimulating a great deal of nerve tissue throughout your whole body, which all the nerves go back and communicate to your brain. I like to think of it … again, I’m not a car guy by any means, it’s for those you who know cars are going to laugh at my analogy here, but it’s like the alternator. The alternator is there, keeping the battery charged up.
Dr. Bryan: I don’t even know what the alternator does.
Dr. Jason: I think I may be talking out my butt. I’m not sure. But it’s actually there to help keep the battery juiced up. Think of it like that for your body. When your body moves, you actually are juicing up your brain from a neurologic and emotional standpoint. Now you ask, okay well someone’s hurting, well when you don’t move your body, you don’t force the joints to move, you don’t force the muscles to move, you give it no reason to stay strong.
It’s like asking yourself, “Hey when I was 15 I could bench press 200 pounds, but I haven’t done a bench press in 30 years, now I can’t even do 50,” and you’re upset. We have to understand that if you want your body to be with you and to stay vital and to feel good, then you’ve got to continue to move it along each step of your journey in life.
Overcoming Constraints
Overcoming time constraints
Dr. Bryan: I love how one of our colleagues, Dr. James Chestnut used to share that in health, the only reason health breaks down is if you have too little or too much of something. Now, it’s evident in our society we have too little of movement, right? In a lot of people in their work life or just in their regular routines, they don’t see that time is available for them to incorporate these fancy exercises or go to a workout class. If time is a constraint, then how can we fill that voided deficiency? How can we begin to become more movement oriented while we’re sitting?
Time Constraint is an Illusion
Dr. Jason: Bold statement, Doc, and again, not the intent to push anyone away or offend anyone, but that’s just an illusion. The whole time concept is absolutely an illusion. And again, it’s people don’t realize, and I understand that. To help bridge that gap is that there is more time available for them to move their body, but they’re just choosing not to see it through that, or are unaware of how to see it through that perspective yet.
Dr. Jason: Here’s an example. If you, for instance, like television. If someone likes television, unless you’re watching Netflix, you’ve got commercials. And even if you’re watching Netflix, you have episode breaks. In between the episode breaks, or in between a commercial, you’re already sitting there watching it, you just got to habit stack. You got a habit of watching television. Now, we’re gonna introduce a new positive habit that will help your body move, which could simply be if you’re able, standing up and maybe walking in place during the commercial break.
Dr. Bryan: Alright, I could pull that off.
Movement while Watching TV
Dr. Jason: Yeah, you could do more than that. But if you’re more advanced than that, then maybe you can use exercise bands while you’re sitting there and you could do some exercise routines. Just while you’re in the chair. 30 seconds, two minute break.
Dr. Bryan: Hold on, let’s back up, ’cause that’s a great point and I want to make sure that nobody misses that, because habit stack and some of these things might be new to people. You’re saying if we just simply used our commercial breaks to stand up and walk in place, we’re starting to move.
Dr. Jason: Yes.
Dr. Bryan: Or actually, it’s better than no movement. You started somewhere.
Dr. Jason: Start somewhere.
Dr. Bryan: Or if I just heard you right, when it comes to bands or movement, you could be sitting in your desk chair and just be raising your arms up and down as a form of movement.
Dr. Jason: 100%.
Dr. Bryan: Or kicking your legs out and in.
Dr. Jason: 100% correct.
Dr. Bryan: Okay.
Habit Stacks
Stack up on your habits
Dr. Jason: 100%. Yes, and right. Your habit stack. What I mean by that is there are patterns that people are doing. Myself, yourself included, that we’re actually have habits that we do that are already ingrained in our activities. And if we’re trying to move more or get more exercise in, all we have to do is look at some of our present behaviors, and say, “Is there anywhere in my activities that I could actually move my body, maybe get my heart rate up, maybe get my muscles to move?”
Dr. Bryan: Let’s dive deeper, because I think this is really important and valuable to people. You’ve worked with a lot of patients, so have I, where do we typically find ourselves telling patients to look for opportunities to move? As silly as it sounds, I know I’ve told people sometimes even just to do some stretching in the shower.
Dr. Jason: Yep.
Dr. Bryan: Because you put shampoo and conditioner on your hair, and then you have a few extra seconds to just say “Okay, now I can actually stretch while I let my shampoo and conditioner sit in my hair.” If you do, I don’t even have hair, so it’s hard for me to actually do that. But where do you find yourself telling patients to say, “Okay, commercial breaks are a great opportunity,” where else are some opportunities?
