On the flip side of things, you learn faster and create new ideas for future plans with improved mental skills.
A strong mind sees connections you didn't know were there before, remembers mistakes, and has clearer insights into your life, your strengths, and your priorities. Also, the ability to create and sustain goal-related visions (a skill held by most successful people) is what it helps you to form.
Just as you do in the case of your body, you need to feed your brain and exercise it if you want it to perform well. Provided you have the right amount of oxygen supplied through physical fitness, complemented by mental workouts, you can dramatically increase your brainpower in the following ways:
•Thinking with more vision,
•Increased attention and concentration,
•More mental clarity and quicker thinking,
•Improved memory, and
•Boosted creativity.
Fitness helps determine your attitude which is another vital role it plays. Success or failure is what your attitude spells.
Henry Ford once said, “If you think you can do or can't do something, you're right.” Optimists achieve goals faster than pessimists.
Great candidates for your support team are positive people who you can attract with positive thinking. Basically, your attitude is what really matters.
You may be wondering what attitude has to do with fitness. Well, studies show that unlike pessimists, optimists have greater mental and physical fitness.
An extreme example of this would be that the death rate of nursing home patients increases by over 50% with major depression. Attitude and health feed off each other. By reducing worry, you can live longer.
In the same way, by reacting well to stress, getting better sleep, and being more creative, you can stay positive. Stretching the mind can turn a broken-down wet blanket into a vibrant dreamer and achiever.
YOU decide which approach is better. If you want to see the full potential of your goal achievement journey, keep in mind that fit and positive people:
•Are less irritable,
•Have an increased ability to interact with others,
•See opportunities rather than problems, and
•See roadblocks as challenges, not a reason to give up.
You need not build your own obstacles. Handicapping yourself by ignoring fitness is not something you’d want as you already have enough challenges to meet.
Poor fitness keeps you from reaching your potential which is an added con to the obvious health risks and damage to your life expectancy. Your performance will suffer in a big way even if you feel a little off-kilter.
Achieving goals becomes so much easy if you are mentally and physically fit. With a clear mind that can function quickly, and a healthy body that can push through down times, remaining focused and strong becomes easy.
You can exercise your mind and body in many different ways. It could be physical or spiritual exercises, meditation, yoga, voice practice and so on but all these exercises would be useless if you don’t practice positive thinking.
A law on positive thinking, known as ‘law of attraction’ – explained later – perfectly illustrates the power of positive thinking.
In this chapter you’ll learn the law of attraction and its effects on your life. You’ll also learn how meditation can help bring calmness into your life and how yoga makes you physically as well as mentally fit. Also, in this chapter I’ll discuss the importance of practicing your voice and how you can do it best.
Health and Fitness
The Mission for Ultimate Health and Wellness and How to Begin
The journey to achieve ultimate health and wellness begins with building a lifestyle that supports them. A health and wellness oriented lifestyle is built by making healthy habits and choices part of your daily routines. You do not need to completely overhaul your entire life all at once. These changes can be made gradually.
Physical Fitness
The United States Department of Health and Human Services recommends 30 minutes of moderate aerobic activity daily or a minimum of two and a half hours per week for adults ages 18 to 64 years. Strength training for all of the major body parts, legs, hips, arms, shoulders, abdomen, back and chest is recommended at least twice a week.
If you’re not already physically active, incorporating fitness activities into your life doesn’t need to pose a major challenge. Examples of moderate physical activity include dancing, brisk walking, bicycle riding and more.
Thirty minutes of moderate activity provides the minimum required to gain health benefits. More vigorous activities, jumping rope, rock climbing and swimming provide even greater health benefits. Extending the amount of time spent doing any physical activity also increases health benefits.
To successfully integrate physical fitness activities into your life, make them part of your daily schedule. Set aside time in your daily planner and add a reminder to the event on your phone or watch. Do it religiously. And most importantly, show up for the activity and perform some level of physical activity. Even if it does not equal the full 30 minutes, you’re still building the habit of physical activity. When I’m too busy I just go cycling around the neighborhood for 15-20 minutes. So, whatever you do, do not miss a day without exercising!
Keys to Success
•Start with an activity you enjoy.
•Join an exercise group or workout with friends.
•Remember every little bit counts. If you exercise for 20 minutes twice a day or in 10-minute increments throughout the day, you can meet the requirement of two and a half hours per week around your schedule.
•Block out your exercise time on your calendar.
Diet
Along with physical fitness, ultimate health and wellness hinges on a healthy and balanced diet. People who eat well experience a variety of health benefits, better weight maintenance, lower chances of developing diabetes or heart disease and lower instances of illness. I follow ‘No GPS’ – that is No Grain, Potatoes or Sugar.
Before you look to cut things from your diet, work on adding healthy choices to your meals and snacks. Take a proactive positive approach as you make changes to what you eat. Drink a non-carbonated beverage instead of a pop or soda; you can choose unsweetened herbal tea which still provides flavor, lemon water or plain water. Select brown rice instead of white rice with your meals. Just as with exercise, small changes add up to a complete transition to a more healthful lifestyle.
Keys to Success
•Choose one or two small changes to incorporate into your diet each month.
•Experiment – Eating healthy needs to be enjoyable for you to make it a part of your lifestyle. Try foods and a variety of ways to prepare them and enjoy the ones you like.
•Keep your daily menu varied so you don’t get bored with your food choices and go off track.
Mind-Body Connection
Our emotional state can affect our food choices, our level of physical activity and our ability to maintain positive social engagement. Foods high in sugar and