In 1978 the Little River Band released the single Reminiscing and Glenn Shorrock warbled… ‘we’ll go dancing in the dark, walking in the park and reminiscing”. Whilst it didn’t top the charts in Australia, the song was a hit in many other countries, including – importantly for any band – the United States.

And here’s a fun fact…according to Wikipedia (the last word on anything) it was one of John Lennon’s favourite songs. High praise indeed!

Truth be told, the song has never been one of my favourites. As easy-listening pop goes, it’s a fine example of the genre, just not quite my cup of tea. However, it came to mind when I started writing this blog because I’ve been focused on reminiscence and reminiscing a bit lately.

Get moving. Keep moving!

If you’ve been reading any of my recent blogs (e.g. Welcome to the Decade and Audrey. 93. Gym junkie) you’ll know I’m about to publish a book on healthy ageing. Given health ageing is such a big concept, I decided to write about an aspect of it that seems particularly important: the challenge of successfully re-engaging with physical activity and exercise during mid-life.

As I’ve previously argued, healthy ageing doesn’t start in your 60s, 70s and 80s. Rather, it’s something you lay the foundations for in your 30s, 40s and 50s and then aim to continue, such that you can - according to the WHO - ‘maintain the functional ability that enables well-being in older age’. As regularly physical activity is critical to that, it seemed like a worthwhile focus for the book.

The movement away from movement

To my mind, the best place to approach this challenge is by reflecting on the past…and reminiscing. Thinking back to times when the love of physical activity was likely to be at its strongest, and most positive.

After all, human beings are great movers. We spend our infancy, childhood and adolescence delighting in our capacity to play, which we do in many different ways and draws on our physical abilities (like speed, strength, dexterity, and flexibility). Most of the time this play is self-rewarding: we do it simply because we love it. No other reason is needed. Importantly, play loves us back and helps us become faster, stronger, more skilful and agile. So, our relationship to physical activity has a nice synergy to it.

Unfortunately, our inclination towards physical activity tends to diminish with age. Adulthood brings a tricky mix of competing priorities (academic, career, parenting, etc) that lead us to see physical pursuits as nice-to-do rather than must-do; dispensable rather than indispensable. For some, physical inactivity is more about overexposure to sport as a child, or specific negative experiences with physical activity (e.g. competitive pressure, lack of choice).

So, what can be done when we lose our connection to physical activity? How can we get it back? That’s something I’ve been thinking a bit about.

Sports-Themed Reminiscence Therapy

In a recent article published in the Therapeutic Recreation Journal, a research team reported on an intervention conducted in a residential aged care setting. Sixteen older adults took part, all of who were living with dementia. The researchers wanted to know if a specific type of memory – sporting memories – could positively impact the residents’ quality of life, social functioning and daily positive behaviours.

Using a 3-week reminiscence therapy intervention, the residents met twice a week (for 60-minutes) to recall and share experiences of supporting the local college football team. To help memory building, each meeting was organised around a set topic, like attending games, stadiums, and team traditions.

Whilst the mental performance of residents was largely unaffected, sharing stories about their football team helped to animate them and speak with more fluency. The participants also enjoyed finding out new things about their cherished team, which was exciting and produced more engaged social behaviours (e.g. choosing to start meetings with team’s war cry). They also reported an increase in their overall quality of life.

The use of sporting memories in this study was justified on the basis that sporting experiences tend to encode well into long-term memory. The multi-sensory nature of sport (i.e. sight, touch, sound, etc) make such memories easier to retrieve and, because dementia affects short-term memory more than long-term memory, they represent a simple, positive and potentially effective way to help people living with the disease.

On losing it…and getting it back

But what about people not suffering from cognitive decline? People just finding it difficult to establish a regular pattern of physical activity and exercise? Can reminiscing about youthful physical pursuits help with that?

Yes, I think it can. Why? Well, as already explained, the pursuits of our youth will most likely be some of our most positive experiences in life and, as the dementia study showed, can be vividly retrieved from memory.

But there is another reason. The sports and physical activities of our younger years help to shape our physical self-concept and may be central to our sense of who we are.

This is another reason why physical inactivity in adulthood can be problematic. Aside from the much-publicised physical heath ramifications (like weight gain), there can be some psychological fall-out. That is, if we lose a connection to things we previously enjoyed, found satisfying and gave us our sense of identity, we can become lost ourselves. Separated from the things that once made us feel whole or complete.

From health promotion to health activation

In another recent blog (Is exercise really medicine?) I proposed that people often struggle to maintain health and fitness regimes because health promotion guidelines are inherently prescriptive. For example, physical activity guidelines tend to specify amounts (150 mins/week), intensities (low-moderate-high) and options (e.g. walking, running, swimming). In essence, they tell people what they should be doing. But, this is a bit of a problem because most people don’t like being told what to do. What the guidelines don’t really do is help people to work out what they might most enjoy doing, such that they’ll be well motivated to engage in regularly physical activity and exercise, and stick with it over time.

But how could they? Health guidelines exist mainly to raise public awareness. Helping people to develop a personalised plan for increasing physical activity – based on their interests and preferences – is an entirely different kettle of fish. This is where reminiscence fits in.

Looking backwards to move forwards

At the core of Get moving. Keep moving! is a 4-step model of health activation partly inspired by reminiscence therapy. It assumes a sustained return to physical activity is more likely to occur if we do things that are genuinely interesting or exciting. As such, the first step (Reflect) challenges readers to look back in time, recall what was good, and use those recollections to explore options about future action.

Seems straightforward? Well, it is and it isn’t. As with the research participants mentioned earlier, some memory building will be needed. After all, if it’s 20 or 30 years since your childhood and adolescence, not everything will be so easy to recall. As such, the book includes a process for helping to make readers’ memories more vivid and the personal significance of those experiences more obvious. Although I didn’t write about it, if you think that ‘walking in the park and reminiscing’ (a la LRB) might help with that, then do that too!

info@drgordonspence.com
(+61) 421 641649

My new book
Get Moving, Keep Moving is out now
It’s a gift for anyone interested in ageing well”
Professor Lindsay G. Oades
Director, Centre for Wellbeing Science, University of Melbourne

Secure your copy here

Wondering about sources?

Anderson, C. B. (2004). Athletic identity and its relation to exercise behavior: Scale development and initial validation. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 26 (1), 39-56.

Hawkins, B. L., Ramshaw, G., Hooker, T., & Walker, K. (2020). Creating football memory teams: Development and evaluation of a football-themed reminiscence therapy program. Therapeutic Recreation Journal, 54 (1), 32-47.

Spence, G.B. (in press). Get moving. Keep moving! Healthy ageing and how physical activity loves you back. Sydney: Longuevillle Media