Foam Rolling
Dr. Jason: Let’s just start openly from the moment you get up. The moment someone gets up, there’s many places where they can get some movement in. First and foremost, you and I are both huge advocates of foam rolling. If someone gets up and if they’re able to, if they’re at a spot in their life journey or if their body’s able to get on the ground and do some foam rolling, then that’s where you start.
Dr. Bryan: Let’s, again, speak English here, what is foam rolling?
Dr. Jason: Foam rolling is there’s a large cylinder. It’s high density foam that is very common in manual medicine, chiropractic, physical therapy. Physical trainers use it to help mobilize the body. You can do some stretches, some easy movement drills while on this. Now that’s only going to help when someone can get down on the ground, okay
Wake up to ” Motion is Life “
If you’re someone who necessarily can’t do that, then as soon as you get up out of bed, you can do a series of stretches, you can get up, have a glass of water, just to hydrate your body in a good routine and then just do some general stretching. Looking over your shoulders, left, right, maybe like you said, raising your arms above your head multiple times. If your knees will allow it, maybe doing some gentle knee bends almost like you’re sitting down back on your bed and standing back up. Just to get the blood pumping, just to get the body moving. That’s the very first time right there, that you could take 30 seconds-
Dr. Bryan: Yeah, we all have 30 seconds.
Dr. Jason: I didn’t say an hour. 30 seconds just to activate your brain and to get their body moving. Most people right now are drinking coffee. Well, even with the quick press stuff, it takes at least a minute to get the coffee to be brewed. There’s another spot, if you didn’t want do it when you first woke up, then you could do just a series of gentle stretches while your coffee’s brewing.
Dr. Bryan: You’re saying motion is life. Then the moment that you get up from sleeping, there’s opportunities for us to just do simple movements.
Dr. Jason: Simple.
Dr. Bryan: Not burpees or pushups-
Dr. Jason: You don’t have to do burpees. No.
Dr. Bryan: But just to do a few neck rolls.
Dr. Jason: Gotta start somewhere.
Dr. Bryan: To raise your arms above your head, to try to touch your toes, just to simply move a little bit to thaw out the dragon, right?
Motion is Life in Creative Ways
If motion is life, one place to start is in the shower
Dr. Jason: Right. And then I love what you said there, in regards to being in the shower. It’s absolutely a spot where you have a … listen, you’re in the shower. More times than not, people are showering everyday. You have a chance right there, again, to do some gentle stretches. You could even, depending on where your strength level is, if this is really, really new to you, then I totally honor that. Take the bottle of shampoo and do curls with it if you need to. I mean, it’s something. It’s moving their body, right?
Right there is some areas where you’re going to move your body. Soon as you get to the office, okay now you’re on a commute. Now, openly there’s some different things that it’s a little hard for me to do it non-visually to show somebody, but you can do certain exercises in the car. Actually, you could have a little grip bar, where if you’re in traffic, you can at least be squeezing your hands and developing strength into your wrist, your forearms, activating your hand muscles, moving your joints.
Take advantage of your environment
Dr. Jason: Hey, listen, the most common area in the human body that gets arthritis, one that we hear about all the time, is the thumb joint. You’re in a car for 30, 40 minutes, just pump a tennis ball. Pump a little stress ball just to get some activation there.
Dr. Jason: You get to work, now you’re at work, you’re at your cubicle, you get yourself set, maybe you’re working for an hour, hour and a half. I tell our patients here, we set an alarm on your cell phone.
Dr. Bryan: Boom, you just gave me an idea again. Okay, how about every time you see the clock hit a certain number, like the zero. If it’s 1:00 or 12:00 or 2:00 can we use those as reminders to say “When it’s at a zero, I move.”
Dr. Jason: 100%. And again, it doesn’t need to be lengthy, you don’t need to break a sweat in the middle of a work day. All you have to do it just get up and maybe, again, if you’re able to, you get up, you stand up, you sit down. You do ten of those. That’s what we call an air squat. You stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down, you move your hands in some circles, roll your neck a bit, you’re creating movement in your body.
Consequences of Non-Movement
Dr. Bryan: What happens when somebody doesn’t move? The opposite of this? Like if we say motion is life, what does stagnation do in life?
Dr. Jason: Well, again, the whole, don’t use it you lose it thing. The first thing that starts happening, you lose your range of motion, you lose your flexibility. What’s the old story, you put a frog in water and you slowly turn it up and you’ll boil the frog? You heard that?
Dr. Bryan: I know what you’re talking about.
Dr. Jason: The other one was like, if it’s boiling, you drop the frog in, it’ll jump out or something like that?
