In this podcast episode, we dive into Life Lesson #2: Staying active as you age.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Hello! Welcome to the Sally in the Zen podcast. I’m your host, Sally. I’m a Zen Buddhist caregiver to my elderly folks and always in pursuits to find Zen moments in everyday living. If you’re new to the podcast, welcome! If you’re not new and you’re returning, welcome back!
Hope all of you are staying sane, staying safe in this strange world of ours nowadays. You know just yesterday, Pop and I went shopping at our local Giant supermarket and we came across the strangest thing in this strange time. And it was a national coin shortage.
There seems to be a national coin shortage because the self checkout lines where you pay your own and you bag your own groceries…they were now changed to debit or credit only, no cash. Because they didn’t have change. And that was news to me. I didn’t see this on the national news. I didn’t see this in the local news that we’re having a national coins shortage. Is that right? You know, after all of that was done, after we had gone to a different line, and actually had a person, the cashier, help us pay for our purchase, when we walked away, I was thinking it’s too bad I didn’t take a picture of that, because it could be cast as fake news; because that was the first time we ever heard of it, and when I was talking to the cashier, he himself was like, this came up on Monday, starting on Monday. Today is Tuesday, I’m recording this podcast, and he had said that that was news to him too.
What a freaky time we’re in now. It’s very, very strange and coincidentally too, we went down to another market for something else and they didn’t have a problem with their coins.
And let’s just continue on with the strangeness for one second because I needed to share this from a friend who texted me something pretty interesting. So the next 6 months of 2020 spells out J-A-S-O-N. Don’t worry about December but that spells out Jason! As in JASON! Somebody out there has a morbid sense of humor but it’s so true, my gosh, what in the world… I’m not going to put it out there. I’m not going to put it out there because the Universe listens! What a strange time that we’re all living in. My gosh.
Before we start our episode today, let me put my disclaimer out, that everything I say on today’s episode is my opinion in my opinion alone. Nobody’s sponsoring me or paying me to say what I’m going to say. And now with that out of the way, let’s talk about our second life lesson.
Today’s episode is going to be a brief and it’s about staying active as you age. Now if you’re interested let’s get going.
Before COVID-19 happened, Mom and Dad were pretty physically active. Dad is 78 years old and Mom is 70, turning 71 this year. And they would walk 3 miles a day in the park, around the neighborhood, pretty diligently. And I’d say about a month or so before COVID-19 and the stay-at-home for Pennsylvania happened, they started doing Silver Sneakers at the local gym. I have spoken about Silver Sneakers before in the previous episode. You can catch up with that, but it’s basically a free physical fitness program for senior citizens to remain active at local gyms, for strength training, for cardio, that kind of thing. And they were getting into the routine of going to Silver Sneakers like two or three times a week, including their normal daily walk of three miles a day. And then COVID-19 happened and then the stay-at-home happened and all of their physical activities came to a close. They became couch potatoes.
And I’d say for the 15-16 weeks of COVID-19 and how many weeks, I don’t know how many weeks – 13 weeks, 14 weeks of staying at home before it was finally lifted – because currently state of PA is green status but you still are required to wear a face mask every time you walk out the house – for all intents and purposes, it’s really unchanged.
We don’t have indoor dining. We don’t have gyms open as they were before. Our activities are stay-at-home activities. We don’t venture out unless we have to, for food, for shopping so it really doesn’t matter what green status, yellow status, what status we’re under currently. We’ve become business as usual with stay at home activities and with the stay-at-home mentality for all of intents and purposes.
But going back to their physical fitness, I’d say when we were under the stay-at-home, they didn’t venture outside the door for nothing. They believed that COVID-19, the virus, was in the air the moment you opened the door. and they were terrified for me each time I needed to go out to do shopping.
Now I work from home. my company allowed me to work from home so that was not even an issue. but the fact that I needed to go out and get supplies for us, they were terrified for me and this life lesson or lesson learned – because of what we went through, what we’re going through with COVID – was pretty eye-opening for me because no matter how common sense or how calmly I explain to them that the virus is not in the air that we breathe, unless we’re near somebody who’s infected, right, if we’re by ourselves outside the house and there’s nobody near us, it’s not in the air. But it was near impossible for me to convince them otherwise. I couldn’t get through to them that, no, it’s not in the air, and yes, you should go out there in the sun for a little bit because we’ve been basically in a cave for so long that we need to get out there.
We just need to have a little bit of sun on our skin, on our face, breathe in some fresh air. It’s okay. And it wasn’t until the latter part of the stay-at-home that they finally ventured out. And because I work at home, like I said earlier, I take my lunch breaks with them by going for walks with them just around the block. It’s not 3 miles, obviously, because 3 miles is longer than a 1-hour lunch for me, but it was enough that it gave them courage to see that, yes, it was okay to come out into the sun.
And they need to get back to their physical fitness level. That’s going to take some time but at least now for the last handful of weeks, I’d say, 4 weeks now, they’ve been venturing out everyday walking and they’re back to that kind of motion, that kind of activity now, which is a relief.
So this personal story is a lessons learned, where we already know instinctively, everybody knows this, that physical fitness is critical. You need to exercise. You need to eat right. You need to sleep right. You need all those balanced things in your life but knowing it and seeing it for what it is is two different things.
And what I mean by that is I know that physical activity is critical for the body. I know that if we eat well and take care of ourselves, normally speaking, we would have a long life. We would be healthier, happier in mind, body, and spirit. We all know that we need to have physical exercise. We all know that we need to eat right, but what was a lessons learned because of COVID-19 was that it’s true. All of it is true.
If you don’t exercise, you go into atrophy. If you go into atrophy, you become unhealthy. You see this. You hear this. You know this, but when I actually saw this for myself where Mom and Dad, being so physically active, stopping exercising because of the COVID, I saw the physical side effects of not exercising. Not even moderately.
So like, for example, Pop’s feet became bloated. His knees became weaker and his balance became more unstable. And as soon as we were back to walking, back to being outside, breathing in the fresh air, back into the sun, he was getting better and his physicality was getting better. So it was pretty eye opening to see that, yes, it’s true. You know it for what it is and that’s a life lesson that I wanted to impart today. Exercising moderately every day or every other day will lead you to a healthy life especially as we age. As we age, it’s even more critical that we continue moving. It doesn’t have to be like Iron Man. It doesn’t have to be a triathlon. Nothing like that. It can be as gentle and as simple as walking down the street in the fresh air, in the sun. That’s critical. It’s these small things that make a big difference.
Now we’ve reached the end of today’s episode and before I close, let me give my affirmation. And today’s affirmation is I am becoming the best version of myself. I am becoming the best version of myself.
Hope you enjoyed today’s quick and brief episode. If you have any questions or comments, drop by my blog SallyintheZen.com. Click on the Contact page and send me your comment or question or whatever, and depending on what it is, maybe I’ll feature it on a later episode or even make it an episode, if it’s an enticing enough comment.
But I wish you all healthy, happy times in this day and age of ours. Try to stay positive. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for joining me on my pursuits to find Zen moments in everyday living. Talk to you next time.
