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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.
- Learn a Language.
- Laugh – It’s the best medicine.
- Do Games & Puzzles.
- Learn to do Magic.
- Really study a topic that interests you.
- Immerse yourself in HOW TO. How to achieve, be creative,
solve problems, persuade and influence.
- Do Voluntary Work.
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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