Transcription
Hello, my dears. Hello, my patient ones. Today we will touch upon a topic that seems infinitely far from the high matters of neurophysiology, from the mysteries of consciousness and the labyrinths of the soul. We will talk about legs, about our earthly, hard-worked, often sick legs. It would seem, where is the brain - the pinnacle of evolution. This cosmos within the skull. And where are the heels, knees, veins? What is the connection? Why did I, a person who dedicated my life to studying neurons and synapses, suddenly decide to descend, in the literal sense, to the level of the Earth? The connection here, my good ones, is the most direct and the most tragic, if it is not understood. I often see people age. I see this not only in the mirror, but also in clinics, in the corridors of our institute. And you know, where does true biological old age begin? Not with the first wrinkle, and not even with the first forgotten word. It begins with a shuffling gait. It begins at the moment when a person stops springing from the ground, when they stop flying, and begin to drag the earthly weight. "Legs don't carry," you say. You sigh heavily, you go to an orthopedist, to a surgeon, to a phlebologist. You are prescribed insoles, ointments, pills for veins. You treat spare parts. But the problem is not in the spare parts, the problem is in the control center. Let me try to explain to you, as a scientist, what your legs are from the brain's perspective. Do you think they are just bones covered with muscles to carry the body from point A to point B? No. Legs are a giant sensory organ. It is a peripheral brain, taken outside. On the sole of the foot, there are over 70,000 nerve endings. 70,000. Think about this number. Why would nature afford such luxury to the parts with which we tread in the mud? Because every step you take is a colossal stream of information flying to the brain at the speed of light. When you step on the ground, the brain receives a report: what is the surface: hard, soft, slippery, cold, what is the angle of inclination, how to distribute weight, which muscles to tense to avoid falling. This happens in milliseconds. The cerebellum, the motor cortex, the vestibular apparatus. All of them work at a furious pace, processing this stream. And what happens in old age? We put on thick, comfortable shoes. We stop walking on uneven ground, preferring asphalt. We sit, the information stream is distorted, the brain stops hearing the legs. And in neurophysiology, there is a cruel law: what does not work, atrophies. Or, in scientific terms, loses synaptic connections. The brain begins to ignore signals from the legs because they have become boring, monotonous, or have disappeared altogether. The error detector, the very mechanism I never tire of talking about, reconfigures the body's schema. It erases legs from active use. The owner sits, he doesn't need legs. Energy is saved. And tissue nutrition is disrupted. Not because the vessels are bad, but because the nervous regulation of the vessels is turned off due to disuse. Tissue trophism worsens, joints dry out, muscles wither. You rub your knee with an ointment, but the brain doesn't send a command for regeneration there. It has forgotten about this knee. And then you stand up and feel pain, or weakness, or instability. You are afraid of falling. The fear of falling is a separate terrible topic. This fear paralyzes. It makes you shuffle, look at your feet, hunch over. And when you look at your feet and hunch over, you constrict the blood vessels in your neck. Blood supply to the brain itself deteriorates. The circle is closed, sick legs kill the brain, and a weak brain cannot control the legs. And we get the classic picture of decay. But can this be stopped? Yes, it can and must be. But it must not start with pills. It must start with restoring the connection, with restoring the dialogue between the head and the heels. We need to reintroduce the brain to the legs. How to do this? Through pain? No, through awareness. Have you noticed how children walk? They run, they jump, they stomp. They like to feel the impact on the ground. And how do we walk? We creep. We are afraid to disturb our joints. We create a sparing regime for ourselves. And this is a trap. A sparing regime is a regime of fading. Bones, our bones, are piezoelectric elements. I won't go into complex physics, I'll just say: calcium is absorbed in bones only when there is an impact load on them. Vibration. When you walk briskly, springily, stepping firmly, electricity is generated in the bones, which attracts calcium. Bones become strong. When you protect your legs, shuffle, lie down, calcium is washed out. "Hello, osteoporosis, hello, hip fracture on a level surface." Nature abhors a vacuum and laziness. It is cruel, but fair. Use it or lose it. And here's another important thing. Venous return. We all fear blood clots. We fear varicose veins. We look at our blue veins with horror. But