Wear and Tear

I have just finished reading the book “Wear and Tear – Stop the Pain and Put the Spring Back in Your Body” by Dr Bob Arnot and would like to share some of the interesting points from the book.

Do you know that our modern lifestyle is one of the causes of wear and tear in our body? Sitting in our cars and at our desks for long hours without stretching and moving may result in the tightening and shortening of our tendons and muscles. Day in and day out, our tendons and muscles get shorter and shorter when we don’t stretch them. The tendons also get thicker as tissue fibroblasts become active rapidly and start to lay down new collagen in response to lack of movement. This explains why our muscles are so stiff and why it is so difficult to stretch the muscles back to their normal length and why a sudden stretch can cause a tear. The book has some simple tests to determine if you suffer from stiff man syndrome by checking on the range of motion in your joints.

One of the solutions given by Dr Arnot to restore our joints is YOGA which he believes maybe the single most effective way of dealing with wear and tear and restoring lost youth. The book provide some yoga postures from the Bikram series to open the hip and restore the knee which include the triangle pose, wind-removing pose, standing head-to-knee pose, head-to-knee stretching pose, awkward chair pose, eagle pose and dancer’s pose.

One of the chapters in the book is about eating food that helps you to lose weight. Do you know why you are able to eat so much more at a buffet? This is because our brain has specific senses to satisfy. Each time you introduce a new taste or smell that has not been satiated, you will not feel full. So, in order to lose weight, it is recommended that you should go on a “dull diet”. A dull diet means eating foods that have very similar qualities, i.e. the same texture, colour and even taste and you will automatically limit what you eat!

The book is very comprehensive as it includes easy-to-follow guidelines to show how to slow, stop or even reverse wear and tear.

I would recommend this book to you if you are suffering from pain in your joints and muscles and would like to do something about it so as to have a healthier lifestyle and to put the spring back into your step.