Mood Swings and Trends: Morristown’s Doctor Daphne on turning that New Year’s Resolution into an ongoing habit

This time on Mood Swings and Trends, we will discuss how you can avoid resolutions gone sour from years past. We will focus on the “body” part of the mind-body equation.

The importance of movement and exercise has been widely known.  Research results repeatedly demonstrate  the many benefits of exercise and movement: To the body, the mind, the spirit–you name it!

Whatever your excuse, here’s my opportunity to share with you how I overcame mine… and perhaps how you can make your resolution(s) stick.

It’s a known fact that the “Year,” “Make” and “Model” of the body we get at birth doesn’t change throughout our lifetimes. (Our date of birth doesn’t budge, no matter how much we defy it!)

With each passing year, our “model year,” or Date Of Birth, moves further away from the current year. No, I am not trying to depress you here. We’re ALL in this together. Longevity has been shown to have a positive correlation with an ability. In other words, as soon as one’s ability to ambulate diminishes, his or her natural ability to survive in nature for a long time is greatly impacted.

I can’t imagine that I’m telling you anything you didn’t already know. Or did I just yank you out of your sweet and pleasant state of denial?

It is entirely up to us, then, to keep our “one and only” body in the best shape that it can be, inside and out. If we run it into the ground (so to speak), we won’t be able to exchange it for a newer model, like we can with an older car that we trade for a newer one.

Medical technology has allowed us to “trade-in” organs for “newer” and better models (from healthy donors) in dire situations. Those who are not fortunate enough to make it to the top of the list for organ donations may pay the ultimate price.

However, as of this writing, we don’t have the capacity to “turn in” the whole thing, our entire physical body, for an entire new one. Not yet anyhow, and I’m not even aware of any buzz about its upcoming likelihood, unless you count sci-fi adventures!

Like it or not, we have to keep our bodies, no matter how we care for them. But here’s where it all gets interesting.

We don’t have much choice about the body that we get from mom and dad. We know that at the point of conception, the embryo has all the genetic material that will determine eye color, when our hair will start turning grey and when our baby teeth will fall out, to name a few things!

But we do have lots of choices about how well we care for our human vessels, and what we eat, and how well we immunize and exercise, and how attuned we stay to our bodies’ changing needs and signs of malfunction, fatigue, hunger, anxiety, etc, etc, etc.

Granted, the jury isn’t in on the Nature vs. Nurture debate– whether genetics or environment are more crucial in determining who we are. For now, it’s believed to be a 50/50 deal. Nature accounts for 50 percent of our personalities while Nurture accounts for, yes you guessed it, the other 50 percent!

Ahem, I do need to come clean, before we go any further. I have spent most of my life Hating (with a capital H) gym class, and avoiding exercise with everything I’ve got.

The only times when any form of movement happened in my life were either coincidental, unavoidable or accidental. OK, I did swim regularly and dance at some points during my adult life. But never longer than a few months at a time, on a consistent basis.

I admit it, like some of you, I started memberships at gyms, fitness outlets and the “Y.” But sooner rather than later I was outta-there! This wasn’t like food and air. I wouldn’t die quickly from inactivity!

Yet all of this miraculously changed for me in May 2006. That was when something truly wonderful happened. I discovered a form of exercise that works for me.  It combines dance moves with exercise (cardio, strength training, stretching; the works).

This time, I told myself that I would go slowly. In the past, I would push myself to the max from the get-go; a sure bet that I would discontinue my fitness kick faster than I could say “bye-bye.”

It wasn’t the only thing I did differently.  Previously, I had viewed exercise as optional. Something I would do if I “felt like it.” (I’m rolling my eyes as I write this. Like, when would I ever “feel” like it?  Like, “never!”).

But this time, I didn’t attach a weight loss goal or any other condition.  I intended to find a way to keep exercising. It was no longer going to be an option.

I don’t choose to breathe or eat to sustain the life of my body. So exercising ceased to be deemed optional. I would have to schedule workouts into my weekly routine, not just for when “I was in the mood.”

Deciding to “Just Do It,” as Nike so brilliantly has been telling us for years now, was the way to go for me.

I also discovered a very special group of people headed by Stacey Oshrin, owner and instructor of a local Jazzercise center.  I didn’t know much about Jazzercise. What caught my attention was the “Jazz” part, not necessarily the “er-cize” part.

It would be hard to be the avid swing dancer that I am without being totally in love with Jazz music!

“How bad could it be,” I thought to myself. “I’ll get to dance to my favorite type of music: Jazz!”

Jazzercise quickly became my happy place. When I walked into a nearby Jazzercize center, which I found on the internet, I didn’t know a single soul there. That changed fast!

That fateful Wednesday afternoon completely transformed my life.  In Jazzercise the emphasis is on exercise option points, not to be confused with “optional exercise.”

The demonstration of different levels of intensity and impact made Jazzercise a slam dunk for me.

I started doing “low-impact” for the first six weeks before increasing the intensity of my workout. The hour would fly as I convinced myself I was really dancing, not exercising.

“It’s my dancercise…yeah,”  I would tell myself.  I could live with that. It has been so much fun, and that is the main reason it stuck with me. And now, more than 4  1/2 years later, not only do I love it… I have zero intentions of ever stopping.

As someone who sits all day, with occasional forays to my office door or the rest room…(I think you get the picture!)… my day-to-day life doesn’t have exercise naturally built into it, say like a mail delivery person or a personal trainer.

Therefore, it has been imperative for me to incorporate movement into my life. Here’s how you can meet your personal improvement plans too:

1. Think of your “goals” as “wishes for a healthier or better version of yourself.”
2. Build slowly and safely. Don’t overdo it, because of momentum… Overdoing it, especially early on, might means risking an injury…which will defeat the purpose.
3. Imagine yourself at the end point, how it would feel to have fulfilled your wishes.
4. Think “big picture,” but put your focus on the “little acievements” as the most important components.
5. Visualize yourself fully experiencing “success” as YOU define it.
6. NEVER EVER NEVER give up!…No matter what setbacks you encounter…just get back to it ASAP!
7. Doing one’s best can and does fluctuate…your best one day may not be the same kind of best on another day (for many different reasons) .
8. Make it fun!
9. Customize the “goal” to your personality, special circumstances, limitations, and resources.
10.  Do it with love, flexibility, patience and understanding NOT self-dislike, rigidity and impatience.

Happy 2011 Everyone!

Quote #42: “If you do little things well, you will do big things better.” (Unknown.)

Curious Human Phenomenon #2524: How come year after year we make New Year Resolutions and unfortunately those resolutions only last for a short time, only?

***Dr. Daphne Shalita has a psychotherapy private practice in Morristown New Jersey. She specializes in the treatment of trauma, anxiety and depressive disorders as well as couples’ counseling. Her clinical work with adults includes a special emphasis on human development throughout the life span as well as multicultural issues.

*Any information contained in this blog is for educational purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for psychotherapy services provided by a licensed professional.