You’ve got a long day ahead of you, filled with decisions to make and things to remember.
You will be better able to cope and conquer whatever the day brings your way if you start with some morning exercises.
30 minutes of moderate exercise in the morning gets the blood to pumping and oxygen flowing.
The increased amount of blood and oxygen to the brain helps to improve cognitive function throughout the day.
Take a dose of exercise in the morning along with your vitamins and see how much it will improve your decision making and short term memory throughout the day.
Take a Walk
A 30-minute walk, either outdoors or on the treadmill, is an ideal form of exercise and provides a multitude of health benefits.
The brain and the body benefit from a daily morning walk, plus increases lifespan and helps improve quality of life by staving off chronic illnesses and reducing pain and stress.
A treadmill in front of a TV or streaming device will allow you to get caught up on what happened in the world overnight while you walk to improve your body and brain.
Jogging is not necessary to improve cognitive function, a moderate, steady pace of around 3 miles per hour will increase heart rate so an extra boost of blood and oxygen will be carried to the brain.
Moderate exercise is believed to stimulate the brain to create more cells that carry information and cognitive function is improved as a result.
If you lack the motivation to exercise, a partner will help keep you on the right track.
Enlist the companionship and accountability of a walking buddy or early morning exercise partner to help keep you moving when you really just want to sleep an extra 30 minutes.
Brain Breaks
Researchers from the University of Western Australia discovered how morning exercise improves brain function all day, and it has created a mission for them.
Most of the world’s population leads a sedentary lifestyle.
We all sit too much and that’s not good for overall health and well being.
The researchers also discovered that 3 minutes of exercise every 30 minutes will help us get refocused on the task at hand, refresh our mind and body, and re-energize for the work we’re doing.
These 3-minute bouts of exercise have been dubbed ‘Brain Breaks’ and have already been implemented in Australian schools with excellent results.
Students who participate in the 3-minute brain breaks have higher test scores than students who don’t take brain breaks.
Studies have shown that sitting for prolonged periods of time diminish cognitive function.
After sitting for hours in front of a computer screen our ability to problem solve, make decisions and remember what happened a few hours earlier diminish considerably.
By mid-afternoon, all we want is a nap, not another problem to solve or report to write.
This mid-afternoon slump and loss of productivity can be avoided with morning exercise and multiple 3-minute brain breaks throughout the day.
Types of Exercise
Types of morning exercises and break activities are left up to the individual. While walking is universally recommended because of the accessibility and affordability of walking, there are unlimited types of exercise that a person can do to improve decision making and memory.
Any type of exercise that keeps you moving for a consecutive 30 minutes and increases the heart rate will improve brain function all day.
Swimming, biking, aerobics or dancing will work as well as a brisk walk.
It’s also good to change up the exercise routine occasionally to prevent boredom, so having a couple of different morning exercises is a good idea.
Exercises for brain breaks should vary throughout the day, but should also include some type of physical activity.
Simply standing up, stretching, taking a brisk walk to the water fountain and engaging someone in a one-minute conversation can provide you with the 3 minutes of re-energizing that your brain needs to refocus.
For people who work on computers all day, there is a rule of 20-20-20 that will help prevent eye strain and will be easy to incorporate into a brain break.
Look at something the is 20 feet away from you every 20 minutes for 20 seconds.
Keep your brain, eyes and body healthy by taking a small dose of exercise several times a day and a big dose first thing in the morning.
Improved Concentration
So many thoughts to think and so little time, that seems to be how our brain behaves at times.
Jumping from one thought to another, unable to stay focused on one thing, unable to bring a task to completion due to lack of concentration, we all have those days.
But we can have fewer of those days if we develop a routine of morning exercise.
The demands of life do keep our minds and bodies multi-tasking all the time.
However, there are some things that demand our full attention and concentration.
The results of the research conducted by the Australian team of researchers has shown that morning exercise and brain breaks will improve concentration, lengthen attention span, improve visual learning, increase short term memory, improve executive function like decision making and improve motors skills.
If you had the last appointment of the day with a professional, such as a physician or surgeon, you would hope he or she had exercised that morning and had several brain breaks during the day.
Those things could help ensure that you would be getting the same quality of care at the last appointment of the day as the person who had the first appoint that morning.
You can give yourself that mental edge as well through exercise.
Finish the day as well as you started it, regardless of what profession you are in.
Even in retirement, we want to have a sharp short term memory and be able to make our own decisions.
Exercising every morning can help ensure these things for us.
