BODY LANGUAGE
Ellen Goodman
To be frank, I had nearly given up on scientific research as the road to health. I had almost abandoned the last hope that medicine would come up with a user-friendly formula for longevity.
First there was the bad news about cloning, the genetic path to immortality. Dolly the clone has come up with arthritis in her prime sheephood. Even if I could be cloned into everlasting life, each new “me” might get decrepit faster than the original.
Then there was the bad news about cancer prevention. The same protein that can protect me from cancer appears to bring on ageing. The mutant mice in the lab didn’t succumb to tumors, they just shrivelled up and died prematurely. Some trade-off.
With one bulletin following another, it seemed that we were back to basics. I was left with the same dreary options for a healthy and lengthy life: eat less and exercise more.
Well, eating less, much less, has long been associated with longevity. But my own scientific belief is that food deprivation doesn’t really let you live longer, it just makes every day feel longer. Exercise, on the other hand, may give you some extra time, but you have to spend it all in the gym.
But now, just in time to rescue my New Year’s resolutions from the recycle bin, comes a man with a fertile imagination. In fact a bulging imagination. Dr Guang Yue of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation has officially proved that you can build bigger muscles just by thinking about using them. You too can buff up with mental exercise.
At first glance this physiologist sounds like the Emperor’s New Personal Trainer. But the study he recently presented to the Society of Neuroscience shows what happens when 30 young adults spend 15 minutes a day thinking big. Just visualising the exercise of the pinkie was enough to increase its strength by 35%. It was enough to buff up the muscle around the elbow by 13%.
This was not like bending spoons with your mind. It was like lifting weights. Admittedly, I have no idea why anyone might want a bulging pinkie. Muscular elbows have never been high on my body dance card. But think thighs and you get the idea.
We now have a rich addition to our fitness fantasy life: the Thinking Person’s Exercise Programme. Welcome to the wonderful world of mental gymnastics, buffing without huffing, training without straining.
This programme will bring glee to the hearts of people who have not yet unwrapped their dumbbells and will never amortise their health club memberships. It will save the lives of those who are thinking of murdering the man in the abs infomercial.
Mind you, visualisation is not an entirely new idea. Coaches have used it; gurus have promoted it. As a sometime golf, tennis and squash player I have been urged to imagine all sorts of balls reaching their appointed destiny. Most of these programmes require that sooner or later you actually hit the ball. Which tends to end the fantasy. But in the Thinking Person’s Exercise Programme you don’t imagine the sport. Imagination is the sport.
The good Dr Yue warns: “It’s not that easy.” It requires a lot of mental energy. What it does not require, however, is any heavy lifting.
The Thinking Person’s Exercise Programme offers no equipment beyond the grey matter that comes as part of the standard package. You don’t have to wrap your body in Lycra, you don’t have to shell out hundreds of dollars in shoes or buzz your biceps with little electrodes.
Best of all, many of us already have a head start. I for one have been thinking about getting in shape for years. Body building has long been a figment of my imagination. Now I know I’m on the right track.
@Notes&Queries
What does the G stand for in MG?
I’m afraid the “car fanatics” have this one wrong. MG stands for “Morris Garages”, an English establishment originally set up to produce sports-tuned versions of the Bull-nose Morris by Cecil Kimber in the 1920’s, first in Oxford and lated in Abingdon.
Morgan cars are a separate entity, still manufactured by hand by the Morgan company, which is a family concern in Malvern, England. Tim J Carter, Johannesburg
Why does South Africa need submarines?
The answer has to be that the South African National Defence Force will go to any depths to avoid public scrutiny of its movements. Mark Wade, Sandton
To search for the last perlemoen. Christopher Gregorowski
We must have enemies, otherwise how can we defend ourselves? As it is more convenient to conduct operations adjacent to our borders, and having previously invaded Lesotho, the next most likely targets could well be Swaziland and/or Botswana. Fighting either a mountain or a desert campaign without submarines would be militarily disastrous. Edward Lurie, Newlands, Cape Town
This sounds like a ridiculous question probably asked by a racist white. Don’t the thousands of hungry orphans have enough to worry about? You cannot expect them to lose sleep over the possibility that our country may be invaded by the Russians via the sea. I cannot believe that your newspaper could publish such heresy. Cobus Bester, Auckland Park, Johannesburg
People who came to the United Kingdom seeking refuge from persecution used to be called “refugees”. But about 10 years ago the Home Office started calling them “asylum seekers”. Was there a technical reason for this change, or did the British government feel that “asylum seekers” would be an easier target for harsh treatment?
An “asylum seeker” has not been granted the hallowed status of “refugee”. Anyone entering South Africa from somewhere that is recognised as a “refugee producing” country is allowed entry provided they notify the Department of Home Affairs and start the application for refugee status. Until such time as they are officially granted this status they are mere seekers. Greg Andrews
Any answers?
Where have all the world’s typewriters gone to? Dennis Gordge
How did it come about that “q” is always followed by “u”? Luela Palmer, Colchester, UK
If more and more power is extracted from wind or waves, “using up” nature’s energy, will there ultimately be any harmful effects on the planet? CP Young, Poole, Dorset, UK
Compiled by Joseph Harker. Send your Notes & Queries to PO Box 91667, Auckland Park, 2006. Fax to (011) 727 7111. E-mail to [email protected]. Please keep questions and answers short.
ENDS