Fit Body, sharp mind!

How Training Your Brain Improves Wellbeing and Fitness

For as long as I could remember, I was always interested in being outside and being physically active. When I read the book, Body for Life by Bill Phillips, I feel like I had finally begun to understand the deeper meaning of fitness. It was not just about six pack abs, although a nice feature of being fit, rather it is about establishing or setting goals for oneself and working to achieve those goals, be it physical goals, mental goals, or employment goals. The way I began to see it, the lifting of weights or running or any other form of fitness became the vehicle by which we teach ourselves we can do hard things. The dumbbells became a tool or a metaphor that we do have the capacity of lift, push, pull ourselves through the difficulty of life and that through engaging in physical fitness we do have the capacity of building mental strength! Therefore, not only did I begin to devote myself to fitness, I read books, magazines, watched videos or consumed what I could that would have drive real action to help my become the healthiest, fittest person I could be, I began with the end of my life in mind. Throughout my life, I did make some poor decisions but regardless, I always anchored myself to being fit for life, not just a period of time.

As I have become more educated, more experience, exposed to more of what I consider a part of my fitness journey has evolved and one way that it has evolved is by what and who I have been exposed to. New and interesting concepts of physical health but also mental and emotional health. As I see it, in order to be our own advocate in fitness, 1) there must be a genuine interest and a willingness to make changes, 2) there must be a willingness to do one’s own work on one’s own time that best suits the individual and 3) One must be willing to evolve over their life time. Fitness, health, wellness is not a weekend event rather it is doing the same process or some evolved version each and every day.  Part of achieving fitness is the habits we develop or don’t develop and how we stimulate our own mind is one of the ways we help ourselves grow.

Some Benefits of Mental Stimulation:

1) It helps to Builds Cognitive Reserve: Think of cognitive reserve as a buffer against brain aging. Regularly challenging your mind builds a stronger web of neural connections, which helps delay the onset of age-related cognitive decline.

2) It can improve Focus and Memory: Working through complex tasks trains your working memory and strengthens your ability to sustain deep focus.

3) it can Reduces Stress: Immersing yourself in a challenging, engaging task can trigger a "flow state," which naturally lowers stress levels and boosts mood-regulating chemicals like dopamine.

Types of Mental Stimulation

Mental stimulation is exploring various aspects of one’s life that is exciting, uplifting, and nourishing to the soul. Dancing, graphic or clothing design, brainstorming brand concepts, writing a book, sketching or drawing, learning to play a musical instrument, all can improve our ability to express ourselves emotionally and improve our cognitive development over time. Learning to playing a new game, such as chess, can have a positive impact on the brains ability to think, process certain decisions, and improve our working memory. Graphic design, brainstorming brand concepts, writing a book, sketching, playing a musical instrument, or rearranging a physical space can encourage cognitive capacity. Going for a hike or being in nature or learning martial arts, or learning to dance can improve spatial memory, our mapping of our physical world, and can sharpen our memory while improving motor skills. Simply being in the moment with family, friends, or relationships through conversation, meditating, reading or learning a new language can improve our communication ability, improve processing speed, mental agility and boost emotional intelligence as well as cognitive reserve and growth of new connections. All this can bring about fulfillment into one’s life, improve our cognition, reduce stress, create memories, create connection, fulfill a fantasy or simply bring about peace of mind which can add value to our lives, our health and our overall well sense of self and wellbeing.

In order to benefit from doing something new we need to make it challenging but also at a level that allows us to be successful or we may end up not continuing with it should the task be too hard. By sticking with it, we are able to improve the skill and once that skill becomes easier, it also becomes important in making the skill a little more challenging. Much like weight training, we don’t want to keep lifting the same five pounds, rather we apply the concept of progressive overload and  in order to improve in other skills we need to progressively make them more challenging in order to improve our cognitive and motor capacity and skill.