Workout For Your Brain

As I have written about before in Brisk Walking Makes Seniors Smarter and Exercise and Your Kid’s Brain, physical fitness is key to mental fitness. Since you can’t really separate the mind from the body, their level of fitness has a huge impact on each other.

More and more evidence keeps coming forward about how physical exercise keeps the mind functioning at a higher level. If you want a little more technical information on this, click on this article entitled The Human Brain – Exercise, from The Franklin Institute.

There is also evidence that developing mental fitness can help the body stay fit and healthier. Besides just doing physical exercises, there are plenty of mental exercises that you can do that will also help to keep your mind “bulging with mental muscles”.  Susan Tannen, in her article Mental Fitness – Exercises for the Brain, gives a full daily brain workout.

In the SUCCESS Magazine newsletter, they had this to say about mental fitness:

It’s a common myth that we use only 10 percent of our brains. We actually use all of it. But just like your body, you can improve your mental fitness. Use these strategies to increase your brain power and keep it healthy as you age.

They also had tips to maximize your mental fitness, which are a nice little summary for a lot of the other longer articles that are out there. The tips are:

1. Perfect your posture. Try solving a problem while slouching versus sitting upright and see how it impacts your mental clarity. Now sit up straight.
2. Use trapped downtime. Plan ahead with an MP3 or iPod loaded with a good book or advice from a personal-development expert for when you’re stuck in traffic, in line or in a waiting room.
3. Tell a good story. Sharing experiences in a compelling and fun way sharpens your mental recall.
4. Mix up your routine. Take a different route to work, or eat your salad after the main course. Changing your typical way of doing things tells your brain to wake up and pay attention.
5. Write. Writing notes, poetry, stories or maintaining a journal helps your memory, clarifies your thinking and engages your creativity.
6. Work on your intuition. Every time you follow through on a hunch or listen to your inner dialogue, you are working your intuitive muscle.
7. Walk. The rhythmic pace of walking gets you breathing and limbered up, creating a physical and mental state conducive for clear thinking.
8. Laugh. Endorphins released when you laugh lower your stress and can help your long-term health. Ever notice you feel better after a big laugh?

As you can read, it’s about making exercise, both mental and physical, a regular part of your lifestyle. In the course of a day, if you can engage in a combination of bouts of physical and mental exercise, your brain may not be ready to tackle the next mental Olympics Games, but it should help to trim off that “mental spare tire” we can get as we age!  So…THINK HARD!!