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Some years ago I spent what seemed a lot of effort trying to learn Conversational French from tapes and TV.  The snag was, when in France I was surprised to find that hardly anyone could understand the type of conversational French I learned.

I also tried learning Hebrew.  This wasn’t as hard as you might imagine.  So far I’ve managed to reach Chapter 7 of Biblical Hebrew Made Easy about 15 times!

Now this could have been a bit depressing.  Luckily, a lot of other stuff kept me busy so I didn’t feel too bad.  One of those things was keeping fit.

Whatever reason you have for wanting to be fit, you soon become conscious of several areas that need development, such as strength, endurance, speed, flexibility, coordination and balance.  Alternatively, with some special interests and sports, you may focus on one or two of these elements.

A Bee In Your Bonnet

Interestingly, all athletes, no matter whether they specialise or not, seem to get a high or a buzz from their run or workout, or whatever.  In fact, non-exercisers sometimes get sick of hearing about it.  Maybe they don’t believe it.  Or maybe they prefer not to believe it.  But it’s true.

Depression

Now this high seems to be good for mental fitness too.  It is now more common for the medical profession to prescribe exercise for those who suffer from depression.  In fact, it can often completely turn round the life of a depressed person.  In other words, fitness acts like a drug.

Possibly another element that contributes to this is the pleasing feeling of having done something well.  This can mean having done well against your own previous efforts or against competition. 

Maybe this is best seen as an improvement in emotional well-being, or feeling good, and that’s not a bad thing.  It probably makes the effort of exercising worthwhile in itself.

A Brilliant Drug for You

However, there is more to it than that.  Someone who exercises has made an effort and is fitter as a reward.  The high is a sign that making the effort, the physical activity, the achievement and a greater sense of well-being go hand-in-hand.  And so they should. 

Because this is not merely an emotional sense of well-being based on nothing more than a nice feeling.  Nor is it simply based on perception or a placebo effect.  It is based on really being better than before.

Drastic Side-Effects

Although we may not be thinking of this while exercising, in reality we are working to improve the capacity of our heart to pump greater amounts of blood.  We are also expanding the ability of the lungs to supply oxygen to our blood and the ability of our muscles to utilise oxygen supplied by the blood.  The better we do this the fitter we become. 

However, as well as being physically better in the usual sense of physical fitness, exercise also improves the circulation of blood to the brain.  This brings at least two valuable benefits.  The first is that it reduces the risk of small strokes.  The second is that it promotes the delivery of oxygen to the brain and improves its capacity to receive it.

In other words, exercise improves the brain chemistry quite naturally without drugs.  This seems to have a calming effect and makes us feel less stressed.  In turn, this reduces the likelihood of depression.  To put it another way, exercise is the drug.

Mice & Men

According to “Exercise Ups Brain Power” on the website of the American Council On Fitness (www.acefitness.org), research has shown that physically active mice experienced an increase of brain cell proliferation. 

Nice for the mice. 

So maybe working out actually makes us smarter too?  Just pass me my French grammar book again.

Mental Workouts

But there is another way to improve your mental fitness other than just bask in the joy of exercise.  You can exercise your brain with a mental workout just as you exercise your body with a physical workout.

Funnily enough, the same research into mice quoted by the American Council On Fitness concluded that brain cell development also occurred when mice were placed in an interesting and stimulating environment.

To a large extent our interests and aims provide us with our own stimuli.  But just as we make great gains when we choose to exercise physically, so there are a host of ways of doing the same with mental workouts.  Here are a just few for you.

In fact, as soon as you put your mind to it, a host of things practically suggest themselves, don’t they?

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