That's Fit

I'm reading Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen right now. In one of the beginning chapters, the main character discusses how when you're a child you can pinpoint your age to the exact month, when you're in your 20's your age springs to mind rapidly when asked, but when you hit your 30's sometimes you think of yourself as a year or two younger than you actually are. Denial? Maybe. Or maybe it's just the beginning stages of your mental fitness starting to slip.

Exercising your mind is just as important as your physical fitness. If you want to check your mental prowess, try out this fun brainteaser quiz on Good Housekeeping. The test is adapted from a Mensa quiz and it's not easy. But it's a good workout for your mind.

I recently started running again. Since completing the Kona Marathon six years ago this month, my stride has been very sporadic. I bought my first house, had my first kid, moved across the country and bought my second house. I lost my focus and began getting a workout in any way I could and with a variety of activities.

That hasn't been a bad thing, necessarily. But I realized a while back how much I missed the mental benefits of running. It may be hard on your knees, but it's sure great for your head. All exercise is supposed to be. But I've never experienced anything like the clarity, absence of depression and pure elation that running induces.

And for those of you out there that think running isn't for you or have tried to run a mile and given up, please reconsider. Save for those dreaded laps in junior high gym class, I had never incorporated running into my active life before training for that marathon. In my experience, the payoff is well worth the painful beginnings. Pretty soon, you'll hit your stride. And it doesn't matter if it's a slow one, either. Habitual marathoners are a whole lot thinner and faster than I am, but I've got a head that's every bit as healthy as theirs.

FitSpirit explores the mind-body connection and the intangible benefits we gain from our efforts to stay physically fit.

Let's talk sanity. I'm not talking legal sanity here. I'm talking peace of mind, emotional balance, a general state of mental wellness. It's not so hard to attain, you know. Here's how.

• Say it like it is. Expressing your feelings appropriately is key. Let people close to you know when something is bothering you, when you're angry, when you're sad. Keeping feelings bottled up takes extra energy, can weigh on your mind, and can cause problems in your relationships and at work or school.

• Think it out. Since emotions can be powerful, give yourself some time to think before you say or do something you might regret. Allow yourself a cool-down period if anger takes you over. Let your tears dry a bit before you begin talking about your sadness. Give yourself the gift of a right frame of mind.

• Balance it out. Make time for things you enjoy, focus on the positive things in your life, pamper yourself, and see how the stresses in your schedule don't seem so bad.

• Take care of you. Physical health can affect emotional health -- so take care of your body by exercising regularly, eating healthy, and getting enough sleep. Don't abuse drugs or alcohol either.

Mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder are very hard for psychiatrists to diagnose sometimes. It's a subjective procedure requiring the patient to tell the professional about his or her symptoms. After that, the doctor must give a judgment which ultimately diagnoses the patient.

But what if medical professionals were able to test the blood and detect whether or not a person had bipolar disorder or depression? This could, theoretically, eliminate the need for subjective judgments on people's mental state. However, some folks believe this is too accurate.

The ethical concerns stem from the fact that ten genes have been shown to reveal a person's mental status. Personality characteristics are controversial in medicine, and a test that can allegedly tell a person if they're unstable could cause a bigger rift. However, if used properly, this seems like a more effective way to treat patients of psychiatry. We'll have to keep an eye on this for future developments!

Overall fitness is about more than just your body, and although being physically fit will certainly help you do better at work (more energy, more confidence) focusing on your mental fitness will give you an even bigger boost. Better yet, why not strive for both? Here are some easy ideas for sharpening your mind (and body):



Get your dance on (or your kick)
Exercise is great for both your physical and mental health, but when it comes to getting more brain power not all exercises are created equal. The more complex the exercise the more stimulating and beneficial it is for your mind, so things like dance or martial arts classes are the way to go.

Scientists are discovering that even though lead has been phased out of our environment, those elderly who were exposed decades ago are still feeling the effects. Apparently lead exposure back then has a strong link to their mental decline now.

This flies in the face of what many considered to be a "natural aging" of the brain's decline. However, researchers are quick to note that this is not the sole cause of mental decline as the years wear on. What they are saying is that this exposure has accumulated in their bodies, and still affects their health decades later by causing the brain to work like it's five years older. We live in a time where almost everything we touch is treated with a chemical. But the problem back then was that they didn't realize the full effects of lead.

Thankfully environmental levels dropped dramatically starting in the mid-70's so that by 1990 the amount of lead in the average American had dropped by 80 percent. However, lead in the bone which was contracted in the past can still be measured today (everyone has some level of it in their bodies). More research is needed to figure out the mechanism by which lead stays in the system and how it influences brain aging. Hopefully they can pin it down and cut lead out of our every day interactions even more.

FitSpirit explores the mind-body connection and the intangible benefits we gain from our efforts to stay physically fit.

If your mental health isn't in tip-top shape, chances are your physical health will eventually lag behind. Keeping your mind fit, then, is a sure way to keep on top of your physical self. Try these five ideas for getting a handle on your mental toughness.

• Take control of the stress in your life. It may boost your "good" cholesterol (HDL), say presenters at the annual American Psychological Association meeting.
  
  

• Determine whether or not your home is harboring dampness and mold. These conditions are linked to an increased risk of depression.
  
  

• Fix the little stressors in your life, like leaky faucets. According to Dr. Micheal Roizen, M.D., these minor annoyances can age us by about eight years.
  
