I come across the oddest videos on my various social feeds. They are a great way to pass the time while I am in a waiting room, when I don’t have long enough to get into another book chapter but I’m there long enough to need amusement.

Today this video popped up and I loved it: you can take a look here. It features a young woman running into a meeting room profusely apologizing to the group of seniors already seated at tables, patiently waiting. She turns on her music player with a raucus song and starts demonstrating dance moves while encouraging the seniors to get moving.

At first, the seniors aren’t sure what they are supposed to do but they get into the groove. Suddenly another woman appears at the door holding a bingo machine. Aha! The dance instructor is in the wrong room. No matter though; she and the seniors keep dancing.

I like this video for a number of reasons: first, the dance instructor isn’t phased by the room full of seniors. She clearly believes everyone can move at their pace and ability. When we see the seniors dancing, we see some are really grooving, some just moving their arms, or others following every move, including an older man dancing in a wheel chair. Everyone goes at their own pace and ability.

Over the last few years, I have spent time with family in long-term care facilities and I have seen how there is a strong focus on movement. “Motion is lotion” and whether it is chair yoga, group badminton, or a regular turnabout on the dance floor, older residents are supported in being active in the ways they want and can.

For example, there’s one assisted living facility in my community that partnered with the municipality to pave the walk around a small pond outside their building. The path is cleaned in the winter and on days when the weather cooperates, there’s a crowd some with canes, and some without, some using walkers and others in wheelchairs. During the spring, summer and fall months, you can also see people out walking with their families, or if they need a break, there are benches on which to sit and watch the ducks while you catch your breath.

But back to dancing. It’s an activity that builds strength, supports muscle tone, fosters endurance, and is in a word, fun. While it’s great to have social dancing, fitness dancing is equally important and not just for youngsters.

I am reminded of the side-eyes pregnant people get when they keep their fitness routine, be it running, weight lifting, swimming etc. There’s an attitude out there that only certain types of people can only do certain things in certain ways — only young people can do aerobics, only old people can go for a stroll — and if you don’t meet the unspoken criteria , then you are crossing a line that has no real relevance.

The unspoken message in the video is clear: if you can, do. So go ahead and shake your booty.

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Remember this eagle?

That eagle went around the Internet a few years ago taking a stupid walk for its stupid mental health. It’s a concept I found very attractive, for addressing rage exercising and also for focusing on mental fitness.

I’ve been thinking a lot about mental health these days. I’ve always been an advocate, particularly in supporting women’s mental health generally and post partum mental health particularly. It was an issue I returned to during the pandemic when life seemed overwhelming in its uncertainty.

Recent events south of the Canadian border have caused considerable stress and distress as millions of historically marginalized people — women, Black, Indigenous, trans to name a few — are being systematically targetted and disenfranchised.

The work of resistance is draining, the fear is immobilizing, and the rage is exhausting. And yet we persist, on multiple fronts as disruptors and as allies.

How to replenish? to fill the tank of resolve? to keep putting one foot in front of the other? I turned to research and found lots of clear, specific and achievable approaches to build our mental fitness.

We understand why we need physical activity — movement keeps our hearts healthy, our bones strong, and our muscles flexible. Mental fitness helps in multiple ways too. Calm.com says mental fitness gives us multiple benefits including enhanced emotional resilience, reduced anxiety and depression, improved self-awareness, increased wellbeing, and enhanced cognitive function.

Working on your mental health

Incorporating activities that boost your mental health makes a difference. It need not cost money, but it does take time. Attaching your mental fitness exercise to something you do every day can help keep you on that path to mental wellness. Here are things that can help:

