This is Fall Prevention week

“Well, I have learned one thing from my latest in a series of the ever-appearing speed bumps of life — 75 is NOT the new 50,” he emailed me. “Thinking younger doesn’t quite do it. You still have to do the hard work of, as the Toby Keith song says, ‘Don’t let the old man in.’ And that is my job now, the way I see it.”

— Maureen Dowd, quoting the late Jimmy Buffet

This is Fall Prevention week, as our fellow qi-ster Aly Hackett, PT, informed me this morning. EVERY week is fall prevention week, of course. That’s one reason so many of us appreciate Qigong, which the NIH says is similar to, if not more effective than traditional fall prevention protocols.

The secret is to find exercises you enjoy doing, ones that safely challenge your balance skills, and then do them every day. Qigong is a great choice. Along with dance, it’s the best way I know to help Mother Nature keep Father Time the heck out of the room. Does this have to be “hard work”? Not necessarily, but it does have to be consistent work. “Petit a petit l’oiseau fait son nid” (Little by little the bird builds its nest) say the French. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step” says the Tao Te Ching.

It’s not only about physical exercise, of course. Falls can erode our self-confidence, too, causing us move more tentatively, or perhaps stop moving much at all. If you find yourself feeling anxious about falling, take a pause. Do a few Qigong breaths. Feel your feet on the ground. Feel the harmony between your breath, which can relax and energize you, and your body, which negotiates with the stabilizing force of gravity by maintaining its up and down alignment between Heaven and Earth. And join us whenever you can in our weekly Qigong classes. Moving, and breathing, and sometimes laughing with others in a group, is a super powerful way to deal with those speedbumps of life, whatever they may be.