When is the last time you learned something new? When is the last time you tried something new? As I get older, I am realizing the importance of constantly challenging my brain as well as my body by trying and learning new things. There is Alzheimer’s in my family history, so in addition to exercising my body, I know I need to exercise my brain as well. There are so many ways to do this, even in our daily lives. Playing board games such as Scrabble is a great way to keep our minds sharp. Working on the crossword puzzle, Soduku, Words with Friends and other independent activities as well as interactive games are wonderful to keep out brains active. Even taking a different route to work or the gym can give your brain something new to thin about.
Learning new things such as new fitness formats has proven to be really fun and interesting way to keep my own brain active.
There are many avenues for us to learn new things: taking a community education class, trying a new fitness class, reading a book, trying a new recipe, listening a podcast, watching a documentary or researching a topic that interests you.
I’ve tried to really challenge myself in this last year of my 40’s by learning several new fitness formats. Doing this has really helped to challenge my brain as well as my body. Learning new formats has also helped me to understand that our bodies crave movement and they crave change! There are a lot of different ways we can change up our workouts to keep it fresh and fun. However, it’s pretty exciting to think about how much we can challenge our brains and bodies each month just by getting a new lifting program right here at UpLift. We work different muscles and try to connect our brains to those muscles when we lift, and we change it up roughly every month. As we constantly change our programs, we give our bodies and our brains something new to think about, therefore causing each of those muscles to become stronger.
For me personally, I know that as I age continuously challenge myself not to become complacent. I need to keep on learning so my brain continues to get its exercise as well. My workouts need to keep changing as well. From new lifting programs, to new classes, new fitness formats, new routes on our walks and runs we can continuously keep our brains and our bodies in good health!
— Meg May
