Show Notes
The strength you build in your 60s could decide whether you stay independent later in life or become frail. Your body has been on a slow downward curve since your 30s or 40s, and the goal is to get ahead of it before it gets ahead of you. In this video I walk through six simple movements that mirror the exact things an 80 year old needs to be able to do. Standing up from a chair without using your hands. Getting up off the floor on your own. Climbing the stairs with confidence. Walking briskly. Carrying shopping in both hands. Balancing on one leg. These aren't about building a beach body. They're about rehearsing the movements you already know you'll need for the rest of your life, the same way doctors rehearse the procedures and conversations they know they'll face one day. A broken hip is one of the worst things that can happen to an older body. As many as one in four to one in three older people who break their hip will die within the following year, and plenty more never make it back home. Training these six movements now is one of the simplest ways to protect against that. If you don't currently exercise, run through these daily. If you already train regularly, use them on your rest days to keep the most important movements ticking over. Either way, treat these as your floor, not your ceiling, and keep nudging yourself a little further as you go. The full list of research references is in the description of the YouTube version. Disclaimer: This is not personal medical advice and does not override what your doctor says. #dralex #healthyageing #strengthtraining
More from The Long Game | Dr Alex
Three minutes a day, split into three short bursts, is all it takes to work the muscles that quietly hold you upright every time you stand up, carry the shopping or reach into a cupboard. A plank trains the deep muscles wrapping around your middle rather than the ones you see in the mirror, and that is exactly why it matters so much as you get older. In this video I go through what a plank actually does to your blood pressure, your balance and your chances of a fall, what it does for a lower back that keeps aching, and how to build up to it if you cannot hold one for more than a few seconds right now. I also show a simple variation at the end that turns this from a basic core hold into something much closer to a proper workout. The full list of research references for this video is in the description of the YouTube version. Disclaimer: This is not personal medical advice and does not override what your doctor says. #dralex #planking #corestrength
Eight hours is probably the most repeated number in sleep health, yet so many people hit it every night and still wake up exhausted. That number was never a personal target. It is simply the middle of a range, and it only ever measures how long you lie in bed, not how much actual sleep your brain gets. In this episode I break down what really determines sleep quality. Deep sleep is loaded into the first half of the night and handles physical repair, while REM sleep builds through the second half and processes emotion and memory. Losing time from either end costs you very different things, even if the hours lost look the same on paper. I also talk through sleep efficiency, why sleep apnoea so often goes unnoticed, why alcohol wrecks the second half of your night, and why a large UK Biobank study found that sleep regularity predicted risk of death more strongly than sleep duration did. I cover caffeine timing, morning light, restless legs, and why cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia is recommended ahead of sleeping tablets. This episode is sponsored by Somnipods, the earbuds I have been using myself to deal with noise disruption overnight. The full list of research references is in the description of the YouTube version of this video. Disclaimer: This is not personal medical advice and does not override what your doctor says. #dralex #sleephealth #nhsdoctor
Your leg muscles are often the first to weaken as you get older, usually because of years of sitting more and moving less. What you eat plays a direct role in how much of that muscle you keep. In this episode I go through seven foods that help protect your leg muscles as you age, including eggs, oily fish, dairy, lean red meat, beetroot and leafy greens, pulses, and extra virgin olive oil, and why the timing and quality of your protein matters just as much as the amount. The full list of research references for this episode is in the description of the YouTube version. Disclaimer: This is not personal medical advice and does not override what your doctor says. #dralex #muscle #nutrition
Here are seven foods I try to avoid as a doctor, and what I eat instead. Processed meat, sugary drinks, sweetened breakfast cereal, anything deep fried, alcohol, protein bars and sliced white bread all come up often in conversations with patients, so I wanted to explain what is actually happening in the body with each one and the swaps I make in my own kitchen. This is not about judging the odd treat here and there. It is the pattern of the same choice repeated thousands of times over years that raises the risk of disease. Small daily swaps add up in the same way. The full list of research references is in the description of the YouTube version. Disclaimer: This is not personal medical advice and does not override what your doctor says. #dralex #preventativehealth #nhsdoctor
Your thyroid gets blamed for a lot of stubborn weight gain, and sometimes that blame is fair. But very often someone is sent away with a normal blood test and told their thyroid is fine, with no explanation for how they actually feel. In this episode I go through what your thyroid actually does, what changes when it runs slow or fast, what a normal result on your test really means, and what tends to be going on when your results are fine but the weight still will not shift. A normal thyroid test is good news on its own, but it is only one piece of the picture. When it comes back clear, that should be the start of a proper conversation about what else might explain your symptoms, not the end of one. I also talk through why a properly underactive thyroid usually explains a few kilos rather than several stone, and why so much of what people assume is fat is actually fluid building up under the skin. For a lot of people, the bigger drivers sit elsewhere, in food quality, movement, sleep and stress, and none of that is said to make anyone feel guilty. The full list of research references for this episode is in the description of the YouTube version. Disclaimer: This is not personal medical advice and does not override what your doctor says. #dralex #thyroidhealth #weightloss