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Q: I've heard that cardiovascular exercise can prolong life. Is this true?
A: Your heart is only good for so many beats, and that's it...don't waste them on exercise. Everything wears out eventually. Speeding up your heart will not make you live longer; that's like saying you can extend the life of your car by driving it faster. Want to live longer? Take a nap.
Margo Jordan Parker, OMD comments: Actually - Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) weighs in on this point and may agree with the author of this cute e-mail joke. Ancient Chinese medicine dictates that we should not do anything to excess - be it exercise, eating, sexual activity or anything else you can think of. All things in balance and moderation. In TCM, strenuous physical exercise causes sweat from the kidney/adrenal glands. Too much physical stress could deplete these organs and that is where the concept of "Yuan Chi" is stored. Yuan Chi translated to a concept in our language is our "essential energy" or "Life Force". This is a difficult concept to translate because it is a concept that we have not articulated in The West. We will talk more about this in the future if you are interested.
