Michael Mosley (above) is an author and a doctor and somebody I usually take the time to read. The reason being he had a profound effect on my approach to dealing with my diabetes. He wrote a book that eschewed (nice word) the traditional thinking on diabetes. The one based on reducing one’s carbohydrate intake. I wrote about my unease with this strategy many years ago.
Michael suggested the most effective way of reducing sugar levels was simply to reduce one’s calorie intake. I liked this because I was unhappy with the medical recommendation that prescribed insulin and the negative effect this had on my health and my well-being (I felt insulin damaged my self-esteem) it ‘caused’ me to put on weight and, as a bonus ball, it did not reduce my sugar levels quite the opposite.
So I went on a diet, of wherever possible of less than 1,000 calories a day. I lost at my peak about 3 and a half stone, a bit too much for my liking. Since lockdown I’ve put on about half a stone and my blood sugar levels have gone up a percentage point. I maintained my weight at this level by the two-five diet – two days of ‘fasting’ and five normal eating. I can’t say whether the medical profession would regard any of these figures as worrying because I haven’t seen a medical professional for over a year on account of same lockdown.
Anyway I liked Michael Mosley’s down to earth approach and so when I saw on my phone on Monday an ‘article’ entitled Just One Thing, I read it. It’s a podcast, same name, which tells the listener one thing they can do differently each week to improve the quality of their life (with an emphasis on those of us getting on a bit). He’s obviously got bored with the diabetes focus as well he might, given the number of times his approach was flaunted in the newspapers.
So this week his podcast was extolling the virtues of the one thing to do differently and this one thing was to learn a new skill. Now I think I can take a little credit here. I didn’t invent the concept of life-long learning, far from it, but I have consistently promoted this strategy in this retirement blog.
This retirement blog has a category just about learning new skills. So if you want to read in more detail the kind of courses / learning experiences I’ve been engaged in then take a look in this category.
My current version of learning new skills has tended to focus on music and more recently, history. The latter in the form of on-line learning courses from a company called The Great Courses. I signed up for three different courses – Tudor history, the history of economics and Celtic history. I’m slowly wading through them. And there’s plenty to go at.
Musically, I’ve been trying to develop my jazz improvisation skills both on guitar and piano. I’ve even tried to improve my sight-reading skills, an area I’ve never found easy. I’ll admit that I haven’t been as committed to this aspect of self-improvement and acquiring new skills as I had hoped as the first lockdown came upon us, but I’ve dabbled. Mrs Summerhouse continues with her new paintings and her doodles although I suspect they won’t be thought of as sufficiently challenging to meet Michael’s programme.
Back to Michael. He reckons that learning something new or ‘picking up a new skill’ can lead to a ‘sharper, clearer and happier mind’. Or to put it in a different, but equally attractive, way, it’s a ‘simple way to boost your health and well-being’. There’s no limit to his enthusiasm. We have, he says, in this era, been given ‘extra years’ (we are living longer) so why not make sure you reap the benefits of that bonus time.
Reaping the benefits means that by learning something new we reduce our stress levels which in turn aids our concentration levels (or it may be the other way round) and this produces greater levels of dopamine in our brains which is a natural anti-depressant. And I haven’t even mentioned the benefit to processing and memory skills. Phew.
I think you’ll agree that’s a lot of significant positives to be on offer simply from committing to learn a new skill – a foreign language is one of Michael’s favourite, ‘new skill’ activities but he’s not fussy, more or less anything that challenges the old grey cells will add value.
So not that I needed confirmation but if I did then Michael has provided it for me with his podcast about learning a new skill. Nice to be proved right for once.