Can I just say, that is the proudest I have felt about my physical performance and the best I have ever performed in a race in my life (OK it was not a race it was a fitness assesment), and to think I not only was not the last one to finish, I overtook younger women. 

I reached the gate, a trainer was there yelling out encouragement

The full blog about day one week one is in my http://www.artslim.org blog as two parts, Introductions and The assessment in Extreme measures, day one, week one.

Queenslander style home, Cloncurry, Queensland. Small art fridge magnet, by artist, Kathy Shell

"Best foot forward", small art fridge magnet, featuring the art of kathy Shell.

There are many benefits to volunteering but you don’t have to stay at home to do it. 

Volunteering suits the gray nomad life style. Reg and I have looked into the National Parks host volunteer program and would be involved if it wasnt for our travel companion, Indigo.


Volunteer positions

Check out the Barcaldine Grey Nomads Volunteer website at http://greynomadproject.jimdo.com/ for further information.

FNQ Volunteers Inc. are situated in Cairns and we cover the region
between Cardwell and Mossman. Please check out our website to get more information or to volunteer www.fnqvolunteers.org

The VIEW Club of Katherine is collecting pre-loved children's picture books to distribute to disadvantaged children in the region.  We're keen to help Indigenous children learn to love books! If you would like to donate a picture book (no novels please) it would be greatly appreciated and put to good use.  You can drop off books with Petrena at Katherine Art Gallery on the main street of Katherine as you drive through. 

National Parks Camp Hosting

There are a number of national parks seeking reliable and trustworthy folk to camp host and/or to perform other conservation duties. Sometimes the work includes free camping in some beautiful locations and other times it may just provide the opportunity to do something worthwhile for the environment and to meet a mixture of interesting people along the way. Each state conducts its own camp hosting program which may involve interviews and training programs. To find out more, contact:

Northern Territory: (08) 8999 4555
South Australia: (08) 8124 4840
Tasmania: (03) 6264 8463
Victoria: 131963
Western Australia: (08) 9334 0251

Australia Wide

‘Go Volunteer' is just one to check out: www.govolunteer.com.au.

 Here is an in dept report on some of the benefits of becoming a volunteer.

Health News

Seniors Who Volunteer May Live Longer

Altruistic activities could cut the death risk in half, study finds

By Serena Gordon
HealthDay Reporter

 

FRIDAY, May 8 (HealthDay News) -- Volunteering your time doesn't just help others; it turns out, it probably benefits your health, too.

Retirees over 65 who volunteered had less than half the risk of dying compared to their non-volunteering peers, according to a study presented May 2 at the American Geriatrics Society annual meeting, in Chicago.

"We found that volunteering remains a powerful predictor of decreased mortality among current U.S. retirees, even after extensive adjustment for possible confounding factors," wrote the study's authors.

Although previous research has already shown an improvement in mortality rates among people who volunteer, the authors noted that past research has focused on people born before 1920, and that those studies haven't adjusted for all of the potential variables, such as socioeconomic status or chronic health conditions. One argument that people have made is that older people who are volunteering are likely healthier than those who choose not to volunteer, and that's one of the many possible confounding factors the current study tried to address.

"Our research was building on what other people have previously done. A concern with past studies is that volunteers may be healthier to begin with. We thought we could account for this and other factors that could confound the relationship, and even after we examined those other factors, volunteers still had lower mortality," said the study's lead author, Dr. Sei Lee, an assistant professor of geriatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, and the San Francisco VA Medical Center.

However, Lee pointed out that this study's findings are preliminary and said his research is ongoing.

The study included 6,360 retired people over 65 years of age who were enrolled in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) in 2002. This study population is considered representative of older adults in the United States. The average age in the study was 78, and the study population was 60 percent female.

Whether or not the study participants volunteered was assessed by asking, "Have you spent any time in the past 12 months doing volunteer work for religious, educational, health-related or other charitable organizations?"

The researchers controlled the data to account for demographics, socioeconomic status, chronic health conditions, geriatric syndromes, functional limitations, a subject's propensity for volunteering, depression, cognition and self-rated health.

In this initial assessment, the researchers found that 12 percent of the 1,766 volunteers in the study died compared to 26 percent of the non-volunteers. After adjusting the data, the researchers said the association between volunteering and a lower risk of mortality wasn't as strong, but that it still existed.

Lee said that although they didn't study the reasons for the apparent benefit of volunteering, other researchers have, and that several factors likely play a role. One may be that volunteers have a better social network, which has been associated with lower mortality. He said that volunteering also seems to be associated with "self-efficacy" or a belief in your own abilities to accomplish certain tasks. "Staying healthy requires doing different things like quitting smoking or losing weight," explained Lee, and people who have higher self-efficacy may believe themselves more capable of accomplishing those tasks.

"This is another component of a long line of work that suggests you want to remain engaged in life, and be active in as many domains as possible. Be physically active, mentally active and socially active. These are really important for staying as healthy as possible for as long as possible," said Lee.

"People who are socially engaged will have a better quality of life and better survival," said Dr. Gary Kennedy, director of the division of geriatric psychiatry at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City. "This study is a good way of using science to reinforce what's good common sense. Volunteering is a good thing to do, and lo and behold, it's good for you, too."

More information

Learn more about the benefits of volunteering at NationalService.gov.

 

"G'Day" small gift card, featuring the art of Kathy Shell

As Waistlines Widen, Brains Shrink The obese and overweight have less neurological tissue, study finds By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay Reporter TUESDAY, Aug. 25 (HealthDay News) -- For every excess pound piled on the body, the brain gets a little bit smaller.

That's the message from new research that found that elderly individuals who were obese or overweight had significantly less brain tissue than individuals of normal weight.