Dr. Bryan: Right.
Dr. Jason: Okay, so it’s the same concept with motion. You lose, we lose, human beings lose their mobility and they don’t even realize it until it’s already gotten to a point where their body’s already in a state of crisis. The biggest thing is when you don’t move your body, you lose your mobility. Real quick, Bryan, and everyone out there listening, when you think of someone who’s healthy and vibrant, do you see them as a flexible person? Or constantly rigid and all bent over?
Dr. Bryan: Oh, flexible, for sure.
Motion is Life at All Ages
Dr. Jason: Right. Is a reason, a baby is pliable and flexible. Healthy individuals, whether they’re 90, 60, 40, 30, 20, are very mobile.
Dr. Bryan: But is it natural that through the aging process that we all become more rigid? Or is that just because of, in your opinion, the lifestyle that we live?
Dr. Jason: I believe it’s both, I believe there is an absolute aging process that we can’t deny. Your tissues are becoming less elastic over time. It’s a fact. However, if now I’m sitting here at 41. My fitness and things that I’m doing now is definitely different than what I was when I was 31, definitely when I was 21, and definitely when I was in my teens. I’m still active, I still have new goals, but I have to put more attention into recovery, more attention into mobility, than necessarily just running real far or fast or lifting heavy things.
Dr. Bryan: There’s probably, at least in my eyes, there was a misconception that in order to exercise, you needed to be drenched in sweat, you needed to be all bulked out, muscles pumped in, veins coming out of your biceps, and that you need to be able to run the Boston Marathon but that’s not the type of movement that we’re really referencing here for the general public. We’re really just saying some movement is better than no movement as a place to start.
Dr. Jason: Exactly right. Well said, and there is absolutely a time and a place and certain individuals that love that and I honor that, and those people that’s a different talk. That’s a different discussion.
Dr. Bryan: Maybe-
Just Start Moving
Dr. Jason: But for most people, you’re right, Doc. For most people, right now, the biggest blessing, the biggest thing that I would share with them to open their mind is don’t over think this. Just move. Don’t freak out, don’t look at Facebook and television and think you gotta have six pack abs and don’t even try this because I don’t have an hour. Don’t do that. One simple step. Just start moving. Anywhere you can. Even if it’s as silly as walking around in circles between your kitchen and your living room. Or going up and down your stairs in your home for 10 minutes.
Dr. Jason: Just start somewhere. And that in alone, that movement, ’cause again, this term motion is life, it’s so many layers to it. If you just start moving, one, you’ll like that, but two you actually create momentum. You create momentum which now you’re saying, “Oh my gosh, you know what, this isn’t that hard.”
You start to believe in yourself more and now all of a sudden you start to actually see well, “Maybe I would like to go for a walk. Maybe I would like to go 20 minutes.” And before you know it, it becomes part of your day that you’re gonna go for a walk with your dog or your spouse, or all of a sudden now, you going to a gym doesn’t even seem like that far out of context, but it started with you just moving for 30 seconds or a couple minutes multiple times in a day.
We will cover all sorts of levels in our podcast
Dr. Bryan: There’s all sorts of levels and we can maybe, throughout the journey of the podcast, we can set up some special episodes on how to get your heart rate going in a certain level, how to do anaerobic or aerobic activities. What is higher levels of fitness versus lower levels of fitness. Flexibility routines, but I think really, the point of today is just to say that if you say if you don’t use it you lose it, but if there’s no motion then stillness ultimately equates to death.
Dr. Jason: Yeah, Doc. It’s a bold statement, but one that 15 years as a healthcare provider, a guy who loves to read research, a guy who loves to study exercise physiology, chiropractic, human movement, and the bold statement is that motion is life and anywhere you’re not moving, you’re dying. It’s just the laws of physiology. it’s not my opinion. If you’re not moving, your body is slowly dying. First, on a cellular level, and then, like we talked about in past episodes, is things stack.
Dislodging Toxins through Motion
Dr. Bryan: One of the things that we didn’t touch on here today, which I think is really something we should hit on for just a couple minutes, would be all the different forms of toxic chemicals and acids that build up in a body that if you don’t move, they become stagnant and that’s what creates inflammation, acid, and disease in our body. There’s a flushing component that happens when we move. Kind of like ringing out a sponge, where you get all the grime out of the sponge, but when we move our bodies, even just marching in place, stretching your arms out or doing a neck roll, it allows some of the toxic build up in our muscles and in our joints to be flushed through the way it’s designed to be for our body.
