Tag Archives: active

Exercising the Mind

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The mind, in all matters concerning it, must be exercised in order to keep it healthy and growing strong. It is as a muscle, requiring constant and consistent activity to stay healthy. Sports players, cards players, computer programmers, engineers, and on and on all continually and relentlessly practice their profession; going over and over selected scenarios, developing new ideas, or reaching new depths of creativity are all ways to exercise the mind.

Einstein

Starting at birth, new parents are encouraged to challenge their child with new responsibilities, play memory exercising games, or teach them multiple languages. This makes headway into the starting of the child’s academic career, where it is quite obvious it is demanded that they do indeed use their brain for scholarly purposes: calculating formulas, creative writing, memorizing biological systems, etc.

It is easy to sit back and let the exercising be demanded of a person and let it grow in a passive pushing mode, but the real character comes when graduation is upon the student.

At this conjuncture in life, the student is now free from all prescribed and demanded learning. This is where personal motivation comes into the equation. The new graduate is only looking for fun adventures and to explore the limits of their newly found freedom; which by all means is necessary in the growth of the person, but there is a certain tipping point, or balancing that needs to be acquired. After all, balance is the key to life.

Scanning of a human brain by X-rays

The exciting part is now that the graduate is indeed graduated, it is upon them to decide which path they wish to explore.

No longer is the learning prescribed, but rather opened up for interpretation where the mind is the school master cracking the whip, and the conscience is the poor school boy waiting eagerly with big wide eyes for what is to come next; open to be influenced.

Activities like reading and writing are great ways to keep the thought process active and firing on all cylinders, which incidentally can also be used to keep the mind focused (this is a good thing). You’ve heard it before, and you’ll hear it again; in this day and age of the internet and instant communication, it’s hard for people to stay focused on one topic for any length of time.

Writing down ideas can help keep the thought process aligned straight towards success, in all essence of the word.

mind

The main point, however, is that without activities that keep the mind thinking, keeping all those neurons sparking like luminescence in the midnight waters, the brain will not keep the doors open to creative thought.

Before you know it, you will be a machine working at a dead end job wondering how you got there, feeling sorry for yourself the whole time.

SO! I encourage you, don’t let it happen to you! Exercise your mind!

Do you have any other ideas or games that will help keep the mind active?

Walking

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The power of the walk is unbounded. Clean, or at least fresh air, is undoubtedly and unquestioningly one of the greatest natural healing process’ one can undergo. To put one’s body through some physical strain, aka. exercise, every day is important for many factors of one’s health, both mental and physically.

I cannot count with the fingers on my hand how many times people have told me how much stronger, healthier, happier, or energized they feel after a bout of activity, and more-so, after sticking to a regular bout of physical activity.walking

Walking is one of the easiest and least stressful forms of exercise available to one. It is cheap and can be performed rain or shine, night or dark, cold or warm.

Some people feel they need to get their proper sweat repellant tights on, weights on their ankles, water bottle pouches strapped to their waist, etc. etc., but I feel a strong opposition to the mentality that you should be held back from doing activities without the proper gear.

Don’t get me wrong, some activities like scuba diving, hockey, or snowboarding cannot be performed without proper sports equipment, but even with these activities, there is a difference between essentials and luxury.

My favorite time to go for a walk is around sunset. The colors that come out at this time, the lack of direct sunlight, the lack of excessive traffic all make for a happy walker in me, but I do not single out this hour of the day.

walk

Often times, one is given the opportunity to walk to the bus, or to walk around in town during their day. Even in the evening, most people live in towns these days, and with town comes corner stores and grocery stores that are usually within walking distance.

I undertake it as my own mission to walk every day. Even if it’s just a little bit, it is all good. Just 15 minutes is great! It is essential to get outside for some exercise.

If you are on a tight timeline, bring a stop watch along, and do 7.5 minutes out, and 7.5 minutes back to the starting point if it must be so directed, but make it happen! It just takes a little bit of effort and you’ll begin to reap the rewards of your attention.

Feeling healthy, feeling active, getting fresh air, getting exercise, listening to the birds; these are all things that are a direct result of going for a walk.

Downsides you ask? NONE! Get walking!