Week 10: Mind & Body Connection - Body
KEY POINTS:
1. To make sure your brain is working at its best, you need to make sure you’re taking care of your body - and that includes being physically active.
2. This week, try to carve time into your day to exercise - even if it’s a 15-minute walk or light stretching to get your blood flowing.
3. Exercise increases the flow of oxygen and nutrients to the brain, improving mental performance. It might seem like you’re taking too much time away from the task at hand, but in fact you’ll perform better and get healthier at the same time.
“All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.”
This week is about the link between the body and the mind and how we can supercharge the brain by moving our bodies. The only way to get your brain functioning at its absolute best is by making sure you’re physically active.
You don’t need to go to the gym for an hour every day—although if you do, that’s great. Walking for just five minutes improves brain function. Taking the stairs or stretching does as well. We just need to sprinkle physical activity throughout the day, and if you can do that, you’re going to experience many positive benefits.
Treat this week as a call to action to begin to understand that if you add regular physical activity to you days, the time investment will come back to you exponentially in returns.
We encourage you to book physical activity into your calendar and make it as important as your most important business meeting, because it is. If someone wants to schedule something with you at the same time, don’t allow it, just as you would not cancel an important meeting. And for those of you who are employers, don’t make employees feel guilty for taking the time to take a walk or get in a quick workout during the day. This behaviour should be encouraged, and people should not think that they’ll be punished for doing it.
When you’re at home, you can carve out time to walk with loved ones, play a sport, or go to the park. Consider blocking out TV for certain hours. It’s too easy to come home, turn on the TV, and lose endless hours to sitting in front of it. Perhaps even try TV fasting for a week or two. At the end, consider how much more free time you had and what you were able to do with it.
You might believe that sitting at your desk for hours on end gets loads of work done. We certainly live in a culture that values putting in long days at the office. This often means putting in long days seated at our desks. But we are learning that our productivity declines as our amount of sitting increases. Those long hours at the desk have diminishing returns. The brain functions better when the body moves.
This week’s exercise is centred around getting active. See pages 44 - 48 of The Focus Effect Workbook or click Here to download the exercise. When we make time for exercise, our mental performance increases. First you’ll be tasked with tracking your current physical activity behaviours and critiquing them. From there, you’ll start to build a weekly fitness routine that incorporates what we refer to as the 4 F’s - Fit, Force, Fast, and Flex (and our bonus F - Fun!).
Bonus Podcast with Harvard professor John Ratey on the power of exercise for the brain
The information and advice provided in this program is intended to assist you with improving your performance, as well as your general health. It is not intended and should not be used in place of advice from your own physician or for treatment or diagnosis of any specific health issue. By participating in this program you acknowledge that undertaking any new health, diet and/or exercise regime involves certain inherent risks, that you assume such risks, and that you release Wells Performance Inc. from any responsibility or claim relating to such participation.