Take Care of Your Body
My birthday’s coming up at the end of the week and every year around this time, I take stock of my life. How am I doing? Where am I on my path to achieving my goals? And most importantly, how am I feeling? That got my thinking about my body and what it’s been through this year.
Because of COVID, I am sitting almost all day, not getting out much, and spending too much time in front of my computer writing this show, designing websites, and playing video games to deal with my addiction to achievement. I’ve also mentioned before that I had blood pressure issues this year, went on meds, lost 40 pounds, and then went off my meds. My body has been through a lot this year.
We don’t talk enough about the physical toll our bodies endure as photographers. Long days, often with little or no breaks — bending, slouching, squatting, lying, hovering, twisting, and more. It used to be that if I did a 4-hour shoot I would be bedridden the entire next day. Now I’m able to rock a 10- to 12-hour day with little to no problems. In this episode, I’m going to tell you what I did, how it helped, and what I’m doing now that I’m spending even more time in front of a computer.
I grew up doing a number of individual sports. Downhill skiing, swimming, skating, diving. And I started gymnastics at the age of three. I got pretty good at it. Good enough to be competitive in my teens. I loved doing anything that involved flipping through the air — trampoline, power floor, vault. In skiing, it was moguls. In diving, the springboard. Thirty years later, my back is in really rough shape. I have had to call an ambulance twice because it causes spasms in my diaphragm that prevent me from breathing.
After shooting more than a hundred comedian portraits in North Carolina a few years back, I was stuck in bed almost an entire weekend and thought to myself, “This is it. I can’t do this anymore. I might have to give up photography altogether.” When I got back from Chapel Hill, I went to a walk-in clinic across the street, got an appointment for an x-ray, and had the results within a few days. I said, and I’m quoting directly here:
“There are some anterior osteophyte formations towards the lower thoracic spine… There is a wedge shape of some of the mid lower thoracic vertebral bodies, which can indicate old small compression fractures. They can be involving the T7, T8 and possibly T9 to T11 vertebral bodies. There are some sclerotic end plate changes at these levels.”
I’m a pretty smart guy but I have no training in radiology and I can’t even figure out what the doctors are pointing at on the MRI screens on TV shows. I can barely tell the difference between an ultrasound and a Rorshach test. So, I sent a photo of the report to my cousin, who is a radiologist, and who CAN tell the difference between an ultrasound and a Rorshach test, and asked him to explain it to me in plain English. He wrote back, “Ouch. It says you have the body of an 80-year-old man. Sounds painful.” When I asked him what I could do to fix it, he said, “You can’t. It’s bones. You can lose weight and get in shape, and that will help with the pain, but you can’t fix it.”
Lose weight? Get in shape? I thought back to my time doing comedy in Toronto. I was going to the chiropractor three times a week at my back’s worst. Spending hundreds of dollars a month to be pain-free and it didn’t do much to improve my life. It helped for a day or two but nothing long-term. At the time, a friend recommended Osteopathy, but it sounded hokey to me and I never considered it. After the bedridden weekend in North Carolina and finding out I had the body of an 80-year-old man, I thought, “What have aI got to lose?”
Here in Hamilton, Ontario, we have one of the best Osteopathy schools in the world. I used to drive by it regularly when being out in the world was a thing normal people did and I found out they have a student clinic. Not just any student clinic, but a free student clinic of some of the best up-and-coming osteopathic manual practitioners in the world. So, I signed up.
Two months and about five visits later, I was at my aunt’s for my birthday, lying on the couch in pain, when my back popped super loud three times — POP! POP! POP! — and I screamed out so loud my relatives come running in from the dining room. I don’t know exactly what happened, but as long as I live I will never forget that day. That’s the day my back problems mostly disappeared.
A week later I was driving through the city and just broke out crying so hard I had to pull over because I couldn’t see through my tears. They were just streaming down my face like rivers. I started crying at an intersection because I had just realized I hadn’t had any back pain for three days. Imagine the pain you have to have lived with most of your life that three days of no pain means you are sobbing so uncontrollably you have to pull your car over.
Osteopathy was a revolution in my world. I recommend it for anyone who has long-term pain. Obviously, talk to your doctor first, but also look into osteopathy. It literally saved my career. I have been going weekly ever since and they moved from working on my back to addressing other issues that have popped up as I get a little older each year. But now, because of COVID, the student clinic has been closed since March and I haven’t had an appointment in eight months. My back problems are starting to come back. Even as I write this, I’ve taken a painkiller to cope with my back pain and I just reached out to a private practitioner to deal with my back pain.
So, that’s me. What about you?
What are you doing to take care of your body?
What do you do to monitor your physical health?
How often do you get up from in front of the computer to stretch or take a walk?
It’s not safe to go to gyms right now, so how are you getting into shape or staying in shape?
Does your body affect how long you plan a shoot for?
Does it ache for a day or two after shooting a three-day advertising campaign or a 12-hour wedding?
I would encourage you to spend some time today thinking about a plan for your body for the next year. Don’t wait until the new year to set a resolution you’ll never keep, start doing something today.
Go for a 30-minute walk every day at noon. Put it in your calendar.
Keep a set of weights by your desk and do some curls every hour or so. I have a great set of adjustable PowerBlock dumbbells that I have by my feet, and a resistance band on the door handle to my office.
Do yoga every morning with a YouTuber.
Make yourself some smoothies.
Make an appointment to see an osteopath or osteopathic manual practitioner or manual therapist. Whatever they’re called in your stretch of the world.
Take care of yourself and your body. You don’t want to be a 40-year-old stuck in the body of an 80-year-old. Trust me on that.