• Mindfulness: Practicing mindfulness has many benefits and is an effective approach to reducing stress. At its simplest, mindfulness is about noticing, or being aware of what is happening around you and how you are responding or reacting. One approach I like is taking five minutes when I wake up to track the information I receive through my five senses.
• Meditation: Mindfulness is part of a meditative practice. Meditation allows you to go deeper into your internal exploration. You can combine meditation with activity, like walking a labyrinth or by swimming laps. Meditation calms your body because it focuses on emptying your mind of distractions. I find simple deep breathing calming, while others find focusing on breathing patterns very helpful.
• Nature: There’s been lots written about the benefits of connecting with nature, such as forest bathing or watching ocean waves roll in and out. It’s winter now where I live and unless it’s blowing a gale, I make a point of opening my windows on a daily basis to get fresh air, or getting outside for five minutes in the morning to see what’s happened overnight. Over the holidays, I rediscovered the joys of extended play recordings of a real fire in a woodstove as background sound while reading.
• Human contact: Connecting with other people can be hard especially in a pandemic where we were conditioned to avoid hugs, handshakes and coffee chats. Periodically I buy a package of stamps and send postcards or notes to friends. There’s something rather pleasing about putting an actual pen to paper. How deeply we connect is up to us and our comfort level, but connect nonethless.
• Movement: As much as I joke about my stupid walks, there is solid evidence that shows physical activity is hugely beneficial to our mental health. Yoga, aerobic exercise and dancing are the top three most frequently mentioned forms of movement. I’m not surprised. Yoga helps us unknot tension, aerobic exercise gets our heart pumping and dancing brings us joy.
• Cognitive reframing: Changing our mindset from negative to positive is more than just putting on a happy face. Shifting consciously to a different perspective forces us to create new pathways in our brains. We can do this by writing a gratitude journal where we find three good things about our day. They need not be big or momentous but things that bring us joy and energy. Another way to shift our mindset is to learn or try something new. Learn a new skill, like knitting, or learn a new word in a different language.
• Sleep: The research is abundant and clear: getting enough good sleep can improve your mood, memory, and ability to handle stress. Good sleep has also been linked to reducing your risk for developing dementias like Alzheimer’s disease. When we are rested, we can think clearly and we are less likely to lose focus. If you find sleeping difficult and doom scrolling has become your nighttime habit, assess your sleeping environment and behaviours. Is your room too warm? Do you have too many blankets or too few? Is your pillow too soft or too hard? While you may have to channel your inner Goldilocks until you find out what’s right for you, ensuring you are getting seven to nine hours of sleep a night will offer huge health benefits in return.

My focus this month is on getting better sleep and dancing more (especially when no one is watching!). How about you: what will you try this month to help your mental fitness and well being? Let us know in the comments.

Last weekend the province where I live was battered by a fierce wind storm. Lots of beaches were reshaped by the huge swells, windows got blown out, and water flooded shorelines washing away cars, trailers and sheds. There are lots of days when I think we have been whipped about too much by big winds and heavy rains. The month of November was especially ridiculous with constant rain and almost unrelenting greyness.

So when we got a beautiful day of sunshine, we made the most of it. We grabbed a picnic lunch and took off to see the holiday lights on boats. The sky was blue, the wind was low and the road was empty.

Every year boat owners in Port de Grave decorate their boats with coloured lights, a few snowflakes and other holiday shapes, add some snow people, and trim the harbour walk with more lights. It’s a great walk (the harbourside is fairly level) and the event is very kid and family friendly.

There is something very calming about enjoying pretty lights on a clear evening that’s crisp enough to see your breath but not so cold you are unhappy. I’m glad we seized the day and had that joyful moment.

Joyful moments don’t have to be complicated. We live in difficult times. We need to find joy and revel in it.

Take a walk. Pet a cat. Read a book. Drink a hot cup of tea with a nice biscuit. Find a cozy blanket. Repot your plants. Heck, even spending five minutes picking off the dead leaves is satisfying. Take another walk. Alphabetize your books. Organize them by colour. Dust the shelves while you are at it. Go for a swim. Feel the water flow over your body. Brush your hair 100 times. Make a gratitude list. Or set a time and just sit, enjoying the fact you are doing nothing for five or ten minutes.

I’ve been thinking a lot about mental fitness and how we are overwhelmed daily by shoulds, musts and nows. I hear friends and myself saying, “we have too much on our plate.” Dietitians tell us to make half our plate vegetables. Perhaps I should make my daily plate half full of joyful things. Or maybe I should choose a smaller plate and do less of the shoulds, musts, and nows.

My word of the year is replenish, which my dictionary defines as restoring to original condition, building up, or refilling when empty. After you work out, you have to refuel to build your energy levels or restore your muscle fibres. Why don’t we apply the same focus to waged labour, emotional labour, household labour, and so on? That work also taxes the mind and body; it’s time to replenish and rebuild the mental stores of resilience.

