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Exercise 'keeps the mind sharp' in over-50s, study finds

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Exercise 'keeps the mind sharp' in over-50s, study finds

#231

Post by holografix »

secstate wrote: post #136
ams6110 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just hate it. Not that I haven't tried. I've tried running, weights, walking. It's boring, and makes me feel tired and irritable. I just want to go to bed after exercise. Not my thing.

Not meaning to be snarky at all, but have you tried reading about mindfulness first? I found that in my 20s running was awful and I was almost literally counting the steps until I got to the end. But as I've gotten older and embraced a more mindful worldview running, walking, swimming or any of the traditional "slog" activities has become a really nice quiet time where I can appreciate all the little motions and sens…

Couldn't agree more and appreciate your constructive tone in the reply. Mindfulness really has become a focus of mine very recently and definitely something that I practice while swimming.

The act of staying in the moment not worrying about the future or repeating the past in my head has significantly improved who I am.

In practice this tends to be me very deliberately feeling the water, counting my strokes, paying Dill attention to my breathing.

Re: Exercise 'keeps the mind sharp' in over-50s, study finds

#232

Post by 3131s »

stupidhn wrote: post #210
3131s wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait until you get an injury. Professional fighters might be an exception because the type of workouts they do (like grappling) recruit many different muscles, but there's a reason that nearly all sprinters for example train with weights. If you don't do any weight training, definitely make sure to cross train with a variety of activities to avoid becoming imbalanced. That said, you only need a rack, a bar, a bench,…

"Which fighters do you have in mind that explicitly don't do weight training?" The fighters at my gym. I guess I can't say for certain what the pros do or do not, but I assume some of the competition amateurs I see are doing the best they can. And they look like it. And I know that guys like Conor McGregor have made statements about doing purely "functional exercise". I'm sure some pro fighters weight-train, because…

I am definitely also a functional strength advocate, and I'm not gung ho about needing to deadlift 500 lbs or something to be athletic. I personally prefer olympic lifts, because they force you to be explosive and I'm training for a sports that involve pure speed and jumping ability. I try to do all my other lifts explosively too. And I can't stand the dudes on their phone in the gym -- I can tell I make them uncomfortable even with the relentlessness of my workouts!

Re: Exercise 'keeps the mind sharp' in over-50s, study finds

#233

Post by tim333 »

kbutler wrote: post #183
tim333 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed Warren Buffett who is often logical about things speed walks when he goes from A to B which gives exercise and also saves time.

He also bought Bill Gates dinner with coupons at McDonald's. (A) He uses coupons. (B) He eats at McDonald's Make of it what you will. http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/17/warren-buffett-once-paid-for-...

Yeah he has eccentricities. Still he's doing ok for 86 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThHzIJUm-So

Re: Exercise 'keeps the mind sharp' in over-50s, study finds

#234

Post by CalRobert »

pc86 wrote: post #194
CalRobert wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty much completely untrue. Anecdata, but I thought if I exercised like crazy I could eat terribly and be fine. I was wrong, and remained massively obese. When I started actually tracking my intake and eating healthier I lost massive amounts of weight, without any change in the exercise routine. It's been 10 years and I still have to watch my calories like a hawk if I want to stay below obese (I've quit tr…

> When I started actually tracking my intake This is the key point. Eating healthy is absolutely a good idea and helps you perform better but most people eat a lot more than they think they do. When I started exercising I lost 50 pounds over a year and a half or so without a single change to my (absolute garbage) diet. Saying you can work out 5x week and eat anything is idiotic, but the key to weight loss is to track…

Your comment seems inconsistent though - am I missing something? Not eating excessively is a big part of eating healthy. For someone who is prone to overeating this counts as worrying about one's diet, I'd say.

Re: Exercise 'keeps the mind sharp' in over-50s, study finds

#235

Post by mike_ivanov »

sooheon wrote: post #34
mike_ivanov wrote: post #22

Or - there is a confounding factor that makes people both sharp and willing to exercise.

