Brain Fitness: Did You Do Your Mental Aerobics Today?

by Heather Long | More from this Blogger

05 Jan 2007 06:11 AM

One of my personal resolutions this year was to get my mind back into creative shape. You may think I do this everyday with the writing I provide here in the fitness blog and elsewhere, but like an athlete who gave up equestrian sports to become an endurance walker - both keep me mentally fit, but each challenges a different set of muscles.

My Resolution

I know that regular exercise performed every day helps to keep me physically active and fit. But I also know that regular exercise can help increase my cognitive abilities and function. I know that daily aerobic exercise, you know the type that gets your heart rate up and your blood pumping, this also helps to maintain your brain cells and promotes the growth of new neurons in your brain. At the height of my most creative points in life - I exercised regularly.

Whether it was through regular activity such as working on the farm or through a program of heavy duty fitness - the more I pushed my physical body - the more my creativity seemed stimulated. So since I want to get back to writing books again and to stretching my mental creativity beyond my normal day to day, I need to ramp up my physical activity.

Keeping The Mind Healthy

There are a number of activities that we can perform and do to keep our mind healthy and active. Among those activities are regular exercise, healthy nutrition and mental stimulation. In this case, I do a lot of crafts and I've been getting better at those, but creating crafts and creating a book are two different things.

You need to regularly exercise those areas of your brain that you want to stimulate - so if you're looking to become better at particular area of your mental fitness such as puzzles - you start working with small puzzles and build up. In my case, since it is my writing that I want to hone, it's my creative writing I need to exercise and practice.

So in addition to my regular physical exercise program, I am returning to writing a minimum of 500 words on a creative project per day. You may think that sounds like a lot and it is in a way, I write about 5000 to 10000 words per day on my working writing projects - in some ways, I've over trained this area and let the creative writing muscles atrophy.

My physical exercise program is going to be ramped up to build more endurance and keep that higher blood flow to the brain while the regular creative writing practice begins to strengthen my imagination and strengthen the creative function.

My Current Goal: 500 words per day. What is yours?

Related Articles:

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Creativity Breeds Success in Fitness & Life

The Power of Positive Fitness Thinking

Learn more about Heather Long

Heather Long is 35 years old and currently lives in Wylie, Texas. She has been a freelance writer for six years. Her husband and she met while working together at America Online over ten years ago.

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