Use it and you won't lose it...

Yesterday was a national holiday in New Zealand. I’m on D’Urville Island at the moment which is a fairly large island (about 45 kilometers long) at the top of the South Island of New Zealand.

It is a rugged island with steep bush clad hills. I’m staying at a place called D’Urville Island Wilderness Lodge. It is the only one on the island and can only be reached by boat. It is just a small place and is usually visited by hunters and fishermen. I’m interested in spearfishing.

A couple of days ago we had a storm hit the island and as it was not suitable to go out in my boat I figured a walk up a track to the top of the hills (about 2,500’) and along the ridges would be a good idea. The photo is one of the views from that walk.

It turned out to be a bigger exercise than I planned as I missed one of the tracks to come down and ended up spending some hours extra working my way back the lodge. Seven hours in total!

I was feeling pretty sore by the time I finally got down but enjoyed the experience…but not in any great hurry to repeat it…at least not for 7 hours!

Now to the point of the story! Later that evening I saw two guests who stood out against the others. Why…because they were both elderly ladies, one was 73 and the other 74.

Anyway, it turned out that they had also walked up the track to the ridge and back a different way. There walk took them 5 hours. What was interesting is that I spoke to them the next day after I got back from a day on the water (I certainly could not have gone for another long walk) and they told me that they had just come back from another long walk.

What was interesting about this is that these two ladies were scrambling in bush and difficult steep tracks and thought nothing of it. They were very healthy and obviously fit.

Here was a real live example of a principle that I often refer to and that is ‘if you don’t use it you lose it’.

This saying particularly applies to people who retire. This is the time of life when you have to increase your activity level. It is NOT the time to sit back and take it easy. If you do so your body will start shutting down. It needs the movement, not only for the muscles and the joints but also to help stimulate your hormone production.

The same applies to your brain. The odds of getting dementia are greatly reduced if you exercise it along with your body.

These ladies were a living example of the benefits that flow from regular activity. So, if you are retired, join a tramping club or do something that requires you to use all parts of your body.