  

• One in seven women suffers from depression before, during, and after pregnancy. Talk to your doctor if your baby blues last for two weeks or longer.
  
  

• Find healthy outlets for channelling your anger. Suppressing it could make you four times more likely to die prematurely.

As a general rule talking all the time is considered a slightly negative habit, but if you love to chit chat you might be doing yourself some good: research shows that small talk helps memory. Just 10 minutes of talking with somebody face to face was shown to be just as effective on memory and intellectual performance as spending the same time doing crosswords or Sudoku puzzles.

So if you're not a puzzle person and you've been frustrated because all the "boost your memory" stuff seems to center around doing puzzles, math, or the like -- good news! Now you can talk your way to better mental health!

The world is filling up with people, and that means competition in all kinds of different areas of our lives. But maybe one of the most noticeable, and the most stressful, is the competition that we face in our careers while we're at work. If you're not always on the top of your game and blowing everybody away with your amazing abilities then there's somebody right behind you who ready, willing, and waiting to do just that.

So how do you deal with the pressure? Unfortunately a growing number of working people are looking to boost brain power, productivity, and alertness in all the wrong ways. Sports (most recently baseball) have always struggled with keeping drugs and other unnatural means of performance enhancement out of the picture, but now it seems the trend is moving into the working class. People are doping up in the hopes of doing better at their jobs.

As the end of the year quickly approaches us, many of us will be resolving to work on our bodies in 2008. But working our mind is just as important--after all, can you imagine what life would be like if you lost it? The key to aging well not only lies in your physical state--it lies in your mental capacity too. So make sure you work your mind too.

Here are some suggestions:

• Use it or you'll lose it. Work on your mental strength by taking on new tasks. Take up a new hobby, sign up for a class or commit to doing a crossword or sudoku puzzle each night. Watching a new TV show or movie doesn't count.
  
• Rest. You need your rest -- make sure you're getting at least 8 hours of sleep a night, and when you feel tired, take some downtime.
  
• Find a way to limit stress. Research shows that stress hormones hinder the function or parts of the brain associated with learning and memory. But this isn't a permanent state -- drop your stress levels and you brain will return to normal.

Are your holidays off to a merry start? If not, you're in good company. Respondents in a recent Mental Health America study indicated this cheery season is downright stressful.

Forty percent of survey participants said finances cause them too much worry, and 34 percent feel they have too many competing seasonal activities in their lives. Time with family, either too much or not enough, is stressing 17 percent. And 28 percent have anxiety about overindulgence or lack of exercise.

Never fear. Here are some stress busters intended to help you steal back some of your sanity.

To ease money woes, sell some of your rarely used holiday gifts from last year on eBay or scale back on the number of gifts you buy. To minimize time commitments, kindly say "no thanks" to some parties and events or drop by for a short bit and then go hang out with family. To combat cookie guilt, vow to walk 30 minutes for every treat you eat. And for the family members who drive you nutty, focus on the positive traits each person in your clan has to offer. Surely, there's something redeeming about those aunts and uncles you so rarely see.

Want more brain power? Who doesn't! But who knew it could be as simple as using your other hand to control your computer mouse?

By switching your mouse and mouse pad to the other side you'll be forcing yourself to use your non-dominant hand, which means all the information will go through your brain in a different way and the neurological connections between the two halves of your brain will get stronger. Research has shown that ambidextrous people have (on average) 10% more nerve fibers joining the two halves of their brain together.

I don't know about you, but my brain can use all the help I can give it -- more fibers and stronger connections? Yes, lets do that!

For tips and hints on how to make the switch check this out.

Whether you support the current Iraq war or not, it's hard not to adamantly support the soldiers that return from the battlefield. Are we not a country founded on freedom principles? We sure are, but when those soldiers take off the uniform and try to relax back into a civilian lifestyle, physical ailments sometimes are the least of their problems.

Thoughts of suicide, depression and other emotional maladies plague thousands of returning soldiers these days, and the apparently lack of care being shown to many of them are downright disturbing. Why is this?

Not only are some of these heroes physical casualties, but more and more are becoming economic casualties if they come back to attempt a normal life in the country they've served. Whereas some citizens poach on the system to pay for anything and everything, the welfare of soldiers stands on the line, says experts. To me, it's not a tough decision.

Is there a link between autism and a specific diet? In many cases, parents seem to attach a reduced rate of autism symptoms with a gluten-free and dairy-reduced diet.

Although the vaccine preservative Thimerosal has been recently shunned as a possible cause of autism, other environmental factors are now going to be studied extensively.

This is a good thing -- the amount of chemicals in modern foods as well as the amount of genetic manipulation in many foods needs to be studied as a possible cause of many ailments. Autism could be right up there.

A new study was released this week that highlighted a scary disconnect in the doctor-patient relationship. Some physicians -- in fact, large numbers of them -- are failing to recognize suicide signs and symptoms in patients. These are often the neediest patients when it comes to requiring assistance, so it's distressing to hear that there is a lack of help in abundance here.

Although the study involved actresses who visited various various physicians to show signs of despair and hopelessness, many doctors failed to ask these study participants about their mental state as it related to potential suicide risk. Only 36 percent of doctors went there.

Are doctors not trained that well at probing for possible suicide risks, or are they so hurried with a flurry of patients that they just don't take the time? It's true that primary care physicians are not psychiatrists, although the study stated that 75 percent of people who commit suicide visited a primary-care provider in the 30 days prior.