What will you do to replenish? How will you rebuild your resilience? Let us know in the comments.

MarthaFitat55 enjoys powerlifting, swimming, dancing and yoga and doesn’t do nearly enough of the last three.

I’ve recently learned I have lost an inch and a half in height in the past decade. I shouldn’t have been too surprised; my maternal forebears weren’t very tall to start with and they all lost height as they aged. However, an inch and a half is still a lot when you are as short as I am.

I got the news as the result of tests I take as part of the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging. It’s a 20-year national study with more than 51,000 participants aged between 45 and 80.

Every three years the researchers take measurements and assess competencies, both physical and mental. Every 18 months or so, I also participate in an interview where they ask me about my work, hobbies, relationships, habits and so on. During the pandemic, they also sent surveys to monitor how we were all managing with COVID.

The CLSA has been publishing papers regularly and I encourage you to dip into their research pages to see what they have learned about how we are aging in the 21st century.

Anyway, back to my height, or lack thereof. Bone loss is not unusual for older people. Women have less bone tissue than men and they also lose bone density faster during menopause. The CLSA tests came right as I was finishing menopause thus they were able to track my downward descent.

Losing bone density increases your risk for osteoporosis, which also leads to an increased risk of fractures. The bad news is I can’t recapture my height; the good news is there are things I can do to reduce my risk for the bone loss that leads to shrinking.

The Harvard Health page offers several useful tips:

1. Eat a calcium-rich diet. I already drink milk and eat yogurt and cheese, as well as lots of kale, nuts and seeds. So this is on the keep-doing list.
2. Take a Vitamin D supplement. Vitamin D helps the body absorb calcium. The fact is, while I may be ingesting my daily servings in my food diet, I don’t know if my body has been absorbing it. I am going to start and see if this helps.
3. Weight-bearing exercise. I weight train twice a week and try to walk regularly, especially when I am on holidays. However, I may not being doing enough. According to Harvard Health, “Putting pressure on your bones helps maintain bone strength.” Time to be creative and add more steps in my day.
4. Avoid stooping and hunching. This is a hard one for me as I spend most days sitting at a desk. More times than not, I catch myself curled over the laptop or my sewing machine. My posture is suffering and I need to keep working on my core.

Still, I’m glad to learn there are things that I can do to hold steady. While we can’t control our genes, we can cultivate positive habits that can reduce the negative impact of our genetic inheritance.

MarthaFitat55 lives and works in exceedingly rainy Newfoundland and Labrador.

I’m just back from a brief holiday in Spain visiting family. As is usual during the holidays, I tend to exceed my daily steps by almost two to three times my daily average. That’s because I will walk almost everywhere and use public transit.

When I am not on holidays, I tend not to walk as much. That’s mostly because my work is pretty sedentary unless I am teaching face to face. At those times, I tend to walk around a lot when I teach so I can engage with learners and also hear better.

However, one thing that really keeps me walking while on holiday, aside from the scenery and the diverse and interesting neighbourhoods I find, is that when I exceed my step allocation, my Fitbit cheers for me.

My Fitbit does a happy dance with fireworks and little buzzes to signal its joy at my achievement. I get to repeat the experience when I update the app on my phone. If that’s not enough positive reinforcement, my Fitbit also lets me know how many floors I have climbed in a day, and when I reach an especially significant level, I get a badge.

I earned a Roller Coaster badge for climbing 125 floors in a single day this trip. Isn’t it pretty?

Right now the seasons are changing in my part of the world and I’ve decided to try a daily walk, however short, to see how I might keep my step count at twice the average. I may not reach 125 floors in a day again but one can dream and get fireworks as a reward!

— MarthaFitat55 is tickled by small things and simple joys.

I’ve had a lot of stress this year. More than I care to handle, to be honest, so I’ve been taking steps to manage it, so I can reduce the negative effects it can have on my health.

There’s lots written about stress. It can cause anxiety and/or depression, raise your blood pressure, affect your sleep, and alter your eating habits and physical activity.

