Recently, most of us have been through upheavals that few predicted. Covid-19 has realigned society in many ways — some directions still yet to be determined. While lockdown provided relief from arduous attendance in the office, the reduced travel did not directly parallel our intellectual output, and worse, from a physiotherapy perspective, time out did not always see the extra time we had available being used to produce the best physical activity.
‘Prison pallor’ is a very real medical condition, not always only seen in those incarcerated by judges, but too often also seen in judges who have incarcerated themselves in their work and in their court. Prison pallor is the unnatural lack of colour in the skin (from bruising, sickness, emotional distress, or caused by a lack of natural daylight for a sustained period of time). Pale skin is a sign of being imprisoned or held captive in an enclosed environment. Does this sound like you, particularly when writing judgements, and/or is it your teenage children who equal your tenacity in avoiding daylight when it comes to a PS4 or Xbox?
With the massive rearrangement we’ve experienced in our lives, it is now time to pause and take a deep breath. The past writings on fitness have been emphasising joint mobility, muscle strength, and moderate lung function. Due to circumstances, this article will be mostly on lung function, not only because Covid-19 kills via lung incapacity, but because lung performance generally has an acute influence on intellect and memory. This is something the researchers are also finding as a side effect of Covid-19. Putting it plainly, study findings revealed possible disruption to microstructural and functional brain integrity in the recovery stages of Covid-19, suggesting long-term consequences.
Clean fresh air is the enemy of many diseases and lethargy, and while New Zealand has an abundance of healthy open space, we still, as a nation, tend to gravitate to enclosed, humid, cloistered areas such as cafes, pubs, and courtrooms. Therein lies the risk. But now one enters the state vs self-responsibility enclosure. All of us can divert our physical beings into safer environments, but what do we do when such safe havens don’t allow our lungs to fully function or simply breathe a sigh of relief?
The lungs are like an inverted tree, a trunk (trachea), which branches (bronchi) leading to 10 bronchopulmonary segments in the right lung. There are three in the superior lobe, two in the middle lobe, and five in the inferior lobe. Some of the segments may fuse in the left lung to form (usually) eight to nine segments (four to five in the upper lobe and four to five in the lower lobe). The left has fewer segments due to the heart taking up space in the chest wall.
From a young age, we breathe with ease from the upper lobes of the lungs, called apical breathing. Short shallow inhalations are so much easier than taking air deep into the lower segments (or diaphragmatic breathing. A simple test between the two is:
Cross your arms in front of you and interlock the fingers. Try to breathe deeply.
Now, fold your arms behind your back and take a similar deep breath.
The first postural position only enables shallow breathing. The latter allows deep breathing. Sadly, our usual day is more like the former, arms forward, chest compressed, lungs bunched like a crumpled plastic bag. We experience cursory rather than deliberate breathing. For this reason, along with the prevention of being debilitated by errant disease, it is time to pause and take a deep breath.
The following exercise is a good one to ensure the lung depths are explored.
Stand and wrap a towel around the lower ribs. Cross the towel in front of you and deep breathe against the resistance of the towel. Do this six to 10 times, three days a week.
Now do the same exercise, but as you breathe out, slightly tighten the towel and squeeze the air in the lungs out.
Whenever there is emotional or physical stress, people make the mistake of desperately breathing in when they should be concentrating on breathing out. Rid the bad air out so the good air can get in. One does not add more water to an already polluted drink. Tip out the sediment at the bottom of the vessel, rinse and start again fresh.
A judge’s natural regime in stressful times is exactly that: pause, breathe out three to four times, then move forward. But like all exercise, good motions that are good can be lost amongst trivia. Practise at training is better than waiting and having to relearn when under pressure. During these circumstances, any error can be costly on all in those surrounds, especially the judge.