North Star Mental Fitness Blog

Energize Your Brain

A person with mental fitness recognizes the importance of energizing his or her brain.  Brain stimulation through cognitive exercises and training is one way to energize and develop a healthy brain.

Martha Kerr from Reuters reported on a study entitled " Exercise Improves Brain Flow and Older Adults".  In older individuals,

The researchers reported "exercise is associated with an increase in the number of large-diameter vessels in the cerebral region of the brain and with an increase in blood flow in the three major cerebral arteries".

Also the researchers noted "narrowing and loss of small vessels may contribute to cognitive decline. This area of the brain controls functions that include consciousness, memory, initiation of activity, emotional response, language and word associations".

The study included 12 healthy adults with no cognitive decline or psychiatric diagnoses.  The adults were between the ages of 60 to 80.  Six of the adults had exercise for over three hours a week for over a 10 year..  The other six adults had exercised less than one hour a week during the same time.

"Active subjects had more small blood vessels and greater cerebral blood flow than inactive individuals", reported the researcher from the University of North Carolina, Feraz Rahman.

"We also found that a loss of small vessels is not an issue in active adults, because the average vessel size increases and blood flow is positively correlated with radius. However, in inactive adults, the number of small vessels is an issue."

Rahman's group concluded: "An aerobic exercise program may be a vital part of healthy aging by preventing the narrowing and loss of small cerebral vessels and consequent decrease in cerebral blood flow."

If we want to be mentally and physically fit, it is important to stimulate our brains with regular physical and cognitive exercises.

Remember, We Will Live within the Mind Created by Our Choices!

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

New Year's Courage

New Year's Eve has passed and now we are in new year.  Perhaps you made New Year's Resolutions Now Is the time reaffirm our resolutions and courageously commit to living our resolutions for this year.

Now is the time to think of our lives and our resolutions.  Let us put our specific resolutions within the bigger picture of taking care of ourselves throughout the next year. 

At this time of year we can review our lives and realize how important it is to take care of ourselves. 

Lynn Bufka, Ph.D. good making New Year's resolutions in perspective when she said:

 “Remember, it is not the extent of the change that matters, but rather the act of recognizing that lifestyle change is important and working toward it, one step at a time.”

Lynn's quotation appeared in the AP Help Center article on Making Your New Year's Resolutions Stick.

Realizing what lifestyle changes you want to make and what lifestyle changes you do not want to make it is what I mean by taking care of yourself during the next year. 

It takes real courage to be willing to look at one's lifestyle with the intent of making beneficial changes for ourselves. 

It takes real courage to realize that we need to change what we've identified. 

It takes real courage begin to make the changes that we've identified.

It takes real courage to make the changes one day at a time. 

It takes real courage to make the changes, when we are tired, feeling miserable and circumstances are per to be overwhelmingly against us. 

It takes real courage to make the changes and feel good about ourselves on a daily basis, while we are progressing towards a long-range goal.

It takes real courage to reach our goals.

It takes real courage to continue the changes after we reached our goals.

As we progress through the year 2009, let us go with courage to take care of ourselves on a daily basis and actualize our resolutions.

Remember, We Live within the Environment Created by Our Choices!

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

 

The Power of Choice Making

As we enter the year 2009, let's remember the power of choice making. No matter what choices we make in the year 2009, our choices will be extremely powerful!

Do You Know Why?

Have you ever wondered why people exercise?

Do you know why they continue to exercise?

In my last post, Do You Believe That Your Life Experiences Have Made You Mentally Fit, I emphasized that life experiences, although grueling at times, do not make us physically or mentally fit.

In order to become mentally or physically fit, it is necessary to go beyond the experiences of everyday living and perform exercises on a regular basis.

So what are the general benefits for becoming mentally and physically fit?

First of all, mental and physical fitness can make us healthier.  Don't we all want to be healthier?

Secondly, mental and physical fitness training makes us stronger for managing our everyday lives.  Mental and physical fitness training can make us stronger for coping with the stresses and demands of everyday living.

Successful managing of life experiences will not necessarily make us physically and mentally stronger.  In contrast, successful mental and physical fitness training will make us stronger in managing life experiences.

If you want to be physically stronger in coping with everyday life experiences, then commit to a physical fitness program.

If you want to be mentally and emotionally stronger for coping with everyday life experiences, then commit to a mental fitness program like The North Star Mental Fitness Program.

Remember, You Live within Environment Created by Your Choices!

