Steps to healthy living
26/04/13 03:41
Regional Health in Rapid City is our community hospital, but it is much more than just a hospital. It is a family of clinics, hospitals, nursing homes, hospice house and other facilities that serves a radius of over 250 miles. At the heart of this is Rapid City Regional Hospital – the largest medical center in the region serving roughly 360,000 people from its 10 story state-of the art hospital. The hospital is basically a tower with the top six floors comprising patient care rooms with roughly the same floor plan on each floor. The building is built on a hillside, so the north side entrance is on the first floor and the south entrance is on the second floor. The first floor houses administrative offices, the pharmacy, cafeteria, gift shop, admissions area, training classrooms and more. The second floor is home to the emergency department, surgery suites, surgical intensive care unit and additional services. There is a three story extension to the west with pediatrics, obstetrics and the neonatal unit. To the southwest is a three story rehabilitation hospital set on stilts. The main tower has a central core with four passenger elevators and four service elevators. There are two stair towers on the building. The south tower goes from the second floor all the way to the top of the building. The north tower goes from the first floor to the top.
The north stair tower is called stair tower #1. It contains 204 steps. I know. I’ve counted them several times.
One of the services offered at the hospital is a fitness center and a cardiac health exercise unit. I haven’t ever used the services of those areas. For the past several weeks, I have been getting part of my exercise on the 204 steps up to the 10th floor and 204 steps back down to the Fairmont Street entrance 3 or 4 times per week. It is a pretty good workout.
I suppose that it has been true of every generation of humans, but our generation struggles to achieve balance. Compared to our ancestors, we don’t have to work very hard to obtain our food. We are not asked to risk life and limb in order to obtain the basics of nutrition. In hunter-gatherer societies, physical fitness was required to sustain bodies. If you couldn’t run, you didn’t get to eat. These days, we earn our food by sitting in front of digital displays and reading text off of screens. The problem is that healthy minds and healthy bodies go together. Our sedentary, overweight ways don’t lead to being our best. We need physical activity to make the best of our potential.
We know this. If you just look around our small city, you can see a proliferation of athletic clubs, gyms, and fitness centers. Our computers light up with popup ads for diet plans and exercise programs: “Shocking Shortcut to Abs.” “30 Days to Six-Pack Abs.” “34 Pounds in 8 Weeks.” “Eat your way towards six pack abs with these delicious weight loss meals from the Abs Diet experts at Men’s Health.” According to data by Marketdata Enterprises, Americans spend more than $60 billion annually to try to lose pounds, on everything from paying for gym memberships and joining weight-loss programs to drinking diet soda. Imagine how far that $60 billion would go if it were directed to ending hunger. The demand on our nation’s food banks has gone up nearly 30% this year while giving is down. Nearly 50 million Americans, including 17 million children are at risk of going hungry.
The formula has shifted, but there is still a life and death relationship between exercise and hunger.
So I am glad to announce that our hospital offers a free physical fitness program: 204 steps to a healthier lifestyle. No membership fees. No equipment to purchase. No dress code. So far it hasn’t caught on. This week I haven’t met another person in the hospital stairwells. I have never had the experience of there being more than two other persons in that ten-story stairwell at the same time as I’m climbing or descending. I have a colleague who has visited patients in the hospital for more than ten years and who didn’t know where the stairway was located until I showed him. If stairs aren’t your thing, consider that there are approximately 350 miles of sidewalks in our town. You could walk a different section each day without getting bored with the scenery. And if walking doesn’t provide you enough exercise, there are approximately 350 miles of sidewalk that need to be shoveled every time it snows.
Throughout our city there are parking lots with empty spaces in the location that is the farthest from the front door. Parking in the remote slots comes with the free benefit of a nice healthy walk added into your day. It also gives you less opportunity to witness the worst of human behavior. The people who fight for the places next to the front door of the grocery store don’t always display the best side of humanity.