"The brains of obese people looked 16 years older than their healthy counterparts while [those of] overweight people looked 8 years older," said UCLA neuroscientist Paul Thompson, senior author of a study published online in Human Brain Mapping.

Much of the lost tissue was in the frontal and temporal lobe regions of the brain, the seat of decision-making and memory, among other things.

The findings could have serious implications for aging, overweight or obese individuals, including a heightened risk of Alzheimer's, the researchers said.

"We're all trying to protect our bodies and our brains from aging and this is just one factor that's accelerating that on top of all the other factors such as pollution, smoking, alcohol. We all lose some tissue as we get older and they're saying this is being accelerated," said Paul Sanberg, distinguished professor of neurosurgery and director of the University of South Florida Center for Aging and Brain Repair in Tampa.

According to the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, 30 percent of American adults 20 years and older -- more than 60 million people -- are now obese, while another 36 percent are considered overweight. Either condition puts you at a much higher risk for type 2 diabetes, cancer and heart disease, as well as cognitive problems.

The findings seem to explain why heavier people are more prone to such cognitive conditions. "This is the first study to show physical evidence in the brain that connects overweight and obesity and cognitive decline," said Thompson, who is professor of neurology at UCLA and a member of the UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging.

The researchers studied brain images of 94 people in their 70s who had participated in an earlier study looking at cardiovascular health and cognition. None of the participants had dementia or other cognitive impairments. They were followed for five years, and any volunteers who developed cognitive symptoms were excluded from the study.

Clinically obese people had 8 percent less brain tissue, while the overweight had 4 percent less brain tissue compared to normal-weight individuals.

Dr. Jonathan Friedman, an associate professor of surgery and neuroscience and experimental therapeutics at the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine noted that the causal relationship here is not clear. Theoretically, he said, a smaller brain might mean appetite and weight-control centers of the brain are actually propelling the weight-gain process.

Thompson believes it may be a vicious cycle. "Each one is contributing to the other," he said. A person's genetics may be contributing to overeating and weight gain, which leads to less activity, which leads to a shortfall in the oxygen and nutrients that the brain needs to thrive and grow.

Overall, though, the findings really weren't surprising, added Dr. Mitchell Roslin, chief of obesity surgery at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

"Obesity affects every system in your body. The body can't be splintered. It's completely linked. We are what we eat and we eat too much," he said. "The bottom line is that an obese, sedentary person is going to have a breakdown of every organ system, and that includes a greater chance of impotence and infertility and other things that people don't generally think are directly related to obesity."

Small 'G'Day', Gift card featuring the art work 'Emu Twist', by Kathy Shell.

Health News
Outgoing Nature Could Get You to 100
Sunnier, non-neurotic types may live longer, study suggests By Kathleen Doheny
HealthDay Reporter MONDAY, April 20 (HealthDay News) -- Want to live to 100 or beyond? Be very outgoing and know how to manage your stress.

A new study found that those were the traits found in the children of people who lived to 100, and longevity is thought to run in families.

"We have observed that these appear to be really important traits that set the children of centenarians apart from other people the same age who may not age as well," said Dr. Thomas Perls, director of the New England Centenarian Study at the Boston University School of Medicine. The study, which focuses on older people and their family members, has tracked the health of children of centenarians as they age, trying to uncover the common denominators of longevity.

The latest findings are published online in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Because research had already found that longevity runs strongly in families, Perls and his colleagues decided to look at 246 offspring of those who lived to 100 to see if their children, now about age 75, had common personality traits. They evaluated levels of five personality traits -- neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness -- and compared them with published norms for each trait.

They found that the offspring of centenarians were more extraverted than the published norms. That means "they are quite social, establish important friendships and view these friendships as 'safety nets,' " important sources of help when needed, Perls said.

The offspring of centenarians scored lower than the norms on neuroticism, the study found. Perls said that translates into an ability to manage stress very well.

Women in the study also scored high in agreeableness, a trait that might pave the way for friendships, Perls said. The men in the study were no higher in agreeableness than normal, and men and women scored average levels for openness and conscientiousness.

As for the exact relationship between personality and longevity, "we are relying on scientific literature to understand exactly what it means," Perls said. For instance, he said, it makes sense that scoring lower in neuroticism -- and handling stress well -- would contribute to a longer life, because stress has been shown in scientific studies to be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Other research has found social ties to be important to an older person's health.

"We really found that the offspring of centenarians, in their 70s and early 80s, are very much following in the footsteps of their parents," Perls said. "They have 60 percent reduced rates of heart disease, stroke and diabetes."

The latest study findings do not surprise Colin Milner, chief executive of the International Council on Active Aging, based in Vancouver, Canada. "It's probably been said before in different ways," he said of the study's findings on the longevity benefits of managing stress and forming friendships.

"We are talking about the positive aspects of life," Milner said. He said that his grandmother, who is 98, has the traits Perls found that are associated with longevity. When she became a widow, Milner said, she stayed positive and remained open to new experiences -- which for her included becoming a hockey fan -- and making new friends.

When he gives lectures to people at retirement communities on active aging, "you walk in and see who is engaged in life," he said. "If you are engaged, you are less negative, more open, and more agreeable. That's why you are engaged."

And, he said, "people will engage with you" if you have those traits.

But what to do if you aren't naturally outgoing and aren't good at handling stress?

Remember, Perls said, that you can get better at each. People can make a point of trying to be more outgoing, he said. They might plan to travel more, for instance, and would naturally meet people along the way.

"If you don't have a personality that naturally manages stress, figure out a way to reduce stress that works," he said. "Exercise, enjoy time with the family."

Seriously, I am not the only traveller who works out with weights, outside the caravan.  its fun, and the fresh air on a mountain top is invigorating and sure beats a smelly sweaty gym.