Who wants to live a life with all the toxins and poisons built up in their body? Because that eventually creeps into your mind and then you end up feeling like, “Why do I feel so anxious and depressed, and all these different emotions?” Well, motion relates to those things too, right?
Releasing Lactic Acid
Dr. Jason: As well as we understand, we hear about, we’re fearful about our lymph nodes and cancer, that we all get that. We think about our lymph nodes only when we’ve got these bad diseases. But speaking to what you just said, yeah, movement will help stimulate the flow of something called lactic acid out of the muscles. Yes, it’ll help to get our joints moving. Yes. But movement, even walking in place will stimulate flushing out and drainage of the lymph nodes.
The lymph nodes are our trash compactors, they’re building up a fight. Excuse me, they’re building up the fight to go fight viruses and bacteria, and they get clogged up. Okay, so movement will help to flush those. It’ll help to stimulate emptying of your digestive tracts. It’ll help just sweat glands pushing sweat, literally, that’s stuck, literally sweating is one of the best detoxifications that you can do. It’s going to move things in your muscles and joints but it’s also going to move things in your organs like your lymph, your arteries, your veins, your intestines, and your skin, giving you a way to release these toxins so as, like you just said, you don’t develop disease.
Constipation from Lack of Motion
Dr. Bryan: It’s funny, over the years we’ve seen majority of people that come in and complain of symptoms like constipation. Constipation, we find out, what do you do for the majority of your day? So many of these people that have poor bowel movement health, also don’t move their body in general.
Dr. Jason: And what do they do for most of their day? Dr. Bryan: Sit.
Dr. Jason: Yep. Which places a great deal of stress on the lower part of your body, the spinal cord, the nerves, the pelvis, and the intestines. It’s all compressed. Think about it. Think about it, Doc. Right now, and for those of you who are listening, if you roll your shoulders forward, go ahead and do it right now, just go ahead and roll your shoulders forward, and now try take a deep breath. You feel compression on your lungs, right? Can you breathe?
Dr. Bryan: No, it’s hard to take a deep breath that way.
Dr. Jason: Right, but if you open your chest up, and now it’s easier, right?
Dr. Bryan: Or if you stand up tall. Right? Same idea.
Dr. Jason: Exactly, exactly. All day long, if you’re sitting compressed, what we’re not realizing, and it’s not all our fault, until someone starts to make you aware of it is when you sit all day, you are slowly compressing yourself and you stand up, and you think you’re standing up, but you’re not even upright, ’cause your body’s so used to being hunched over. You’re molding yourself in that position.
Closing out today’s episode
Dr. Bryan: Jay, it makes me think as we close out today with this concept of motion is life, and just start moving in some capacity. My daughter, Carmen, recently had a broken arm. And anybody that’s ever worn a cast on any aspect of their body, it’s so fascinating when you actually see that you’ve had a cast on your arm or your leg for maybe four, six weeks and you take it off. You remove the cast, and at that moment you look down at your arm or your leg and it looks like it’s a different arm or leg. It’s literally withered away. It’s atrophied. It’s shrunk. And that’s just in four weeks. And that’s because that particular joint hasn’t moved, those muscles haven’t been used, there’re no nutrients traveling through that tissue.
Now imagine if we’re sitting the way we are, inevitably that’s no different than having a cast across your entire body. Right? I think just in terms of today, I think it’s just evidently important that we all start to understand the importance of movement and how it does lead to a flushing, a feeling of happiness, a growth and expansion and all sorts of things and that’s why we use this term of motion being life.
Dr. Jason: Yeah, motion is life. That’s just it. Openly, if more people embrace that, their health would change so dramatically. Their longevity would change so dramatically, their incidents of forming lifestyle based diseases would change so dramatically. I will go to my grave as that being one of my mantras, is motion is life.
Dr. Bryan: Well then hey, wrap up in the studio and let’s go move.
Dr. Jason: You got it man. Let’s knock out some burpees.
Dr. Bryan: Alright. Everybody have a great day.
Dr. Bryan: Visit us at thewellnessconnection.com/podcast to subscribe to our show and get connected.
Here is how YOU can help: Become a Health Ambassador
Join us and become a podcast health ambassador! You can help yourself, your family and friends discover the road to getting well and staying well.
Here is how it works, just sign up below and you will receive notifications when we launch new episodes going forward, with an easy way to share on social media. And by sharing our new stories, not only will you stay up to date yourself, but you’ll also help your friends and family, and you’ll help us by spreading the word. Go ahead and try it, you can opt out any time:
Check out our page for more of our podcasts.