The soles were being put to
varying degree of work; some were being strained to drip out all the sweat, a
few moderately pushed and another few worn just to please the wearer that yes they were ‘walking’ too.
At one side I could hear someone
talking ‘see, you please tally the balance sheet and mail it tomorrow itself’
some others talking to either family or friends straining their arm muscles,
other side gossips and many texting and jay walking and quite a lot plugging
their earphones to some music probably.
I was a spectator not belonging
to the crowd in race course who were burning calories. I prefer to call it
varying interest. I have never been successful in walking or jogging
continuously over a period. I always favor burning calories by dancing to
tunes…passion is the reason I cite.
I would attach another reason to
it. When I go out to jog or walk, I feel lazy to do it alone and immediately
carry my mobile phone along with me and have those earphones glued to my ears.
I realized later that my walking, jogging, and hopping patterns were out of
balance and often trying to sync with the music I hear.
Life has become too busy that we
don’t seem happy with 24 hours. When I was watching the lot who were on their
walks or jogs passing my view every minute, I found most of them wedged with their
mobile phones. A thought to count the heads and survey the number of mobile
phones in use struck my mind.
The counting was egregious and
satisfactory. I counted 118 to be exact and 93 of them were with their mobile
phones and most of them using it in the hierarchy of talking, texting,
listening to music, and jay walking. You would have seen such persons. May be
you have been this person entranced by your mobile phones in hand while walking
and workouts.
Now it is no rocket science or
uncommon knowledge that apart from burning those few extra pounds which bother
you, exercising also relaxes your mind body and soul.
Workouts reduce stress,
depression, and anxiety by reducing the electrical activity of the tensing
muscles. It also helps our body to release those endorphins which are natural
pain killers that our body releases to makes us feel at it ease. Although
endorphins have many other functions studies prove that excess secretion of
endorphins by the body is a result of increasing addiction to certain objects
like mobile phones and TV. Endorphins as such get highly activated due to radio
and microwaves leading to its excess release in the body indicating an
addiction to your gadget- that is why you feel excessively happy spending time
with those gadgets.
But these ‘feel-so-good’ gadgets
also lead to losing your balance often. A new Australian study revealed that
when scientstist studied 26 healthy people and each person was asked to walk
with and without mobile phones, all the participants deviated from the straight
line and were slower while on their phones including listening to music.
When walking or jogging are meant
to enhance our health, why use gadgets that counter balance the good effects.
The Union Health Minister, Ghulam
Nabi Azad declared in London that India was the second largest mobile phone
users in the world counting 900 million and still counting. It accounts to
twice the users of Africa, Europe, Arab states, and Commonwealth of Independent
states. And it is regrettable that people who have mobile phones have no access
to proper sanitation as our Total
Sanitation Coverge is only around 40%.
This raises a question in me. Are
we really health conscious? I include people who regularly exercise as well. A
stage has come where we are more concerned about cell phone restricted area
than open defecation and urination in surrounding.
I recollect one of my friends
from Dubai telling me once about his broken Motorola smart phone. He claimed to
find more time to spend for himself when there was no smart phone around him.
He took time to read, pluck the strings of his idle guitar, and even a better
workout throughout the week when he was back from his work place.
I have had similar experiences
especially during workouts. I prefer to use loud speakers with mild volume for
some relaxation music during my yoga time rather than plugging those tiny bulbs
to my ears.
When we are over the phone we
counter react to the actual purpose of exercise. We get stuck with the same
thoughts of office, friends, fights and parties. It is no way going to relax
the electrical activity of your muscles nor going to help you reduce stress and
anxiety.
We strain to find some time to
sweat out those bad chemicals from our body and experience the fruits of all
our hard work. Let us say goodbye to our mobile phone for that one hour and
instead let us “WALK THAT TALK”.