One of my daily newsletters shared an article from NPR on how to manage stress from a skills development point of view. I’ve always been interested in the concept of resilience, where people can manage the impact and recover from stressful events.

Turns out you can learn and apply simple skills to manage stress. One researcher, in particular, has been focusing on eight key skills we can learn to change our relationship with stress and minimize its negative effects on our health.

According to Judith Moskowitz, these skills are focused on cultivating positive emotions which help us deal better with daily stress: “Even when they’re going through hardship, people still want to talk about positive things, like seeing a lovely sunset or sharing a meal with a friend. And the people who notice more of these bright spots tend to cope better.”

This doesn’t mean you get to be all Pollyanna about life instead of Debbie Downer. It means you can create a toolbox that will help you smooth out the little annoyances that get in the way of moving forward effectively.

1. Positive events

It’s easy to wallow in the negative. Look for the good things. It could be a perfect fluffy cloud, the best cup of tea, or the first red leaf of fall. Take time to notice, to observe, to feel the small pleasures.

2. Savoring

Make the moment last. Remember that nice meal, the great chat with a friend, or the birthday party you went to last month. Re-experience positive feelings through photos, mementoes or memories, or amplify them by journaling for later enjoyment.

3. Gratitude

Several of my friends post three good things as a quick gratitude note. Feeling grateful not only gives you a good boost, it could extend your life. Ask yourself: what brought joy to your day? It doesn’t have to be big; I was really happy I got to sleep in two days in a row last weekend.

4. Daily mindfulness

Between work and family, personal relationships and our community commitments, we are always thinking, planning, worrying, and anticipating. Taking ten minutes in the morning, afternoon and evening to practice daily mindfulness gives us a chance to calm the buzz our busy thoughts impose on our brains. Many people find a series of calming breaths to be helpful as a way to slow things down and remove the pressure of rushing.

5. Positive reappraisal

Reframing something unfortunate or unexpected as an opportunity or a positive outcome helps you switch to a more positive mindset. Ask yourself: is there a silver lining here? During the pandemic, we all learned to pivot, and that’s a really useful skill when life gets in the way of our plans.

6. Self-compassion

One of my favourite viral videos is a little girl snowboarding. As she negotiates some curves and bumps, she tells herself she might fall, or she might not, and that’s okay. We can often be our own worst enemies; negative self-talk is a big part of that. Be kind to yourself. Remember those good things we talked about earlier? Now is the time to take those out and be reminded of the good things you bring to life.

7. Personal strengths

Another way to avoid the trap of negative self-talk is to highlight your strengths. Ask yourself what are you good at? Think about a time your good listening skills paid off or when your attention to detail avoided a bigger problem from developing. Remembering achievements both big and small is a good way to bring positivity to your daily life.

8. Attainable goals

When I was a kid, the phrase, “don’t bite off more than you can chew,” puzzled me. As a grown up, I know it means recognizing your strengths, managing your limits and setting reasonable goals. Smaller steps lead to big gains; steady progress maintains momentum.

How about you? What skills do you have now and what skills would you like to practice for the future? Let us know in the comments!

MarthaFitat55 lives, works and trains on the East Coast of Canada.

Olympic athletes are often seen as the embodiment of strength, resilience, and achievement. They are celebrated for their extraordinary physical abilities, mental toughness, and relentless dedication to their sport. But beneath the medals and international acclaim, there lies a sobering reality: even the most successful and physically strong women athletes are not immune to the pervasive issue of intimate partner violence (IPV).

The deaths of several female athletes, at the hands of their intimate partners, serve as tragic reminders that fame, strength, and success do not offer immunity from gender-based violence and murder. The most recent is that of Rebecca Cheptegei who died this week after being burned by her alleged partner in an attack on Sunday at her house in Endebess, along the Kenya-Uganda border.

The CBC said “Dickson Ndiema Marangach — the Kenyan man reported to be Cheptegei’s boyfriend — bought a jerrycan of gas, poured it on her and set her ablaze following a disagreement.” Cheptegei most recently competed in the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

There have been two other high-profile cases of elite women athletes from Kenya who have been victims of intimate partner violence:

• Kenyan long distance runner Agnes Jebet Tirop was killed in October 2021, just months after she competed in the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo and finished fourth in the women’s 5,000-metre final. She was also a two-time, 10,000-metre bronze medallist at the World Athletics Championships. 

