A Research Paper By Cheryl Colvin, Health and Wellness Coach, UNITED STATES
Mental Fitness and Physical Fitness
The term mindset is one that we hear often these days in various circles. As consumers of the thousands of internet bytes of information and TikTok video clips we are bombarded with how we can change our own mindsets, have a positive mindset, adopt a new mindset, and simply change. It is almost like you can try on a new mindset like a coat! However, changing one’s mindset takes action and discipline to happen.
Throughout my coaching education, I kept returning to this word and truly believe that if people change their mindsets in a positive direction they will be on a path to overall wellness. Wellness encompasses both physical and mental health. While both of these are important, my interest lies in uncovering how physical fitness and wellness can strengthen an individual’s mindset/mental fitness, which can improve overall brain health and a person’s coping mechanisms, self-confidence, productivity, relationships, and overall happiness.
The Link Between Mental Fitness and Physical Fitness
Mental fitness as defined by Dr. Andrew Miki, a CBT psychologist, is “a state of well-being and having a positive sense of how we feel, think, and act, like how physical fitness refers to the ability of your own body systems to work together efficiently to allow you to be healthy and perform activities of daily living” (Bartkiewicz, 2021). This ability to strengthen your mental fitness is a practice that requires people to break patterns of behavior and develop habits to view life through a lens of positivity.
Daniel Siegel’s research in his book Mindsight explains that neuroplasticity is a concept that the brain is malleable and shifts to rewire so that what it does often does well. Siegel suggests tools such as mindfulness, exercise, and meditation as tools that can help us slow down and give us a chance to notice our behaviors and begin to shift our thinking patterns.
Using meditation as a tool to allow thoughts to enter the mind and leave the mind, takes great patience. Neuroscience suggests that when energy and information flow in the various circuits of the brain we generate the neural correlates and mental experience.
For example, the more we feed negative thoughts and behaviors the more those neural pathways become strengthened and one’s mindset steers toward negative thought patterns. Evidence of mindfulness “supports the notion that being aware of the present moment without grasping onto judgments does indeed improve immune function, enhancing a sense of equanimity and clarity” (Siegel, 2007).
In my coaching practice, it is my goal to help my clients use self-care tools such as physical fitness, meditation, and breathing to strengthen their mindsets. The power of movement stimulates neuron synapses in the brain. “Aerobic exercise has been proven to reduce anxiety and depression. These improvements in mood are proposed to be caused by exercise-induced increase in blood circulation to the brain and by an influence on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and, thus, on the physiologic reactivity to stress” (Siegel, 2007).
Physical fitness improves one’s mental health and often allows an individual to become more confident in their ability to make something happen in their lives. Self-esteem is often improved which can lead to overall life satisfaction. When people see the benefits of physical movement, they are often encouraged to continue. Even though it’s easy to opt for the couch rather than exercise, it’s also easy to feed negative thoughts and behavior patterns that aren’t good for you and evoke sadness, worry, or anxiety. When we don’t practice daily movement, our mental fitness is compromised.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta is a leader in the field of brain health and mental fitness. “Exercise boosts blood flow to your brain, tamps down inflammation, and promotes the growth of new brain cells.” One of my favorite suggestions Dr. Gupta endorses is to take a brisk walk with a friend and talk about your problems. “It’s a brain trifecta: moving, socializing, and reducing stress” (Gupta & Loberg, 2021).
Encouraging my clients to move daily even if it’s for fifteen minutes can go a long way in their overall health. It is my hope to offer clients a walking coaching session that can meet this trifecta that Gupta discusses. A chance to talk, and to be heard can stimulate the brain to improve health and achieve a person’s wellness goals.
Meditation is another tool that is useful to improve one’s mental fitness. The practice of meditation asks people to focus their attention on the present moment. The person attempts to eliminate the stream of jumbled thoughts that crowd the mind and cause stress. The suggestion of meditation as a self-improvement tool can be a practice that can help a coaching client improve overall wellness. Our thoughts don’t define us as humans but all too often we become burdened by what’s inside our own heads leading to a fractured mindset. Meditation is a practice that helps us clean our minds and gives us a productivity boost. The long-term benefits of meditation elevate brain activity within the cerebral regions associated with relaxation, happiness, self-awareness, and other positive emotions.
If this practice can be instituted by a coaching client, it is another self-care tool that can increase mental fitness and lead to overall improved health. My coaching practice, F.L.O.W. Coaching (Focused Learning on Wellness) strives to meet clients where they are with their wellness and work towards their goals to improve. A powerful exercise for them would be to sit in a comfortable place and quiet their minds. Calming music can be played and I will suggest that they treat the hundreds of thoughts entering their minds like leaves in a river. All of these leaves eventually flow downstream. This mental practice encourages the client to let the leaves (thoughts) go. It is up to the person whether or not they will pick them up and what emotions they might attach to them. There is a myriad of self-care tools that can be employed by clients to improve their overall well-being and be on the road to achieving their goals and improving mental wellness. Practices such as taking a bath, listening to calming music, and keeping a gratitude journal can be useful in improving mental fitness.
This research paper is an attempt to look at how people can improve their daily habits to be on the road to better mental health and fitness. What can a person do daily to be well? Self-care can mean simply having a cup of coffee while watching the sunrise. Taking the time to employ physical movement is the ultimate practice to fire the brain to create new pathways and break old patterns of behavior. The exploration of this topic has illuminated how physical fitness and wellness overall can help individuals develop life skills to better manage their mental health and employ various techniques that work on a daily basis to recharge and decrease life’s stressors.
References
Bartkiewicz, D. (2021, November 3). Mental fitness explained by a CBT psychologist. MentalFlow.
Gupta, S., & Loberg, K. (2021). Keep sharp: Build a better brain at any age. Simon & Schuster.
Siegel D. J. (2007). Mindfulness training and neural integration: differentiation of distinct streams of awareness and the cultivation of well-being. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 2(4), 259–263.