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Fitness is not mental or physical, it is both. Exercises for brain and body can have a profound impact on health, aging and longevity. Research is continuously adding to our understanding of the complex interactions between the brain and physical fitness. Basically through the work of people like Dr. Monique Le Poncin, the founder of the French National Institute for Research on the Prevention of Cerebral Aging and Dr. Paul Dennison who invented the Brain Gym system to help children and adults with ADD and learning disabilities we are able to understand these complex interactions. The recommended mental exercises of these pioneers combined with physical activity can help to alleviate your stress, improve memory and other cognitive functions. We recommend a series of exercises based upon early research and modern brain imaging designed to boost overall brain function in six neurological pathways.
In her book, Brain Fitness regarding the mentally fit lifestyle, Le Poncin proposed daily activities to sharpen all five senses to overcome monotony and routine in our daily lives. She believes monotony from activities can generate mental and emotional lethargy and resignation. One goal in exercising all six senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch and proprioception or a sense of self in relation to environment) should be to introduce new mental and physical activity in order to build and strengthen new neural pathways. In Brain Gym work, Dr. Dennison found that the cerebellum is not only involved with motor coordination, posture and gait but with activating the speech and language centers of the brain. Today neuroscientists also recognize that neural pathways that include the cerebellum are central to the speed of cognitive processes and our ability to coordinate thoughts. Exercises for this portion of the brain assist to reset our ability to perform efficiently in daily tasks.
We provide programs at Smart-Walks to increase brain function with day-by-day activities for neural pathways. We recommend the mental exercise to practice during physical exertion for maximum benefits. Perform the following exercises when traveling to and from work, during lunch hour, on breaks or in the evenings. People can also exercise mentally while shopping and doing housework. The exercises take only a few minutes and add a sense of vigor to life.
The goals that you set should be for both physical and mental exercise. Start with adding two hundred steps in your schedule daily and work your way up to 1,000, 5,000 and 10,000. We offer a free steps program at the Smart-Walks site. Combine your increase in physical exercise with different variations of the mental exercises each day. Keep a record of your progress using a small notebook or a print out of the free steps program and note especially where you seem to have problems. You can select more exercises in those areas where you need the most practice.
As you begin to add steps and mental fitness exercises to your day, you will learn to identify opportunities for physical activity. Then you will discover that the key to becoming mentally active is to incorporate the sensory exercises with day-to day tasks that increase physical activity.
Let’s begin with a list of the opportunities to increase physical exertion keeping in mind that this is exercise, but not exercise of the sort that you can get from a gym workout. Following each exercise, we will recommend mental exercise for sensory stimulation that can be done at the same time:
1. Give yourself enough time to walk to meetings. Walking to a nearby destination can be faster and less expensive than taking a taxi or public transportation. If you cannot walk the entire way, get off public transportation a few stops early and walk the rest of the way to your destination.
If you must take a car to safe areas, park your car at the back of the parking lot, or on the lowest level of the garage to increase your walk or climb. In other words, make opportunities to walk each day so that you can practice sight exercises!
On each walk, observe an object or a person that you see on the street. If it’s possible to stop for a few minutes, you can increase your short-term memory by making a rough sketch. You don’t have to be an artist to train yourself to really pause and look at detail. At the end of the week, you can help your long-term memory by redrawing the seven objects or persons observed earlier. The act of drawing will assist you to focus on sufficient detail in your mind to hold the image in short term memory while the redrawing indicates that this is important enough for your brain to store it in long term memory.
Another sight exercise increases your visual-spatial abilities or the ability to make quick and accurate estimates of distances, areas, and volumes including the general proportions of things and their distribution in space and in relation to other things. Record the estimated distances or volumes and try to verify the accuracy of your guess by the end of the day.
Finally, work on sight recognition. Whenever you meet someone, try to come up with at least one anagram of his or her name or quickly think of words that describe the person that begin with the same two letters as their name or that rhyme with the name. At the end of the week try to recall the names of all of the new people that you met.
