How, or why, we scare ourselves into having debilitating phobias, nobody seems to know. What we do know is that they are curable. Louisa Wilkins delves into the deep, dark waters of irrational fears and discovers that there’s really nothing to be afraid of
- Image Credit: Supplied picture
- The strange and sometimes complex side of phobias is that they are often linked to something completely unrelated, such as a situation, an experience, or a belief.
Illustration: Kerrie Leishman
FORGIVE me for saying so, but don't you think you'd be better off going
for a run - even a brisk walk - than reaching for another fruit-mince pie?
Chances are you don't think it. Or maybe you think it, but you don't intend to
act on it. If you can't take a day off on Boxing Day, when can you?
I hate to say it, but humans have a slothful streak. We want to live
comfortable, enjoyable lives and we assume the less physical effort this
involves the better. But one of the most unremarked and remarkable discoveries
of our times is that it doesn't work like that.
As a writer about economics, I suppose I'm required to be an advocate of
progress. A major element of humankind's progress - of our civilisation - has
been our unrelenting efforts to take the effort out of all we're required to do
to live our lives. That story begins with our discovery of first stone, then
metal tools. It progresses to our discovery that settling in one spot and
farming crops and animals was a lot safer, more comfortable and
prosperity-inducing than hunting and gathering.
Fast forward to the industrial revolution, which began in the second
half of the 18th century. It, too, was fundamentally about taking the physical
effort out of work, first with the discovery of steam power, then later,
electricity and the internal combustion engine - all of them powered by the
burning of fossil fuels.
Along the way we invented a multitude of ways to mechanise work - from
the spinning jenny to the typewriter - thereby greatly reducing the number of
workers needed to produce a given quantity of goods and services or, looking at
it another way, allowing a given number of workers to produce a much greater
quantity of goods and services.
Whichever way you look at it, our unceasing search for new and better
''labour-saving'' devices has greatly increased the productivity of our labour
- the quantity of goods and services the average worker is able to produce in
an hour - and this explains why our material standard of living is much higher
than at the time of white settlement in Australia.
Usually, this is what economists portray as the object of this grand
exercise, making ourselves richer. But it's equally true that a central element
of the exercise has involved taking the physical exertion out of work. We
haven't ended up doing a lot less work than we used to, but our work has become
much less physical and much more mental, requiring us to be a lot better
educated and trained.
More recently - and particularly with the advent of the information
revolution - we've moved from taking the physical effort out of work to also
taking it out of leisure. We drive when we could walk or ride around our
suburbs at the weekend. For home entertainment we no longer sing or recite to
each other, but turn on an electronic device. And the commercialisation of
sport means not only that we watch professionals rather than playing ourselves,
but needn't even leave the house to watch a game.
This is where we've overreached, however. This is where nature is
striking back. Combine the way machine-produced food has never been more
enticing, more plentiful or as cheap with the success of our efforts to strip
physical exertion from work and leisure, and you get an obesity epidemic.
And it's not just that. As each year passes the medicos uncover ever
more evidence of the many ways our lack of exercise is contributing to our ill
health, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer,
depression and anxiety, arthritis and osteoporosis.
To put it more positively, and to borrow a slogan from the American
College of Sports Medicine, exercise is medicine. This is what I find so
remarkable, so surprising.
Recent research by medicos in Texas found that previously sedentary
women who began moderate aerobic exercise a third of the way into their
pregnancy had significantly fewer caesarean deliveries and recovered faster
after the birth.
Research by Dr Dick Telford and colleagues at the Australian National
University has found that primary school children who are more physically
active and leaner get better academic results and, even more so, that primary
schools with fitter children achieve better literacy and numeracy.
Research quoted on the Exercise is Medicine website says active people
in their 80s have a lower risk of death than inactive people in their 60s.
Regular physical activity can reduce the risk of recurrent breast cancer
by about half, lower the risk of colon cancer by more than 60 per cent, reduce
the risk of Alzheimer's, heart disease and high blood pressure by about 40 per
cent and lower the risk of stroke by 27 per cent. It can decrease depression as
effectively as Prozac or behavioural therapy.
According to the site, a low level of fitness is a bigger risk factor
for mortality than mild-to-moderate obesity. And regular physical activity has
been shown to lead to higher university entrance scores.
But here's the bit I like best (and know from experience is true):
research shows that exercise makes you feel better, reducing stress, helping
you sleep better and feel more energetic. The unexpected truth is that it's
exertion, not the avoidance of it, that makes you happy.
