Your brain and body function best when you choose to get up and get moving.
This Brain Fitness Checklist provides some suggestions to get you started and have been chosen because they have shown the biggest impact on improving a particular lifestyle factor. Identify one or two tips from the list to get started. Then slowly try new ones, as you work toward building brain healthy lifestyle habits.
Here are few ways to incorporate Physical Activity into your regular routine…
Start here:
Learn how to keep your brain healthy through exercise and explore different kinds of brain healthy exercises.
Try a 7 minute standing workout or an 11 minute workout to get started.
Take the stairs instead of the elevator/escalator, if you can safely do so for one week.
Take a short walk after a meal.
Choose physical activities that you enjoy doing to help motivate you.
Challenge yourself more:
Set a timer to get up and move for 5 minutes every hour. Going to get a snack doesn’t count.
Try to get 2.5 hours (30 minutes X 5 days a week) of moderate exercise a week and combine with some strength training and flexibility.
Try mind-body exercise (e.g., yoga, tai chi, etc.) to improve physical and mental health and boost your mood (e.g., yoga, tai chi, etc.).
Do isometric exercises when watching a tv/movie.
Combine physical activity with other brain health activities (learning a new sport, etc.).
Learn more about physical activity and brain health; take the 1 hour course and get access to your personal physical activity toolkit. (Log into your Brain Health Vital Signs dashboard to access this course).
Tips for getting started
Brain health challenges in the “start here” section are designed to be implemented by anyone, and will be a great starting point, especially if you scored in the Could Improve or Need to Improve categories in a specific lifestyle factor. Other challenges might be a little harder to do. In fact, you might feel resistance about adopting them at first because you may know they will be difficult to maintain for a long time.
Once you have tried 2 or 3 successfully from the “start here” section, challenge yourself with the additional challenges below. Learn more about physical activity and brain health; take the 1 hour course and get access to your personal toolkit.