2. Most of us walk around the grocery store and this is a great opportunity for practicing with our smell and touch senses. First of all, park in the back of the lot away from the door. If you are physically able, carry your groceries back to the car without a cart on the return. Now instead of a shopping list we are going to give our memory a little workout. Try one of the following methods for remembering what is on the list that you left in the car-make up a sentence that uses the first letter of each item you need and write it down on your shopping list. Repeat the sentence to yourself on the way to the store and after each word think about the item on the list. If you have a smell or touch related memory for that item try to re-call it as you walk to the store and think over your list. Once you are in the store, exercise your senses of smell and touch by picking up each object on your list and smelling or touching the object until you have a good impression of it. Try to identify objects in your shopping cart with your eyes closed.
3. Walk more and practice hearing. If it is safe, walk within your apartment building using stairs to go between floors. You can walk miles this way, no matter what the weather! If you are on a top floor it may be too much a strain in the first week to use the stairs instead of the elevator. To get started, ride the elevator to a midway point and climb the rest of the way. Add more floors as you build stamina. Once you have built up your energy, walk to lunch or dinner eateries from your office or home instead of always frequenting the corner cafe.
4. Dining in a restaurant or with friends offers a great opportunity to practice smelling and tasting. Using only smell, try to identify the ingredients in the meals you are served. Concentrate on the subtle aromas of herbs and spices. Ask the hostess or waiter to verify your perceptions. You can do the same experiment with taste. Concentrate on the flavor of each bite of food. Experience where on your tongue the flavor arises and which combination of flavors you enjoy most.
For a radical departure of smells, join a nearby health club and work out during lunch, or before or after work. A well-timed workout can give you a needed second wind and plenty of opportunity to practice smell identification. Can you tell the aroma of chlorine in a pool or sulfur of a Jacuzzi from the cedar in a sauna or the disinfectant on the shower floor?
5. Most people begin to experience some loss of hearing after age 40. However, you can preserve much of your hearing by learning to concentrate and distinguish sounds in the environment. At the office, take advantage of the speakerphone. Get up and move around during calls, experimenting with how far from the phone you can stand with no distortion in listening to you caller. You can burns more calories standing and pacing than sitting down. Try to recognize callers by their voice or ambient sounds at their office before they identify themselves. Get your memory exercises in and at the end of the day, write down the people you have spoken with that day by recalling the sound of their voice. At the end of the week, see how many phone callers you recall by writing them down.
6. When you are ready, expand your physical self-center with activities that require balance and coordination. Enjoy activities with friends and family, try dancing or bowling instead of a trip to the movies. Sign up for a community sports team - you'll meet new people, have fun and get in shape at the same time. Treat yourself to an aerobics class or try a low-impact aerobics video at home. Each of these activities can become part of your goals for the first six months of increased exercise.
Change your media habits as you increase your physical exercise; increase your mental exercise by becoming less passive and more active with all of your entertainment. Get up from your seat to change channels on your television, to select a radio station or to change the compact disk. When you listen to the morning news on the radio, watch news on TV or read the newspaper, write down the main points of the news that you remember in the morning and the evening. Count the number of times that advertising occurs and the frequency. Record the advertising jingles or mottos that you recall at the end of the day. When you finish reading a chapter in a book, summarize it as briefly orally or in writing and ask a friend to go for a walk. While walking, talk about the book. Even if your friend has read it, make certain to verbalize your own summary of the chapter or book. By summarizing a book or its chapters to someone who has not read it, you will exercise not only your memory but also your verbal abilities.
©2006, Dale Orlando
Dale Orlando holds a Masters degree in community psychology and organizational development. Career successes include grants writing, television production and web development. Polaris Production LLC can assist small business and non-profit marketing, fund raising in environmental issues, health and human services. Visit www.PolarisProduction.com/consult-form.html
Her interests include design of physical and mental health and stress reduction programs at www.smart-walks.com and she is an AFAA certified personal trainer.
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