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

Chronic Pain Can Change Your Brain

"Chronic Pain Harms the Brain" was the title of a research study reported by Dante Chialvo, lead author and associate research professor of physiology at the Feinberg School at Northwestern University.

Now there is evidence that people just don't suffer from chronic pain in the injured or ill parts of their bodies.  When people have chronic pain, there can be changes in the brain.  People with chronic pain can also experience a breakdown in their brain functioning.

Now there may be a physiological explanation to account for pain sufferer's chronic poor sleep, depression, anxiety and their inability to make decisions. 

These symptoms are not only associated with the source of pain in the body.  These symptoms can be associated with changes in the brain associated with chronic pain. 

When people have chronic pain, they may have a dysfunction in the cortex of the brain associated with the emotions.  When there is chronic pain, the emotional part of the brain doesn't turn off.

"Chialvo hypothesized the subsequent changes in wiring may make it harder for you to make a decision or be in a good mood to get up in the morning. It could be that pain produces depression and the other reported abnormalities because it disturbs the balance of the brain as a whole."

Brain Research Shows Why It's so Hard to Get Free from the Past

In sports, family life and in areas of self-actualization, we want to become free from our painful and embarrassing past failures, shortcomings and psychic representations of these events in our minds.

Wouldn't it be nice if we did not have psychic representations of bad and painful experiences in our minds?

Wouldn't it be nice if we never rehashed our errors and disappointments?

Wouldn't it be nice if our past failures, insecurities, fears and guilt didn't capture our minds and influence us in the future?

Now psychological researchers have shown as reported in Science Daily:

Forgiveness Is a Choice

When your focus is on taking care of yourself, you'll have real choices to feel angry and hurt or you can make the choice to forgive.  It is important for you to determine in he specific situations whether it's best for you to remain angry and hurt or to forgive.

There are benefits that derive from being angry and hurt just like there are benefits that derive from forgiving.

I read an article from Newswise entitled "Learning to Forgive May Improve Well-Being".  This article appeared in Mayo Clinic Women's Health Source. 

Newswise wrote "Holding a grudge appears to affect the cardiovascular and nervous systems".  Other research findings were also reported.

Why Quitting Smoking Doesn't Work

- Each day, nearly 6,000 children under 18 years of age start smoking
- Nearly 2,000 will become regular smokers.
- Annually 800,000 new smokers join the ranks of the diseased.

Approximately 90 percent of smokers begin smoking before the age of 21. According to the latest smoking statistics in 2001, a national survey of high school students revealed that the overall prevalence of current cigarette use was 28 percent. Nearly 20 percent of 12th graders, 12 percent of 10th graders and 5.5 percent of 8th graders smoke cigarettes daily. These statistics provided by Credible Reviews.

For more statistics on smoking in the text of smoking, I refer you to Smoking Statistics provided by the World Health Organization.

All these statistics indicate the need for people to stop smoking.  The reality is clear.  Smoking is bad for health and the health of others.

Although it is realistically and practically important to stop smoking, motivating yourself to "quit" or "stop" smoking is likely to fail for the following reasons: 

Wrong Solutions For Stopping Smoking Create Relapse!

I received a wonderful comment regarding my blog, Re-wiring Urges.  Lora wrote:

"I LOVED your post on re-wiring the urge to smoke.  I'm a smoker and have quit way too many times to count.  One time lasted 15 years.  So...what else do you have in your bag of tricks for smokers?  I'm all ears!"

Thank you Lora for e-mailing me such a nice comment.  After thinking for a few minutes, I reached into my bag of tricks.  Then my mind wandered back to Lora's dilemma.

Lora's dilemma is well-known to many smokers.  The dilemma is, why do people relapse?  Why can't people maintain a state of quitting?  Why can't people stop smoking forever?

What I found in my bag tricks for non-smokers may surprise you or even shock you.

Can People Be Addicted to Feelings?

Feelings: One of my clients asked me a very surprising question.  She is an attractive, very intelligent woman who has just gone through a painful separation.  Her ex-boyfriend has made it painfully obvious that he has moved on in his life with another woman.  During their relationship, he sometimes treated her very badly.

With tears in her eyes, she said "I love him".  In spite of everything that he has done to her, she feels that she still loves him.  In spite of all of the support and encouragement of her friends and family to accept the breakup, she still loves him.

A little later she asked the question.  A very profound question.  A question I never thought about before.  She asked "can people be addicted to feelings"?