Today I am responding via my Reader Response Questions to a webpage and video created by physical therapist Sarah King.  This page/video discusses how people with Parkinson’s can motivate themselves to exercise.  The video was recommended by my fellow World Parkinson Congress blogger, Marcus Cranston.

Click here to read the background of the six Reader Response Questions.

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1. Describe in your own words what happened in the pages you just read. What are the main points?  (Don’t look back at the original text as you do this!)

Physical therapist Sarah King apparently works exclusively with Parkinson’s patients.  On this page of her website (which includes a “live” Facebook video), she suggests a new way to think about exercise, which may in fact get more Parkies up off their sofas.  It has to do with how you motivate yourself.

Typically, people in general, and Parkies in particular, may try to convince themselves to exercise for the following LOGICAL reasons:

• My doctor says I should exercise.
• It’ll make me stronger / fitter / more flexible.
• “It’s good for me.”

However, these are external motivators, and they probably fail at getting many people to lift more than a finger.  It’s kind of like when you were a kid and your mom told you to eat broccoli:  “It’s good for you!  Don’t you want to grow up healthy?  Eat it!”  And, I’d add, these “logical” rationales may actually be counterproductive, in that the Parkie in question may throw in the towel completely, thinking, “I haven’t exercised since high school gym class, and that was decades ago.  No way can I see myself going to a gym again now.  And high school gym class?  HATED IT!”

Instead, Sarah suggests you think about physical things that you like to do now, or liked to do recently.  These might be anything from running around with your grandchildren in the front yard, to riding a bicycle on a country road, to walking on the beach, to dancing, to strolling from one end of the mall to the other.  (Note:  some of these are her actual examples, some are my own.)  She says you should close your eyes and imagine yourself as you did these things, and try to bring back how you felt at those moments.

This is the motivation that will work.  It’s INTERNAL and EMOTIONAL.  And it’s centered on joy.  So what should you focus on going forward?  (1) Recreating these pleasant experiences in your future life, and (2) doing exercises that will help you get back to those feelings and activities.

Sarah makes one other important point about exercise:  It’s an investment in your future.  You make the investment, and reap the payoffs.

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2. What’s your reaction to the article?

This is rather refreshing for me.  As a blogger with Parkinson’s, I’ve written and researched a lot about the benefits of exercise for Parkies (e.g., click!).  I take it for granted that everyone is on board with the importance of exercising, and that motivation is not a big issue.  But at least two things are blinding me here.

First, I’ve been athletic my entire adult life, but many (most?) people were not.  I’ve competed in triathlons, summited Mt. Kilimanjaro (Africa’s tallest peak), and biked over the Japan Alps from the west coast of Japan to the east coast.  You don’t need to convince me to start exercising, because it’s already what I do.  However, this may not apply to other Parkies.

Second, Parkinson’s disease includes symptoms that impede exercising.  Apathy and intense daytime drowsiness are two.  And, say, if your sense of balance is shot, you may not feel comfortable getting up on a bike again.

Sarah’s webpage is helpful in that it suggests a new way to connect with exercise.  Her proposals for motivating people (that they visualize physical activity that gave them joy in the past, and that they consider exercise as an investment for the future) are both sensible and humane.

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3. What does the article make you think about from your own life?

When Sarah’s video prompted me to visualize physical activity that gave me joy in the past, here’s some of what I came up with:

• I recalled being on my university’s Master’s swim team in graduate school in the late 1980s (I was about 35 years old at the time), especially our optional workouts on weekend mornings. The pool was often empty then (of people!  not of water!), and I usually had my own lane for the entire workout.  There was another swimmer, Scott, who was approximately the same ability level as me, and he swam in the adjacent lane.  I remember the coach would give us long endurance sets, and Scott and I would swim pretty much neck-and-neck for the entire duration.  This caused me to swim harder than if I had been swimming alone.  We never slowed down, and I felt like we were superstars.  (Note:  it also helped that I had a crush on Scott….)

• I love walking on a beach, especially at the ocean. I could walk for miles.  There’s something exhilarating about how my bare feet feel in the sand, how the waves relentlessly slap the shore, how the vast sky stretches above me and extends for miles to the horizon. Add the tang of salt air and a swig of iced tea, and you’re working all five senses.  Furthermore, you’re always discovering things along the way:  unusual shells; nudists; sand dollars.  (For an example of surprising things I saw on a beach walk in California, click here!)  I feel both exuberant and calm after many of these walks.

• I recently attended a wedding reception. There was a dj and a dance floor, and my husband and I danced a lot.  We moved to the suburbs five years ago, and while we were dancing I remembered “the old days” when I lived in the city and often went dancing with my friends.  I had forgotten how dancing with a big crowd is not only kinesthetically pleasing but intellectually intriguing.  That is, there you are, spontaneously moving your body in response to the music, but at the same time there’s all this fun drama to observe on the dance floor:  in this case, the bride hitching her wedding gown above her knees; the flower girl mimicking the dance moves of a pop star; the man in his 70s slow dancing with his hands on his wife’s butt.  (At least, I think it was his wife….)

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4. Copy a sentence from the article that you find especially interesting or unusual. Use quotation marks and write the page number:

“Exercise is an investment, not an inconvenience.” – click!

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5. What makes this sentence interesting for you?

I like that it views exercise as bringing future benefits.  It’s essentially a positive outlook.

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6. What questions does the article raise in you? What questions are you left with?

At the end of the article, there’s a link to another page which discusses seven essential components for any exercise program for Parkies.  I’ll paste them here:

“ANY kind of exercise is beneficial for Parkinson’s, so long as it has these 7 components:

1. BIG, POWERFUL MOVEMENTS
2. PHYSICALLY CHALLENGING
3. MENTALLY CHALLENGING
4. SPECIFIC TO YOUR PARKINSON’S SYMPTOMS
5. SOCIAL
6. ACCOUNTABLE
7. FUN!”

My question is:  Am I fulfilling all of these requirements?  I know for a fact that I fail on #5:  Social.  I mostly work out alone in the gym, alone in the pool.  Should I tweak my workout regime so I include a social component?  (Tentative answer:  Yes!)