For me, 204 steps give me time to clear my head and re-think my priorities. My job demands a significant amount of creative thinking. I don’t always come up with the best sermon ideas sitting at my desk looking at books and reading tips from the Internet. Not all parts of my job afford moments of quiet contemplation. I have found that I look forward to that moment when I enter the hospital in a flow of people heading toward the elevators and then take a simple right turn, and open a door into an area of the hospital where I am alone. Just me and 204 steps. After going up, I have to take several deep breaths to slow my breath rate before stepping into the room of a patient. I am ready to listen and care. And the steps down are a breeze compared to the climbing. My mind wanders as I descend. Sometimes I count the number of steps. I wonder if the hospital’s CEO knows how many steps are in the building.
The north stair tower is called stair tower #1. It contains 204 steps. I know. I’ve counted them several times.
One of the services offered at the hospital is a fitness center and a cardiac health exercise unit. I haven’t ever used the services of those areas. For the past several weeks, I have been getting part of my exercise on the 204 steps up to the 10th floor and 204 steps back down to the Fairmont Street entrance 3 or 4 times per week. It is a pretty good workout.
I suppose that it has been true of every generation of humans, but our generation struggles to achieve balance. Compared to our ancestors, we don’t have to work very hard to obtain our food. We are not asked to risk life and limb in order to obtain the basics of nutrition. In hunter-gatherer societies, physical fitness was required to sustain bodies. If you couldn’t run, you didn’t get to eat. These days, we earn our food by sitting in front of digital displays and reading text off of screens. The problem is that healthy minds and healthy bodies go together. Our sedentary, overweight ways don’t lead to being our best. We need physical activity to make the best of our potential.
We know this. If you just look around our small city, you can see a proliferation of athletic clubs, gyms, and fitness centers. Our computers light up with popup ads for diet plans and exercise programs: “Shocking Shortcut to Abs.” “30 Days to Six-Pack Abs.” “34 Pounds in 8 Weeks.” “Eat your way towards six pack abs with these delicious weight loss meals from the Abs Diet experts at Men’s Health.” According to data by Marketdata Enterprises, Americans spend more than $60 billion annually to try to lose pounds, on everything from paying for gym memberships and joining weight-loss programs to drinking diet soda. Imagine how far that $60 billion would go if it were directed to ending hunger. The demand on our nation’s food banks has gone up nearly 30% this year while giving is down. Nearly 50 million Americans, including 17 million children are at risk of going hungry.
The formula has shifted, but there is still a life and death relationship between exercise and hunger.
So I am glad to announce that our hospital offers a free physical fitness program: 204 steps to a healthier lifestyle. No membership fees. No equipment to purchase. No dress code. So far it hasn’t caught on. This week I haven’t met another person in the hospital stairwells. I have never had the experience of there being more than two other persons in that ten-story stairwell at the same time as I’m climbing or descending. I have a colleague who has visited patients in the hospital for more than ten years and who didn’t know where the stairway was located until I showed him. If stairs aren’t your thing, consider that there are approximately 350 miles of sidewalks in our town. You could walk a different section each day without getting bored with the scenery. And if walking doesn’t provide you enough exercise, there are approximately 350 miles of sidewalk that need to be shoveled every time it snows.
Throughout our city there are parking lots with empty spaces in the location that is the farthest from the front door. Parking in the remote slots comes with the free benefit of a nice healthy walk added into your day. It also gives you less opportunity to witness the worst of human behavior. The people who fight for the places next to the front door of the grocery store don’t always display the best side of humanity.
For me, 204 steps give me time to clear my head and re-think my priorities. My job demands a significant amount of creative thinking. I don’t always come up with the best sermon ideas sitting at my desk looking at books and reading tips from the Internet. Not all parts of my job afford moments of quiet contemplation. I have found that I look forward to that moment when I enter the hospital in a flow of people heading toward the elevators and then take a simple right turn, and open a door into an area of the hospital where I am alone. Just me and 204 steps. After going up, I have to take several deep breaths to slow my breath rate before stepping into the room of a patient. I am ready to listen and care. And the steps down are a breeze compared to the climbing. My mind wanders as I descend. Sometimes I count the number of steps. I wonder if the hospital’s CEO knows how many steps are in the building.