This summer’s miracle cure

Welcome to summer, the season of growing light, relaxed purpose and new opportunities. Summer dreams. Summer breaks and summer vacations. Summer of our youths, summer play. Let’s do it.
What else is summer good for? What if this summer led us to a single discovery that could make us healthier, more wealthy and wise? Where do we sign up? If we said there is such a single simple cure, we would be laughed at. We would be accused of being a scam artist or worse.
But wait.
The best of newspaper editorials are written to provoke outrage or incite mass action. The focus of this editorial should do just that, but we already know it will fail. Everyone will agree with our premise but very few, if any, will take up our call.
Summer is a time of expanded activity. In that interest we urge everyone to accept a “miracle cure” that will save millions of tax dollars, reduce chronic disease, lessen cancer cases, increase worker productivity, make happier children and longer living seniors. It will resolve many of the debates about Obamacare and it is something about which all Republicans and Democrats should agree.
This miracle cure is physical exercise. If more people added 150 minutes of walking, biking, swimming, stretching, yoga or physical chores to their weekly routines, real miracles would begin to happen. There is no single thing any of us could do to bring more good and increased quality of life to our community and planet.
Face it, we all live in an unsettling world of boring (lacking meaning) work hours, self-induced stress, deprived sleep, fat-laden diets and chronic lifestyle disorders like diabetes, obesity and heart disease. It all costs years of our life expectancy and it costs billions in public health funds.
The answer for universal healthcare could be as simple as universal exercise.
Dozens of newly collected clinical trials and health surveys prove that 150 minutes of weekly physical exercise can reduce heart attacks and strokes by almost one-third (31 percent) in a population. Evidence-based studies show that a proper diet (less fat and red meat) combined with mind-body activities like yoga can actually reverse the progression of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers.
Our best doctors have been telling us this for years and, for the most part, we have been ignoring them. Meanwhile we continue to pay with pain, unnecessary prescriptions, surgeries, strokes, built-up stress and unhappiness.
This summer in Sonoma County we could take the Sonoma County Parks Challenge (sonomacountyparks.org) or enroll our children in summer camps. Swimming pools and beaches are open again and why should only the tourists enjoy bicycling our beautiful back roads?
Feeling less ambitious? Then how about taking the stairs once in awhile, dance while you dust and vacuum or make a race out of doing your other chores?
Don’t forget about your diet. It won’t do much good for yourself or the planet if you keep eating Whoppers and Big Macs. We should all be eating the “Sonoma Diet,” the local version of the Mediterranean Diet. Eat local. Eat farmers’ market vegetables and fruits, Bodega Bay fish, free range poultry, hormone-free dairy, our own olive oils and, of course, local wine in moderation.
A weekly exercise routine could be as little as 10-15 minutes of robust activity just two to three times a week, providing you get your heart beat up a little bit. All this is anti-stress, anti-depression, anti-fat, anti-aging, anti-stroke, anti-cancer and anti-anti, if you know what we mean.
Now, as we said at the top, none of us will actually sign up for any of this new daily exercise routine. So, how about this? Convince a friend or loved one to try it and say it was your idea.
— Rollie Atkinson