• In April 2022, Kenyan-born Bahraini athlete Damaris Muthee Mutua was found dead near the town of Iten, at the home of Ethiopian runner Koki Foi, who was reported to be her boyfriend. 

Intimate partner violence is not bound by socio-economic status, physical strength, or public stature. It affects women across all demographics. In this case, as in so many others, the woman was a physically strong, highly capable athlete. But strength on the field or court does not translate to protection in private relationships.

It seems paradoxical to see female athletes as victims of IPV. After all, these women are physically strong, mentally tough, and have achieved global recognition. They’ve defied odds, broken barriers, and dominated their respective sports.

The case of Kenyan long-distance runner Agnes Tirop, who was murdered by her husband in 2021, further underscores the vulnerability of women athletes to gender-based violence. Her death sparked an outcry in Kenya, as many called for greater protection for women, not only in sports but across all sectors of society. Tirop’s murder was not just a loss for the sports world; it was a reminder that success and fame do not shield women from the perils of abusive relationships.

Sports organizations, from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to national governing bodies, must acknowledge gender-based violence as a critical issue. This means also not allowing convicted child rapists to compete.

The tragic deaths of Olympic women athletes at the hands of their intimate partners highlight a pervasive issue that society must confront head-on. Intimate partner violence does not discriminate. It affects women of all backgrounds, including those who seem invulnerable due to their physical strength and success.

By MarthaFitat55

The Olympics will start Friday July 26 in Paris. Every day it seems there’s a bit of news about the Olympics, from the innocuous and exciting to the scandalous and enraging.

First the good news: for the first time since its inception, the Paris Olympics will feature gender parity. The Tokyo Games came close, but it’s Paris where equal numbers of men and women will compete. The Olympic organization has a great overview of the march to gender parity here.

According to Axios, women made up 2.2% in the 1900’s first modern Olympic Games. It’s not hard to see why it took 124 years to reach parity. Men have always gotten greater numbers of lucrative sponsorships compared to women. And let’s not forget Kara Coucher, Olympian and former Nike representative who was dropped by the company when she got pregnant.

There’s always been interest in women’s sports; we just haven’t always seen the coverage, the participation, and the money. These days women’s hockey, soccer, and basketball are dominating and with that audience, the dollars are growing.

More good news: Breastfeeding athletes will be given their own rooms so they can continue to feed their children while at the games. The scene was quite different in Tokyo. Women’s Health Magazine had a great story about the changes evident in Paris and they also shared some of the stories they heard from breastfeeding athletes:

“Paralympian Sarah Storey, 46, who has won 28 medals, said it’s definitely possible to be a breastfeeding mum and elite athlete. She said: ‘It’s absolutely possible to breastfeed and be at the highest level of sport because I’ve done it. Your baby is settled, it’s not crying, it’s not upset, and you can focus on the job that you’ve got to do as an athlete. ‘Knowing that I can provide for my child means that when I do this incredibly selfish job of being an athlete, where you have to be so self-centred and so self-absorbed with the hours that you’re training and racing, it gives me that yin and yang.’”

Now for the bad news: Despite winning a decision that said forcing Caster Semenya to take testosterone-reducing drugs was discrimination, Semenya is still fighting to run races in all the distances she wants to run. You can read past blog entries about Semenya’s battles here and here. Semenya presented her case at the European Court of Human Rights in March 2024.

Semenya’s court challenges have cost her dearly in the ten-year fight: about $1.5M in legal fees and an arbitrary shift from her favoured distances. Semenya said in the article her career is over and she is focused on advocating for younger athletes.

And now for the really bad news: The Netherlands has agreed to let a convicted child rapist participate as an Olympic contender. Dutch volleyball player Steven van de Velde will represent the Netherlands at the Games despite being convicted and serving a one-year term for the rape of a 12-year-old.

The head of the Dutch Volleyball Federation says van de Velde has served his time and has been reintegrated in the Dutch volleyball community. “He is proving to be an exemplary professional and human being and there has been no reason to doubt him since his return,” said Michel Everaert, general director at Nevobo.