let's recall anatomy. The heart is a pump that pushes blood down through the arteries. This is easy. Gravity helps. But who pushes blood up from the heels to the heart? Against gravity, the heart doesn't have such suction power. Muscles push blood up. The muscular pump of the lower leg. The calf muscle, the soleus muscle - this is your second heart, in the literal sense. When you walk, the calf contracts and pushes blood upwards. Valves in the veins prevent it from flowing back. When you sit, the pump is off, blood stagnates, the liquid part of the blood seeps into the tissues. Here are your evening swellings. Blood cells stick together. Here are your blood clots. You take blood-thinning medications. This is good. It is necessary if prescribed by a doctor. But no pill will make blood flow upwards. If the pump is off, you must start this pump at any cost. Even if you are bedridden, even if you are watching a TV series, "Calf contraction is life," calf rest is a swamp. I often think about how wisely humans are designed and how foolishly we manage this design. We buy cars to avoid walking. We build elevators, we invent food delivery. We do everything to immobilize ourselves. We call this comfort. And biology calls this a signal for disposal. An organism that does not move, from an evolutionary perspective, is a dead organism, and nature initiates decay processes. Arthritis, arthrosis, gout - these are not just diseases of accumulation, they are diseases of stagnation. Joints do not have their own blood vessels. Did you know that? The cartilage that covers the joint has no arteries. It is nourished diffusely, absorbing fluid from the joint capsule, like a sponge. But for a sponge to absorb water, it needs to be squeezed and released. Cartilage is nourished only during movement. You press on your leg, waste products are released from the cartilage. You lift your leg, the cartilage expands and absorbs fresh lubricant with nutrients. No movement, no nutrition, cartilage starves, cartilage dries out, cartilage cracks, and you feel pain. And what do you do? You stop moving so as not to rub. And thereby you completely starve your joint. Paradox? No. Tragedy - misunderstanding. Movement through pain, reasonable pain, of course, is the only way to feed the joint. But we fear pain, we run from it. The error detector screams: "Don't walk, it hurts there." And you obey. You become a slave to your error detector, which wants rest. And rest, I will repeat this a thousand times, is death for a living system. We only dream of rest, as the poet wrote, and he was right. As long as we are alive, everything in us should vibrate, flow, contract. I want you now, as you listen to me, to look at your legs, not with disgust, oh, how old, swollen, but with gratitude and compassion. They have carried you for so many years. They carried your children in their arms, they stood in queues. They ran on dates. They deserve not rest on the couch, they deserve life. And life for them is work. Help them work. Return their function to them. Not with ointments alone, but with attention. Direct your inner gaze to your feet. Wiggle your toes right now. Feel them. Is there life there, or is it cold and numb? If it's cold, it's a reproach to you. It means you have abandoned your legs to fate. But the brain is plastic. It's never too late to restore the connection. It's never too late to lay a new cable from the control center to the periphery. Even at 80, even in your nineties. Nervous tissue is capable of regenerating connections. If there is a request, create this request. Tell your brain: "I need my legs, I want to walk." And it will respond. It will definitely respond. I understand that I am saying things that may seem harsh. Perhaps you were expecting a recipe for a burdock compress. Burdock is wonderful, apply it. But without understanding what I have said, burdock will be like a dead man's plaster. I am very interested in knowing your reaction. Do you agree with me? Or do you think that old age is an inevitable sentence to immobility? Please write in the comments. Write your story of the struggle for movement, share your experience, and give a like if this conversation makes you think. This will help other people see this video and, perhaps, get off the couch. In the second part, I will tell you about specific techniques. Not just exercises, but precisely techniques of the brain working with the legs. About how to trick pain, about how to walk in a way that makes you younger, and about why your shoes can be your main enemy. But first, I want you to realize the philosophy. Legs are roots. If the roots rot, the tree falls. Even if the crown, your intellect, is still green. Strengthen your roots every day, every minute. Stand up and walk around the room right now. But not like an old man, but like the master of your life, springing. Feel this impulse from heel to crown. This is life. We have established that legs are roots, and the brain