About Exercise and COPD Part 1
In the coming weeks I intend to add more columns on my personal experience in dealing with COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease). For now, I thought I would break ground by leading off with some thoughts about fitness in general, and exercise and COPD in particular.
No one can argue that exercise is beneficial to most everyone. Granted, there are some extenuating circumstances were exercise might be counter productive to someone’s health, but my pulmonologist believes that in most cases just about everyone can benefit from regular exercise. He feels exercise is of particular importance for people managing illnesses like Asthma, Cystic Fibrosis, Chronic Bronchitis, etc. I could not agree more.
The trouble with exercise is getting people to do it. In a word, motivation, or lack of it, is a major factor in determining whether or not people engage in regular exercise. This is particularly true for people with COPD. Many people with COPD simply do not exercise. Why is that? Well, the reasons are obvious to some. But for others the reasons are not so obvious. Let’s examine fitness in America and the average American’s relationship with ye olde workout. Then, we can look at the challenges facing someone with COPD.
Think for a moment just how hard it is for you to get off your lazy ass to change the TV channel. Don’t you use the remote instead? Isn’t it easier? Of course it is. Why do you think remotes are so popular in the first place? It’s because people are lazy, that’s why. So is it any surprise that here in America fat is becoming king? Fat is on a rampage. Have you looked at the people walking down your city sidewalks? Well, OK, waddling down your city sidewalks. Well, OK, rolling down your city sidewalks in those ridiculous powered chairs.?I mean, seriously, the USA has to be the fattest nation on the face of the planet. Anymore, sidewalks need to be “widewalks” to accommodate the overweight.
In short, most Americans are just plain overweight to some extent, and some are more than just overweight. There is an increasingly large segment of our society that is morbidly obese. It is a huge problem for the people of this country. And yet, ironically, exercise has never been more popular than it is today in the USA. Look at the magazine covers. Look at the fitness programs on cable TV. We are inundated with fitness. So how does one explain this…discrepancy? How can a nation that is so obsessed with fit, manage to be so fat?
I tend to believe that the fitness dichotomy in the USA, where you have extremely fit people on one end of the spectrum, and morbidly fat people on the other end, with just plain overweight people somewhere in the middle, is easily understood by examining the income gap model in the USA.
The gap between the wealthy and the poor in America is wider than it has ever been. The US economy is booming, and there are more millionaires in this country today than ever before in our nations history. In fact, to be a millionaire in America is almost considered middle class by some, for the number of billionaires world wide is also beginning to skyrocket, making the millionaires of today the “yesterdays news” of tomorrow.
Yet, while bank accounts are swelling all around us, the numbers of poor people in this country is also growing at an alarming rate. The number of homeless people is skyrocketing. And somewhere in the middle is the true middle class. These are an inconspicuous group of folks who could go one way or the other, financially speaking. Depending on one or two strokes of luck in either direction, people of the middle class could either end up very poor very quickly, or very wealthy, simply depending on a few factors. This group of people represents the vast majority of America, whose futures are a giant question mark. Will they make it, or won’t they? In my view, there is a similar phenomenon taking shape in this country regading fitness.
We are a nation that is both extremely fit (rich), as well as extremely fat (impoverished). The two extremes are growing, but not nearly as fast as the swelling swath of unfit, somewhat fat American (middle class) which is growing faster than both of the extremes combined. There is a huge fitness gap in this country represented by a majority of folks that are medically healthy, yet very unfit, who could cross over into either of the two fitness extremes very quickly simply based on a few factors. Will they be fit, or will they be fat?
Expanding on this concept, consider that never before in our nations history have people lived longer and healthier lives, right? Gyms all across America are jam-packed with nice rear ends, bulging biceps, perky pecs and oak tree thighs. People are working out like never before, staying vigorously active, far into their adult years and beyond. People are eating healthier, too. The organic food industry is soaring, and so is the nutritional supplement industry. Billions and billions of dollars are being spent every year on these products. In general, there has never before been a more health-obsessed America. Ever.
Yet, America has this fat side we have been talking about. A HUGE, Rosie O’Donnel-fat side. Fat people are everywhere. Some people are so fat that they need special seats to sit in on airplanes and buses. They are so fat that they need assistance walking and standing. The numbers of obese people in America are increasing because people in that vast, unfit segment of society are slipping into morbid obesity. While hope always springs eternal for these folks, and it does, little hope remains for people like that.
The trick is to get people in that vast nomad’s land of the unfit world, to fall into the very fit segment of society before they go in the other direction. As complicated a challenge as that is, it is even more complicated when you take into consideration something like COPD.
Up until now we have been talking about otherwise medically healthy people who are simply lacking the motivation to get fit. The vast majority of people in America who are out of shape are more or less healthy medically speaking, which is to say they do not have the added burden of chronic illness holding them back. Yet, for all of their health, these very people seem to have an extremely difficult time making the commitment to do something about their health, even though they are in the perfect position to do so.
Now, let’s add not being able to breath to the mix. Do I have your attention now? I realize it took me a while to get to this point, but bare with me.
Take your average, lazy, good-for-nothing couch potato who, for all intents and purposes has basically good health, but for whatever reason has the motivation of roadkill, and zap them with some form of COPD that makes it hugely difficult for them to breath and all of the sudden you have a major, colossal predicament on your hands.
How do you take a person who has trouble doing the one thing they need to do in order to stay alive, which is breath, and get them to do the very thing they need to do in order to get healthier, which is exercise? Keep in mind that exercise makes it even harder for them to do the very thing they already have a hard time doing - which is breathing? Are you beginning to see the problem here? It is a huge conundrum. If exercise does anything, it makes us breath harder, while making it harder for us to breath. This is the one thing that scares a person with COPD the most.
Exercise is what all of us need do in order to be able to breath better and with more efficiency. This is especially true for those of us with breathing difficulties. But for those of us with breathing difficulties, exercise is not just harder to do, it is not just more uncomfortable, but it is down right terrifying. The prospect of not being able to breath is scary enough for the average person. How much more so for someone with breathing difficulties?
True, one of the purposes of this web site is to encourage people to exercise. But I would be remiss if I did not devote a large portion of my time helping people with COPD in particular develop a fitness strategy.
The bottom line is that people with COPD have a huge challenge confronting them and I want to help. No one likes to gasp for air. No one. For anyone with COPD, that fear is multiplied many times over. The answer lies in devising an approach to exercise that works for people like this. Stay tuned. In the coming weeks I will offer some suggestions for people with COPD, and other forms of health challenges, that might very well pave a way to better health and more vitality through exercise.
God Bless
TaC; Webmeister TPO