This is the most common one line reply to any study, and it's a pet peeve of mine. If you actually read past the headline, you'd see this was not a population study, but a review of experimental ones, where your "confounding factor" is literally the fact that experimenters asked people to exercise. Please, be skeptical of studies, but don't be so arrogant to presume authors aren't capable of the most elementary scien…

Disclosure:

I actually skimmed the linked article for subheaders, found things like "Brain boost" and "Heavy shopping bags". Started reading, stopped at "T'ai Chi" - this is where I lost interest assuming that it was one of those sensationalist pseudoscience pieces.

Guilty as charged.

Re: Exercise 'keeps the mind sharp' in over-50s, study finds

#236

Post by lawik »

interfixus wrote: post #219
pc86 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is rude about them?

It's really just the general prescriptivism of the workout-crowd that gets me. I'm quite capable of handling maintenance chores on my own mind & body, thank you, but this newfangled evangelism keeps coming at me from all angles.

I get that. I try not to push people that don't actually want a push. And I know people that get really turned off of a thing if people are too enthusiastic about it or pushing it too hard at them. Sometimes I feel it too.

I feel it is pretty common in tech, especially as people are used to pitching their "good" or "correct" solutions to people bringing up a problem.

Re: Exercise 'keeps the mind sharp' in over-50s, study finds

#237

Post by ck425 »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #129
ck425 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only anecdotal but I've seen the same (church aside). My very bright, well to do Grandparents are mostly house bound now and have gotten far slower the less active they've gotten. On the other hand my other grandmother is still the exact same as she was 20 years ago and she's constantly out and about and going on holidays/trips regularly.

How rich is the latter compared to the former?

Other than property price the latter is reasonably poor, very working class, whereas the latter are upper-middle class and very well off.

Re: Exercise 'keeps the mind sharp' in over-50s, study finds

#238

Post by pc86 »

CalRobert wrote: post #234
pc86 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I started actually tracking my intake This is the key point. Eating healthy is absolutely a good idea and helps you perform better but most people eat a lot more than they think they do. When I started exercising I lost 50 pounds over a year and a half or so without a single change to my (absolute garbage) diet. Saying you can work out 5x week and eat anything is idiotic, but the key to weight loss is to track…

Your comment seems inconsistent though - am I missing something? Not eating excessively is a big part of eating healthy. For someone who is prone to overeating this counts as worrying about one's diet, I'd say.

I generally take "eating healthy" to mean the composition of the food is good. Little sugar, not an excessive amount of salt, mostly fruits and vegetables with some starch and protein.

If you eat 3,500 calories of the above every day you are probably going to gain weight. If you eat 1,400 calories a day of fast food you probably won't, but it's hard to say that the latter is healthy.

Re: Exercise 'keeps the mind sharp' in over-50s, study finds

#239

Post by pc86 »

clock_tower wrote: post #209
interfixus wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't really say I'm a fan of all the imperatives. I could even choose to consider them a bit on the rude side.

If it makes you feel any better, remember that a lot of these people would be preaching Anglicanism in Hawaii if they'd been born 150 years ago.

I didn't realize the empirical fact that working out is good for you is comparable to proselytizing a religion to indigenous peoples.

Re: Exercise 'keeps the mind sharp' in over-50s, study finds

#240

Post by pc86 »

interfixus wrote: post #219
pc86 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is rude about them?

It's really just the general prescriptivism of the workout-crowd that gets me. I'm quite capable of handling maintenance chores on my own mind & body, thank you, but this newfangled evangelism keeps coming at me from all angles.

Working out is good for you. That's an empirical fact. I don't think it does anyone any favors to pretend that it's not. Obviously if you have injuries you should modify and scale workouts appropriately. But not working out is making a conscious choice to be less healthy. That's fine if that's where your priorities lie, but it's still a conscious choice to be less healthy, not simply a difference of opinion. It's much closer to choosing to smoke cigarettes than it is choosing to use a different text editor.
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