Exercise and Immunity

6/29/11
This week, my class was on exercise and immunity. It was definitely the most fun class we've had so far! Instead of a powerpoint, I made a handout with directions for a variety of calisthenic exercises. For the first 20 minutes, I taught them about the benefits of exercise and the different ways exercise can boost immunity. After the lecture portion of class, we  moved on to the exercise portion. I passed out bottled water for everyone. I also brought a CD that I made with upbeat and fast paced, popular music. I made sure the first few songs were a little slower for us to stretch to. Everyone was really hesitant to participate, but once I started the music they definitely loosened up a bit. I asked anyone who could to join me on the floor, and for everyone else to grab a chair and stretch from there. Their social worker normally does an exercise group with them once or twice a week, and she joined us for this part of the class. Most of the exercises that I put on their list were things they could do sitting in a chair, with something simple such as a water bottle or coffee mug to assist with a few of them. I had hoped with the dance music on the CD, that they would want to dance, but I didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable so I thought I'd just let the CD play and see what happened. Well, as we were transitioning from stretching on the floor to getting our chairs ready for the calisthenics, Fergie started to play. Almost everyone just started dancing! It was so much fun. The front desk workers came around and danced with us and the social worker! Half way through the song, the nurse walks in and stares wide eyed at all of us getting down and literally ran to join us! After 3 songs of all of us dancing our hearts out and chanting each other on, we were all out of breath and moved on to the other exercises. We went through the list on the hand out, and everyone was seemed really intrigued at how much of a work out we were getting event though we were sitting in a chair!  After we got done, I passed out granola bars. I feel that this class was a huge success. I hope that I made it fun enough so they will want to exercise on their own more often. I made sure to leave them the CD I made, and I told their social worker that I would make more for them to use during their weekly exercise group. I asked about the evaluations, and they hadn't finished them yet. They are planning on doing that this week.


My resources this week were:

Daumit, G., Goldberg, R., Anthony, C., Dickerson, F., Brown, C., Kreyenbuhl, J., & ... Dixon, L. (2005). Physical activity patterns in adults with severe mental illness. Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease, 193(10), 641-646.

and

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/007165.htm