On the weekend, Sam and I found ourselves on this giant escalator ramp called a MOVATOR.  We were picking up a cake and samosas for a baby shower for mutual friends, and the grocery store we went to is on the second floor.  This MOVATOR locks you and your cart in place to go down to the ground floor.  (How do you say this?  Moo-va-tor?  Moe-vay-ter? moo-va-TOR? Try saying it without sounding like an ominous robot).

 

 

Both of us tend to scoot around the world at a fast clip, and being on the MOVATOR ground us to a halt.  Which got us talking again about the discussion Sam blogged about a couple of weeks ago about  walking on escalators. That conversation started out as a bit of good-natured griping on Facebook about our preference for scooting up the left side of the escalator and wondering why everyone doesn’t walk.

Well, as Sam captured in her post, people told us a LOT of reasons why many people don’t walk on escalators, and we were reminded, again, that we have a lot more capacity and health than many people.  And that no one should ever be judging anyone else’s mobility, hidden disability, pain, fatigue etc. by their external appearance.  Absolutely true. And… I was still feeling nagged by my original sense that escalators (and MOVATORS!) are, for me, an overall cultural trend where we gravitate effortlessly to doing the things that make our lives easier, that make us move our bodies less.  And I am a big fan of doing things to make my life a little HARDER whenever I can.

I’m very clear that there are many people whose bodily limits make all sorts of functional assists important and necessary — that’s not what I’m talking about.  And, I live on the third floor of a condo building with two easily accessed staircases — and almost every single person in my condo building takes the elevator down from the third floor to the first.  Of course sometimes you’re carrying things, or are fatigued, or it’s painful to take the stairs.  But half the time, it’s literally people in gym clothes, getting ready to go work out, who take the elevator. Because they can.

There was a good piece last week on CBC Radio’s The Current about treadmills, and how they were originally instruments of torture for prisoners, the ultimate hard labour with no satisfaction of producing anything.  Fascinating, and funny.

They also interviewed researcher Dan Buettner, who has studied what he calls “Blue Zones,” the places in the world where people live the longest.  He says that people with the longest life spans stay healthy when they integrate movement organically into their days — not carving fitness off into a category of activity on its own.  The people who live the longest, he says, live in environments that “nudge them into physical activity every 20 minutes or so.”  This nudging doesn’t have to be something big — it’s small things like gardening, or walking down the street, or hanging clothes outside instead of putting them in the dryer. He advocates for getting rid of things that make your life “easier” so you can add more organic movement — like taking transit instead of driving, for example, or who using a hand mixer instead of a stand mixer while cooking.  Leaving your laundry set up in the basement instead of moving it to the second floor so you have to carry clothes up and down a few flights of stairs a few times a week.

There’s a great video from Dr. Mike Evans about how these moment-to-moment choices that make us move can make a huge difference to our health. Sam blogged a little bit about this last month.

 

 

The world absolutely needs automation and supports so that people who need them can have them.  I am personally trying to get my condo board to install automatic doors right now to make our building more accessible.  And, for many of us, there are a lot of opportunities to integrate more, small movements into our lives if we look for them, if we don’t just punch the button for the elevator because it’s there.

In one of my roles, I teach in a newish building in downtown Toronto attached to a major hospital.  The designers of the building wanted to encourage people to connect to people in other departments and on other floors, along with promoting health. So they put a beautiful staircase right in the centre.  It’s one of my favourite features of all of the places I work.

And one of the things I love about this staircase is that it’s such an unusual thing to do that the fire code required that the builders put a *second* staircase, right beside it, behind a sealed door.  Because it’s so rare to put a staircase in the centre.

So that’s my mantra.  Put the stairs in the centre and take them when you can. Push the cart yourself.  Carry a backpack.  Walk to the store.  Shovel instead of snow-blowing. Leave your laundry in an inconvenient place. Ride your bike to work.  Make muffins using a wooden spoon, not a mixer.  Make your life just a little bit harder — and make your own “blue zone.”

When I first read the headline about “mindful drinking” thought geez, there’s mindful everything these days! As someone who practices total abstinence, it almost seemed to trivialize the idea of mindfulness to think that it could be applied to the consumption of alcohol. But when I read further, it turns out that mindful drinking is closer to not drinking than anything else. And I like that.

