The Life You Save

On the hopeful postponement of our personal expiration dates

The first time I performed CPR on a patient, I’d been a volunteer EMT for less than a month. Hearing “cardiac arrest” come across the 911 dispatch, my own heart was racing. We pulled our ambulance up to a weatherworn house with a woman on the porch yelling, “Hurry! He doesn’t have a pulse!” 

My partner and I shouldered the jump bag, heart monitor, and AED, heading past the woman, up a narrow staircase to find a 40-something man in his pajamas sprawled on his back on the bedroom floor. His wife was kneeling next to him, weeping his name over and over. We worked on him for more than half an hour, but he was gone. 

A year or so later, a college pal asked me how many times I’d done CPR on patients, which at that point was probably seven or eight times. He asked how many of them died. I said, “All of them.” Looking alarmed, he said, “Are you sure you’re doing it right?!”

In reality, out-of-hospital cardiac arrests have a less than 10% survival rate. Even when we get a pulse back, the patient often only survives a day or two at the hospital. Everyone’s seen TV CPR, where after a few chest compressions, the patient stirs and looks around woozily, asking what happened. If only.

I became a CPR instructor because I believe in the importance of more people knowing what to do when someone’s heart stops working. But the vast majority of the time, CPR doesn’t bring people back. It’s often too little, too late.

Better access to AEDs and faster EMS response will undoubtedly save tons of lives, but the most addressable situation—by far—is upstream, helping people increase their chances of keeping their hearts beating in the first place.

What Should We Do?

So how do we increase our chances of living healthier longer? It’s the question I get most often from friends, many of whom are daunted by the prospect of making changes to improve their health. 

We all need the basics, sometimes touted as taking your MEDS: Meditation, Exercise, Diet, and Sleep. Bringing these pillars into balance helps not only with heart health, but also lowers our chances of getting cancer, diabetes, and dementia—all the inflammatory diseases. I’ll be diving deeper into each of these pillars here in the weeks and months ahead.

Of these pillars, exercise—or more generally, exercise and movement—is the lowest hanging fruit. It’s something everyone needs more of, and something we can all improve immediately.

Even being armed with the best information, however, many people stumble right at the starting line. 

The two things I see most frequently: 

1. People are so overwhelmed by the prospect of making changes, they never take the step of actually doing something. 

OR

2. They set an unrealistic goal (“I’m going to run for an hour 5 days per week.”), and when they inevitably fall short, they give up completely. 

How can we elevate ourselves above this relentless downward pull toward the couch? 

Better Than Nothing

My friend Lucy told me about her plan to do a 4-mile canyon hike 3 times per week. When it comes time for the hike, though, she often finds herself short on time and energy, so she came up with something that I’ve used ever since.

Lucy has an easier fallback walking route, not very steep, one that she can complete in about 15 minutes. She calls this route “Better Than Nothing.” She has a walking pal she calls up and says, “Let’s do Better Than Nothing.” 

She finds it impossible to say no to something that takes less than 15 minutes, and this fallback has made her a consistent walker. (Bonus: having an accountability partner who’s on board with not only the walk, but also the fallback.) Another person might prefer an even shorter and easier Better Than Nothing—adjust accordingly.

Mine is actually only 10 minutes, just a simple walk around the block. I actually just did it, right now, just between this paragraph and the last one. As soon as it popped into my head, before I could mull over excuses, or plan when I might do it later, I was up and out the door. It feels good, just doing anything.

So what’s your Better Than Nothing? What can you do at least once this week (or maybe even today) that’s just enough to be useful, but quick enough to be excuse-proof? 

Once you have a reliable once-a-week habit, build up from there. Keep in mind, the whole point is to make this unstoppably achievable. Give yourself the easy win. 

CPR calls for middle-aged people are brutal. They always leave me wondering how many of them could have been saved with some simple changes in their lives. Heart disease kills someone in the U.S. every 33 seconds. That’s ten people gone since you started reading this piece. 

I want so much better for you, and the people you care about. If you’re one of those ultra-consistent workout fiends (bless you), maybe this could help someone you love who can’t always muster the will to keep going. Help them find their Better Than Nothing. It could quite literally save their life.

Better Than Nothing ideas (choose one to start, or roll your own):

• A walk around the block

• 10 jumping jacks, 5 pushups, 5 squats 

• Up and down a staircase 5 times

• 3 minutes of jogging in place

What works (or doesn’t work) for you? Drop your Better Than Nothing fallback idea in the comments below. I’d love to hear how it works for you.