Don’t Let Injuries Spoil The Fun

Hiking, biking, waterskiing, guided foot tours, bungee jumping, skydiving, river rafting, spelunking, scuba diving, water skiing, snowboarding—what do all these things have in common? Well, for one thing, they’re outdoor activities involving exercise. For another, most of these activities require some sort of mild vacation to enjoy.

Image Source: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/digital-art-artwork-together-couple-398342/ 

Even if you live in a mountain town, hiking trails that aren’t local backyard tracks require you to travel a bit. The lake requires you to vacation from your local area for a day, unless you live there. And even if you do, water skiing or other water sports require a bit of preparation. But besides physicality and travel, there’s a third commonality between all these things.

Whenever you’re involved in physical activity, there’s a heightened injury potential. You’re more likely to hurt yourself if you’re getting busy doing things with some level of risk.

While it’s true that you could twist your ankle badly enough it breaks and requires a doctor to set it, and such an injury could be sustained just stepping off a curb the wrong way, when you’re doing extreme sports, the propensity for injury expands notably.

Taking Human Realities Into Account

Image Source: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/sport-exercise-escalation-bicycle-562154/ 

If you’re going to get the most from any vacation, the reality of human fragility must be acknowledged. Simultaneously, you’ve got to keep in mind that human beings are more resilient than most people realize. Certainly, you could hurt yourself if you’re out and about in the world. It’s more likely you won’t. Simultaneously, you want to be prepared.

How does the old saying go? Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. If you’re going to reap the greatest benefit from varying vacations, you’ll want to do some of the activities described at the beginning of this post. But if you don’t acknowledge the propensity for injury, one missed step could very well result in an injury that spoils the whole trip.

Preparing For The Unexpected

So what’s the solution here? Well, you want to have some sort of medical option readily available. For example, if you’re vacationing in New Jersey for your horticultural savvy (as it is the “Garden State”), you may want to find a Holmdel orthopedic surgeon you can rely on for possible bone breaks. Gardening isn’t extreme, but some of the state’s theme parks are.

If you’re in different regions of the country or world, perhaps use the hyperlink as a template from which to base future preparations. Regardless of where you are, where you’re going, or who you’re with, the propensity for unexpected injury remains. As a matter of fact, just living at home puts you at risk of injury. The shower is a notoriously dangerous area, statistically.

Also, it’s worth noting that age naturally produces more brittle bone structure. Certainly you can circumvent this with regular exercise and a strong, healthy diet. However, the best exercise and the most appropriate diet won’t make a human being immortal. Over time, systems of order tend to chaos—this is basic entropy. The human body is no different.

Aging Changes Us Physically, Vacations Help Keep Us Young

As we age, our body loses a compound called “telomerase”. Telomerase, as expressed at the microscopic level in the form of telomeres, is sort of like the “tape” at the end of the “shoestring” which is our DNA. As we age, we lose telomerase, and our genetic “shoestring” unravels. Compounding reality is the truth that we expedite this aging process through stress.

Image Source: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/dna-genetic-material-helix-proteins-3539309/ 

Activities which reduce stress and stimulate levity preserve natural telomerase. Vacations ease stress. So you’ve got a catch-22. If you don’t vacation, you’re more likely to lose telomerase, age faster, and become more “brittle”. If you do vacation, you increase injury risk.

The solution is not to cloister yourself—get involved with festive activities and vacation; just don’t be surprised if you or someone in your vacation group sustains an injury. Be prepared with the right medical people on call, and it won’t be a showstopper.