is the crown. And the connection between them is broken. Now let's talk about how to fix this connection. How to become a neurohacker for your own body? You will say: "I walk as I can." And I will say: "You walk as you are used to." And this habit is often destructive. Most elderly people walk not with their legs, but with their torso. Have you noticed, a person leans forward as if falling, and the legs simply step in to avoid falling. This is passive walking. In this mode, the gluteal muscles and thighs are practically switched off. All the load falls on the knee joint and lower back. This is precisely why knees hurt. They take the impact of weight that the muscles should have absorbed. To heal your legs, you need to activate the gluteal muscle. This is the largest, most powerful muscle in our body. It is given as the main engine. In youth, it works, in old age, it falls asleep. There is even a term called gluteal amnesia. When you sit for hours, the gluteus atrophies, and when the gluteus doesn't work, the piriformis muscle, the lower back, the knees start working for it. Everything goes to hell. The brain has forgotten how to turn on the big engine. Technique number one. Royal step. I want you to try this right now, if you can stand up, or remember it for tomorrow. When you take a step, focus not on where to place your foot, but on what you are pushing off with. Push off with your back leg. Engage your gluteus at the moment of pushing off. Feel it tense. This changes the biomechanics. The body straightens automatically, the gait becomes flying. It will be difficult at first, the brain will resist. Why strain? Let's shuffle as usual. But you must insist. Every step is a conscious activation of the engine. After a month of walking like this, even around the apartment, back and knee pain will be halved, because you have returned the load to where it should be, to the powerful pelvic muscles. Now about pain. Pain, as I have already said, is often phantom or exaggerated by the brain. There is the phenomenon of central sensitization. This is when the nervous system is in a state of constant anxiety and amplifies any signal. A light touch feels like a blow. Minor discomfort feels like hellish torment. How to get rid of this? Technique number two. Sensory retraining. You will need different textures. A rough towel, smooth silk, a prickly applicator, cool metal, a spoon, a warm heating pad. In the evening, sitting in a chair, you take these items and alternately touch your sore knees or feet with them. Close your eyes, touch with silk and tell yourself and your brain: "This is soft, this is pleasant, this is safe." You touch with the prickly one, it's sharp, but it's not dangerous. It's just a signal. You teach the brain to distinguish sensations. You show it that not every signal from the leg is pain, anxiety, spasm. You calibrate your sensors. This is amazing. It works for chronic pain, for arthrosis. The brain stops panicking. It begins to see the real picture, not one inflated by fear. Technique number three. Imaginary movement. This is for those who have difficulty walking or are bedridden after surgery. At the Brain Institute, we conducted experiments. A person lies in an MRI scanner. We ask them to imagine running or clenching their toes. Do you know what happens on the screen? The same areas of the motor cortex light up as if they were running. In reality, the brain doesn't see a big difference between a real action and a vividly imagined one. If you can't walk, walk mentally. Close your eyes and imagine yourself walking along a forest path. Feel, really feel, not just think. Muscle contractions, heel strike, the breeze on your skin. At this moment, micro-impulses begin to go to your real, immobile muscles. Blood flow increases, trophism improves, you don't let neural connections die. This is called ideomotor training. Olympic champions use it when they are injured. Why shouldn't you? Now about shoes. This is a sore subject. I see how you buy shoes. Just as long as they are soft, just as long as they are wide, like slippers, and you buy shapeless soft clogs. This is a mistake. The foot in such shoes spreads out. It doesn't work. The arch of the foot drops, flat feet progress. Shoes should be a frame. They should have a stiff heel counter that holds the heel. They should have a flexible sole, bending at the toes, not in the middle, but not like cotton, and laces or Velcro. Shoes should fit snugly over the instep so that the foot doesn't flop around inside like a pestle in a mortar. When the foot flops, the brain expends a lot of energy on stabilization. You get tired twice as fast. Buy good orthopedic shoes. Yes, they are expensive, but consider how much you spend on ointments and pills. Shoes are the foundation. If the foundation is crooked, the house, your spine, will go askew. And one more important point about proprioception. The sense of the body in space. With age, it fades. You stop