According to the article, “Forget the hangover, under-25s turn to mindful drinking,”

Forget pub crawls – increasing numbers of young people are replacing beer and wine with “mindful drinking” – where abstinence, not alcohol, is all the rage.

A fifth of British adults under-25 are teetotal, according to the Office for National Statistics, and numbers are on the rise. Motivated by health and income concerns, this new generation are bucking the trend of their parents, and choosing to drink in moderation, or not at all.

To me, who knew only one non-drinker when I was in that age-range, the stat that one fifth of Brits under 25 are hardly drinking or not drinking is quite something. It’s certainly not thought to be the norm.

Often when I am at conferences or academic events, it’s more difficult to accommodate my  non-drinking than my veganism (yes, I am that guest — the horror!). What I liked most about the article about mindful drinking was its report that this trend is making pubs stand up and notice. They’re starting to offer a wider range of interesting mocktails and other non-alcoholic alternatives. That’s good news for more than the under-25s.

What is mindful drinking? According to the article:

“It’s about changing the way you think and feel about alcohol. For a lot of people, mindful drinking means switching to a lower percentage drink, cutting down for a week, doing a sober sprint, or trying out an alcohol-free for size…”

I realize not everyone has a problem with alcohol, but I do think that the default in our social world is that people will be drinking. And while drinking may have some social value and, for those who do not have a problem, might contribute to a pleasurable time, it’s hardly an essential ingredient without which it’s impossible to have fun.

So the idea of a more mindful approach that encourages moderation or even abstinence strikes me as a positive step and I applaud the young people who are stating to think differently about the place of alcohol in their lives.

Is moderating or changing your approach to alcohol something you ever think about? If you’re thinking of trying a more mindful approach to drinking, here’s a link to some delicious looking mocktail recipes. Cheers!

“Sport England’s ground-breaking “This girl can” campaign returns with a new ad that broadens its scope to get more women exercising.The 2017 campaign focuses on a wider age range and variety of women, as well as sharing new messages such as it’s okay to take a break from sport. It is set to a voiceover of the late Maya Angelou reciting her poem “Phenomenal Women”. The ad was once again created by FCB Inferno and directed by Kim Gehrig through Somesuch.” Read more here.

I have nothing else to say other than “I love this.” I might just watch it on repeat for awhile. You can find the 2015 original This Girl Can ad here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZoXyIxqFRc

Originally posted at http://www.historymuseum.ca/blog/a-controversial-jersey/

by Jenny Ellison

February 22, 2017

Hockey Canada created a national women’s team in 1990, and the first official Women’s World Hockey Championship was held in Ottawa that same year. Organizers of the tournament initially struggled to sell tickets. As a publicity stunt, the tournament committee decided to have Team Canada wear pink jerseys and white satin hockey pants.

Many female players and organizers were angry. They felt that pink uniforms trivialized the athleticism of the new national women’s team. The controversial decision paid off, however, in publicity and ticket sales. Team Canada won gold at the tournament, and the pink jerseys were retired.

The pink jerseys were not the first time a women’s hockey uniform had been controversial. In 1938, members of the Preston Rivulettes were forbidden to wear their jerseys in the national women’s championships, because the jerseys bore the name of the team’s sponsor: the Preston Springs Hotel. The team had agreed to add “Springs” to their jerseys, in exchange for money to buy new equipment.

The problem was that sponsorship was prohibited by the Dominion Women’s Amateur Hockey Association, sponsor of the tournament. Taking any kind of sponsorship or money was regarded by the public with suspicion, and players were expected to play simply for the love of the game. Members of the Rivulettes certainly loved hockey, but they also needed help to pay for new equipment.

Read the rest here.

 

 

I don’t know about you but as a resident of North America enjoying unseasonably warm weather, I’ve got mixed feelings. Sun! Warmth! But also it feels a bit doom like.

After all while Canadians are enjoying a very warm end to winter, Australians are roasting. Our country gets slightly more liveable while their’s gets slightly less.

This piece explores the ethics of enjoying the warm weather when we know it’s linked to an impending global catastrophe. 

They conclude that it’s okay to see the effects of global warming as a mixed bag. No guilt needed.

My day included a long dog hike without the Fitbit, then 10,000 steps after putting the Fitbit on, and bike commuting with bonus errands. Somehow the nice weather makes this easy.

Here’s my hiking companion, Cheddar.

How do you feel about this warm weather in February? I sighed when I put my skates and skis away. But mostly I’m happy to get back on my bike.