If you teach a child to hike

When you're ill, it can be difficult to figure out what kind of exercise will work for you--or just be tolerable for your body. A lot of people with the same illness as me feel that exercise is impossible. This is usually for one of two reasons:

1. Trying to do too much too soon. Even if you were a serious athlete in your "previous life," it's not a good idea to try to dive right back into whatever you were doing before. So you ran a marathon two years before diagnosis? Awesome. Now is not the time to try it again, especially if you haven't been training or conditioning your body and muscles. Many who try to dive head-first (sometimes literally) back into an activity they were previously able to handle find themselves feeling much, much worse afterwards. For POTS patients, this is the sort of thing that can trigger a flare that can last several days. Which can, understandably, make a person feel not-so-eager to try anything physical again for a while!
2. Not pushing yourself and letting yourself be uncomfortable. This doesn't mean pushing yourself when you are on the brink of fainting or seizing. However, the road to recovery, for me, involves putting myself in uncomfortable situations and feeling bad for a little while, but feeling better afterward. I know that my exercise routing over the past 2.5 years has strengthened my heart and improved my muscle tone. Having said that, I totally understand why people are reluctant to try to push their bodies. We already feel crappy enough, why do something we KNOW is going to prolong it or make it worse?

It's been difficult to figure out the "Goldilocks zone" of exercise. But now that I treat exercise like part of my job and make myself do it at least 4 days a week, I can feel a difference. When I don't exercise for 3-4 days, my body definitely feels it, and I can actually feel myself backsliding. If you have POTS, insufficient muscle conditioning can be an underlying factor. Also, for some reason, we tend to lose the muscle strength and tone we've gained fairly quickly. This makes exercise crucial.

When I was first diagnosed, I couldn't do the elliptical machine without passing out. Seriously. I bought myself a recumbent exercycle on Craigslist and worked up to using it 30-40 minutes a day at a moderate pace. I also began to take walks at a slow pace (with a buddy!) around my neighborhood on days when it wasn't too blasted hot. (I live in South Carolina, so during certain times of the year those days are rare.) After that, I began trying to do exercise DVDs and returned to the elliptical for short periods of time. After I started feeling stronger, I incorporated light free weights into my routine to work on muscle tone. Currently, I can jog 3.5 miles without stopping. But it's taken nearly 3 years to get here, and a lot of hard work. 

I believe that one of the key factors in making exercise work for you is finding some kind of exercise that you don't completely hate. For me, one of those things is hiking. There are so many benefits of hiking if you go about it safely (ahem! disclaimer!), including strengthening the heart, reducing stress by being in natural surroundings, and reaping some of the benefits of natural sunlight, such as vitamin D production, easing of skin conditions, strengthening the immune system, increasing oxygen in the blood, and lowering blood pressure. It also allows me to explore places I wouldn't have gone otherwise.

The air was just as fresh as you'd imagine.

 I am lucky to live in a state that has some great state parks and even some small mountains with well-marked trails. I decided to take advantage of this and have worked my way up from strolling a short paved trail to reaching the summit of the highest peak in the state--which I did this past weekend, with a good friend of mine.

My friend is 8 years old and had never been hiking before. She is an energetic and athletic kid, so I invited her to tackle the trail with me, warning that it wouldn't be easy. She was up for the adventure, and we spent most of the day on the trail. It was tough, and both of us got a little whiney and sore, but when we saw the view from the top, we both agreed that it was definitely worth the discomfort.

I am so grateful and proud of myself for working up to this point. I could never have done this two years ago. Even though I'm still considered "sick," I made it to the top of this mountain and taught a child about nature, animals, outdoor skills, and health along the way.

Even if you're having a difficult time now--whether it's due to a physical or mental illness, or an injury--I urge you to discover something active that helps you. I can't wait to go hiking again. In the meantime, I need to rest, because my hiking buddy wants to know when we can go again!