understanding exactly where your leg is. That's why you stumble over thresholds, hit your little toes on corners. Technique number four. Chinese walk or walking backward at home, in a corridor, where there are no obstacles. Try walking 10 steps backward. This is a brain explosion. The error detector is in panic - a non-standard situation. Dormant neurons are activated, the cerebellum is activated. You are forced to control every movement. This is powerful prevention of Alzheimer's disease and excellent coordination training. If you're scared, hold onto the wall with your hand, but do it. 3 minutes of backward walking replaces 15 minutes of normal walking in terms of load on the brain and stabilizing muscles. And finally, contrast temperatures, which I briefly mentioned. Let's break it down in more detail. Leg vessels lose elasticity with age. The vessel wall becomes stiff, like old rubber. To revive it, gymnastics are needed. Gymnastics for vessels are cold and heat. But not extremes. Ice water can cause a spasm that you cannot relieve. Boiling water, varicose veins. You need warm and cool. The temperature difference should be comfortable, but noticeable. Lower your legs into warm water. Hold for 2 minutes. The vessels expand, blood rushes in, move to cool water for 15-30 seconds. The vessels contract, push blood out, repeat five to six times. Finish with cool water and, importantly, rub with a terry towel until red. This initiates capillary blood flow. The skin begins to breathe, the cold feet syndrome disappears. Do this every evening before bed. It is the best sleep ritual. Blood flows away from the head to the legs, the brain calms down. Falling asleep becomes easier. We are talking about simple things, but simplicity is deceptive. Doing it once is easy. Doing it every day is a feat. Old age is not wrinkles. Old age is a loss of discipline. When you say: "Oh, well, I won't do it today, tomorrow." You take a step towards decrepitude. The brain is very cunning. It will always find an excuse for laziness. Don't listen to its excuses. Be a strict but loving parent to yourself. Force yourself to get up and walk with a royal step. Force yourself to do a contrast bath. In a week, it will become a habit. The brain will rewrite the matrix. It will understand: "Ah, this is how we live now. Now we take care of our legs." And it will start helping you. You will feel a surge of energy. You will feel that your legs have become light. I am very interested, have you ever tried walking backward or doing ideomotor training? For many, this sounds like fantasy, but science has long proven the effectiveness of these methods. Write in the comments, are you ready for such experiments, or are you a little scared? Share your doubts and be sure to subscribe to the channel. In the third part, I will give you a set of lazy exercises that can be done without getting out of bed, but which will save your veins. We are approaching the most practical, the laziest part. I know you like exercises that don't require sweat and a gym. And such exercises exist. Physiology allows us to be cunning. We will use gravity and micro-movements to heal ourselves. Stay with me, don't switch. The best is yet to come. Well, my dears, we have reached the most pleasant part, the lazy part. I am a realist. I perfectly understand that when you are 70-80 years old, when it's raining outside, and your joints ache, forcing yourself to march around the apartment or circle the house is a feat. And we are not capable of feats every day. So what to do? Give up, lie down and wait for your legs to finally fail? Absolutely not. If you cannot walk towards health with giant steps, crawl towards it, lie in its direction. The main thing is not statics. Statics is death. Micro-movements are life. I want to give you a set of exercises that I call gymnastics for smart lazy people. It can and should be done while sitting in a chair in front of the TV, lying in bed in the morning, reading a book. These movements are imperceptible to the eye, but they are life-saving for veins and joints. Exercise one. Invisible pump. Working with the calf muscle. We have already talked about how the calf is the second heart. You are sitting, your feet are on the floor. Start lifting your heels off the floor, keeping your toes pressed down, high, high, until you feel tension in your calf, and then sharply lower them. Heel strike, soft, if it hurts, or stronger, if you can. Lift, drop, lift, drop. Do this rhythmically. One-two, one-two. What happens? You pump blood. You don't let it stagnate in your veins. This exercise was invented by the great surgeon Mikulin to save from thrombophlebitis. It can be done on a bus, in line, at a table. No one will see, but your veins will work. Exercise two. Caterpillar. Flatfoot prevention. Sitting or lying down, try to squeeze your toes as if you want to grab a pencil or the edge of a sheet with them. Squeeze, pull your foot up, relax. Move your foot