The Dance and the Mountain Path: Two Hobbies That Give Back the Life to Your Body

Why the body asks us to move, and what happens to the sugar in the blood

It is a thing that many persons ignore, but the body of the human being is constructed for the movement. Not to remain seated eight hours at the desk, not to look the telephone for all the evening. The body asks to walk, to jump, to breathe with force. And when we give it this possibility, something beautiful happens inside.

Let me explain with simplicity. When we eat the pasta, the bread, the fruit, the body transforms these foods in a sugar that is called glucose. This glucose travels in the blood and arrives to the muscles, that use it like the gasoline for the car. But if we remain always still, this sugar accumulates in the blood and the body has difficulty to manage it. The result is that one feels tired, heavy, with the head that does not want to think.

The movement, instead, opens the doors of the muscles. The glucose enters, is consumed, and the level in the blood remains in equilibrium. This is the reason for which, after a walk of thirty minutes, one feels lighter and also more happy. It is not magic. It is the body that does its work.

The dance: a joy that makes the blood to flow

One says often that the dance is only for the young ones, or for who has rhythm. This is a thought that must be abandoned immediately. The dance is for everybody, because at its base there is not the perfection of the movement. There is the pleasure of letting the body to express itself with the music.

What makes the dance so particular is that it works on many levels at the same time:

• The heart pumps with more force, and the circulation improves in all the legs and the arms
• The muscles of the belly and the back work to maintain the equilibrium, without that we think about it
• The brain must remember the steps, follow the rhythm, coordinate the movements, and this keeps the mind awake and present
• The glucose in the blood is consumed with constancy, because the dance is a activity that one does for one hour, two hours, without stopping

One can begin with the salsa, with the tango, with the simple free dance in the kitchen while one prepares the dinner. There is not a right way. There is only the way that makes you to smile.

And here is a practical thing: the dance does not ask expensive equipment. It asks a pair of comfortable shoes, a bit of music, and the courage to begin also alone in the room of the house. Many persons discover that after the first ten minutes of embarrassment, the body takes over and the head stops to judge.

The hiking: to walk in the nature and to find oneself

The hiking is the brother more calm of the dance, but not less powerful. To walk in the mountain, in the woods, along the paths of earth, is one of the most complete activities that the human being can make. And it is also the most simple: one foot after the other, the breath that becomes deep, the eyes that look the green around.

For the glucose, the hiking is a medicine without taste bitter. When one walks for one hour on a path with some slope, the muscles of the legs consume sugar with a rhythm constant and moderate. There are not the peaks and the drops of the intense running. There is a consumption slow, steady, that teaches the body to use the energy with intelligence.

The hiking gives also something that the gym cannot give: the silence, the air clean, the contact with the earth under the shoes. Many persons say that after two hours in the mountain they feel the thoughts more clear, as if someone had opened the windows in a closed room.

For who wants to begin, the rule is only one: to start small. A flat path of thirty minutes is already a victory. The mountain will wait for you, and with time the legs will ask more distance, more slope, more hours of walk.

The question of the energy: what happens inside us and how to help the body

Now, there is a thing that must be said with honesty. The movement is fundamental, yes. But for some persons, in particular for who has passed the fifty years, or for who has a life very sedentary from many years, the mechanism of the glucose can be a bit lazy. The body produces the sugar, but makes more fatigue to put it in the muscles. And so one feels the energy that goes up and down during the day, the desire to sleep after the meal, the legs heavy.

In these cases, the regular activity like the dance and the hiking is the first and most important step. But some persons choose to support the body also from the inside, with integrators thought for the equilibrium of the glucose. One of the products of which I have heard to speak with interest is Glycorium, a natural integrator that is proposed to give a support to the maintenance of levels healthy of sugar in the blood. It is not a substitute of the movement, absolutely. It is a help in more, a hand that one gives to the body while the body is already working with the walk or with the dance.

If one is curious to understand better the composition and the philosophy behind this product, the information is available on glycorium.biz where the approach is explained with clarity, without promises impossible. I say always: before to assume any integrator, it is right to speak with the own doctor, in particular if one takes already medicines. But to inform oneself, to understand what exists, this is a right of every person.

The important thing is to remember that no integrator, by itself, can do the miracle. The miracle, if we want to call it so, is the constancy. Thirty minutes every day. The music that starts, the shoes that go on, the door of the house that opens.

A week of movement: a practical schema for who starts from zero

I propose here a simple organisation for the first two weeks. It is thought for who has not done sport from a long time, and it asks only a bit of good will:

After two weeks, one can increase the duration of ten minutes. The body adapts with a speed that surprises, but only if we give it the time.

The last word, the one that counts

I do not want to write here a conclusion full of big words. I want to say a thing simple, the one that I would say to a friend over a coffee: the body is the only house in which we must live all the life. We cannot change it, we cannot buy another one. And this house, if we leave it closed and dark, it deteriorates. But if we open the windows, if we make it to breathe, if we let it to move a little every day, it responds with a generosity that has no equal.

The dance gives the joy. The hiking gives the peace. Together, they give the glucose its right place, and they give to us the sensation of being alive in the full sense of the word.

Begin tomorrow. Not Monday. Not the next month. Tomorrow, put the shoes, press play on the music, or open the door and take the first step. The rest will come by itself, one foot after the other.