Van de Velde describes his actions in 2017 as his “greatest misstep of my then young life” and expressed his gratitude for the support of his family, friends, and colleagues.

The Dutch Federation says van de Velde returned under strict conditions. The IOC says the national OCs decide who gets to be an Olympian and has referred the media back to the Dutch for comment.

Nonetheless, the head of the US Centre for SafeSport does not agree with the decision to allow van de Velde at the Olympics. CEO Ju’Riese Colon said she was “deeply concerned that anyone convicted of sexually assaulting a minor could participate in the 2024 Olympic Games. With teams from around the world about to convene in Paris, many of which include minor athletes, this sends a dangerous message that medals and money mean more than their safety. Participation in sport is a privilege not a right.”

With three weeks left to go, Olympic news will likely increase. It will be interesting to see what and who gets covered once the Games begin.

MarthaFitat55 lives and works in St. John’s. She expects she will have more to say once the Games finish.

Sam recently shared an article on the value of hobbies for supporting our mental health fitness. You can find it here with the catchy title, Why Knitting (and Hobbies Like It) Can Make You Calmer, Sharper, and Happier.

The article lists several more reasons why a hobby is good for you: a hobby can give you a sense of control (especially helpful if you are going through a period of great stress), you can focus on good enough instead of perfection (you are learning something new!), you are rewiring your brain with a different task (quilting requires a lot of math, a function that I avoid as much as possible), and you don’t have to create alone as you often can find a ready-made community of likeminded practitioners.

I have always found calmness when I am doing something with my hands, be it baking, quilting, crocheting, stitching or throwing clay. While I have not done much of the last two in recent years, I did a lot of the first three during the pandemic.

After losing a loved one last fall, I found great comfort in sewing. Watching the project come together when I felt so much in my heart had fallen apart proved to be key to providing clarity in my brain. There was something so soothing about planning a quilt, sorting the fabric, measuring the pieces, laying out the pattern, organizing the rows, choosing a backing, and then putting it all together.

A hobby offers the space to focus on something else, other than work or family, even if the two give great comfort and joy. It’s about balance, proportion, and attention, especially choosing a creative activity. It turns out it doesn’t matter if you aren’t any good at it in the beginning. It’s really about the process of learning and growing.

We know building fitness into our daily lives helps immeasurably with our mental health. I wrote about angry self care here and why it helps to have a good stomp. But making something, be it a loaf of bread or a pan of brownies, a good enough dishcloth, or a quilt with slightly crooked seams, also offers a sense of accomplishment you can share. There, you can say to yourself, I made that.

Making time for hobbies and physical activity means you are making time for yourself. And as the other Martha is fond of saying, that’s a good thing. The weeks where I have a good balance between work, play, quilting, and physical activity are also the ones where I feel most productive and energetic.

Prioritizing mental and physical well being offers you lots of other benefits:: You can improve your concentration and performance, you can acquire new skills, and you can reduce the levels of cortisol, the stress hormone. Doing a puzzle, planting a few herbs, or even deadheading a few flowers will get you away from phone/tablet, television and computer screens, reducing eye strain, doom scrolling and help you sleep better which matters more than we think when it comes to maintaining our brain and heart health.

So get out those crayons and a few index cards. Find a crochet hook and some yarn. Haul out a puzzle and see how much fun you will have. It’s time to get messy and be creative.

This post isn’t about mask-wearing. Now that the snow is long gone in my part of the world and the spring winds are blowing freely, there’s lots of garbage floating around. Part of it is because we don’t have enough garbage cans along our sidewalks, parks and trails. Part of it is just sheer rudeness by people who feel it’s okay to throw their refuse to the four winds.

A friend always takes a bag with her on her walks to collect garbage. She feels she is doing her part to make her neighbourhood cleaner and greener. If she was running, we would call it plogging. About a year ago, I wrote about plogging as my new activity: https://fitisafeministissue.com/2023/05/20/plogging-in-the-spring/

My partner gave me a garbage picker-upper after I saw how much he had cleaned up on his walks.

If you haven’t tried plogging, give it a go. I wrote about the origins here: https://fitisafeministissue.com/2018/11/16/plogging-your-way-to-health-and-fitness/

It’s always good to leave a space better than you found it.