forward by bending your toes, like a caterpillar. This exercise strengthens the arch of the foot. It saves you from that very senile flattening of the foot, when shoe size increases and bunions grow. Hallux valgus bunions don't grow from salt, they grow from weak foot muscles. Transverse flatfoot. Train your toes. They should be tenacious. If your toes are alive, your foot is alive. Exercise three. Reverse bicycle for knee joints. Lying in bed, everyone knows the bicycle exercise. But pedaling in the air is difficult. Your abs don't hold, your back hurts. Do a sliding bicycle. Don't lift your legs, slide your heels on the sheet. Pull your heel towards your buttocks. Your leg bends at the knee. Straighten your leg. Alternately, right, left. No load on the heart, no load on the back. But the knee joint works, it bends and straightens. Fluid circulates, cartilage is nourished. Do 50 times in the morning while you wake up. Do 50 times in the evening. Your knees will stop creaking within a month. This is proven. Exercise four. Rotation of worlds. Ankle. The most vulnerable place for the elderly is the ankle. Twist your ankle. Fracture. You need to strengthen the ligaments. Lying or sitting, extend your legs and start rotating your feet slowly, with maximum amplitude. Draw a huge circle with your toes clockwise, counterclockwise. Pull your toes towards you as far as possible. Away from you as far as possible. You will feel it crunch, you will feel it pull. This is good. You are breaking down salts, you are stretching shortened ligaments. An elastic ligament does not tear, a stiff one tears. Make your ligaments soft. Exercise five. Shaking. Vibration for capillaries. This exercise is by the Japanese healer Katsudzo Nish. Lying on your back, raise your arms and legs up, like a beetle flipped on its back, and start shaking them very finely, vibrating for a minute or two. It looks funny, but the effect is colossal. You open capillaries. Vibration causes blood to flow away from the limbs, unloads the heart, relieves swelling. This is the best remedy for leg fatigue. If it's hard to hold your legs vertically, place them on a wall higher up and just shake your relaxed muscles. And finally, the most important thing, the position of the legs during rest. All day, gravity presses on you. Blood accumulates at the bottom. When you lie down to rest or sleep, help gravity work for you. Your legs should be above heart level. Place a pillow under your legs or a rolled-up blanket. The angle should be small, 15-20°. Blood will flow by gravity to the heart, swelling will subside. This is elementary physics. But we often forget about it and sleep on a flat surface or, even worse, in a high chair, with our legs down. Sleeping sitting up is killing your legs. Never do this, unless prescribed by a doctor for heart or lung conditions. My dears, I have told you about simple things, but in medicine, as in life, the hardest thing is not to learn the secret, but to start applying it. Discipline. That's the pill for old age. The error detector will whisper to you: "Oh, come on, skip it today. It's nothing." Don't believe it. Terrible things happen unnoticed. You skip a day, you skip two, and then the joint is rusted. Movement is lubrication. Lubricate your mechanisms every day. And one more thing: psychosomatics of the legs. Legs hurt those who fear the future, who don't want to move forward, who believe their path is over. "Where should I go?" "To the cemetery," old people joke grimly. And the brain accepts this program. Change your mindset, tell yourself: "I have somewhere to go. I am going into tomorrow. I am going towards spring. I am going towards my great-grandchildren. Find a goal. Let it be a small goal. Grow a flower on the windowsill, finish knitting a scarf, read a book. But go towards it. As long as you have a goal, your legs will carry you. As soon as the goal disappears, the legs refuse. This is a law of neurophysiology. I believe in you. I believe in the infinite reserves of the human brain. You are stronger than you think. Your body is wiser than you are used to considering. Listen to it, help it, and it will answer you with gratitude. Don't be old wrecks. Be antique treasures. Antiques require care, but they are expensive and inspire admiration. Take care of yourself with love, with intelligence, and with faith. Thank you for being with me. I hope that this long conversation did not tire you, but rather gave you the impetus to get up and do a couple of exercises. Write in the comments which exercise you liked the most: caterpillar, shaking, what will you try today. And, of course, subscribe to the channel. We still have many topics ahead: memory, sleep, brain nutrition. Click the bell so you don't miss anything. Share this video with those who are currently in pain when walking. Perhaps it will give them hope. Live long, walk lightly, and may every step you take bring joy. This was Natalia Bekhtereva. Until next time. y