Mental Exercise: Definition and Meaning
Mental exercise can be stated as a method of enhancing brain power and capabilities and the ability to concentrate.
Mental exercises help in keeping our Mental health at a “mentally fit” state, which on the other hand increases our reasoning capacity, our thinking capabilities, our cognition, and our concentration and makes us mentally more fit and stable. It is a process of making one’s brain sharp, however, this doesn’t mean that one has to be studious all the time or they have to keep solving various brain games but activities that involve critical thinking, logical reasoning and concentration can also play a vital role in sharpening our brain and keeping us mentally fit and active.
For example: Playing challenging games, doing activities like learning a new skill or learning an instrument that requires our active cognition, etc.
In short, we can say that any exercise that keeps our brain active can come under the umbrella of mental exercise.
Ways to Be Mentally Fit: –
Physical exercise: Being physically fit is very important not just for our physical health but also for our mental health. Exercise is one of the mental exercises as a physically fit person is at a lower chance of developing any kind of mental health issues in comparison to a person who is not physically active.
Mapping: Making maps requires active cognition, attention, and retention. One can draw the map of his/her house to its educational institution or his/her country map and then compare it with the actual map of that place. Now drawing a map is like a mental exercise as it requires or rather to say it demands our brain to think and work on it and this on the other hand trains our brain in a positive way.
Learning new skills: Learning new skills like dancing, singing, acting, or playing a new instrument this all requires our brain to work, and hence learning a new skill can become beneficial in two ways first one is getting to learn something new and is being able to add a new skill to his/her accomplishments and talents and second he/she is training his/her brain for new challenges.
Socialization: Human beings are social animals and getting socialize with others can have a very good impact on our mental health. And the studies conducted also reflect the same.
Meditation: Meditation is a way to know your inner self-concept, your inner self-image. Meditation has tremendous benefits not for only our physical health but also for our mental health. If done in the right way it can enhance our brain efficiency, our concentration, our memory retention capacity, etc. And the best thing the only thing one requires to meditate is a peaceful environment and a little commitment to do meditation on a daily basis.
Playing challenging games: Games that have challenging levels, tricks, and hidden clues or that require you to think of the possible ways to finish it or one that challenges you to think about “what next” can work as a great exercise for your mental health.
Teaching new skills: The way learning skills help in improving mental health, in the same way, teaching a new skill to someone can prove to be a good mental exercise for your brain. Teaching expands the spectrum of one’s learning and it helps us to rectify one’s mistake, improve it and then again teach that to our students.
Music: Listening to music or composing music both are very good for our mental health. Listening to one’s favorite music boosts our mood, it improves our concentration, and makes us attentive at times when we are feeling lethargic while studying. And composing one’s own music is not a cup of tea for everyone and it requires the knowledge of music and critical thinking skills of how to apply that knowledge so that many people like his/her music.
Sleeping: Sleep is one of the essential parts of our daily routine. Good sleep can prove to be so helpful for us as it develops our memory recall, decreases our mental fatigue, and improves our attention. Good sleep keeps us in an active State and we don’t feel lethargic. However, a bad sleep cycle can lead to a dull mental and physical state.
Visualization of concepts: Being able to visualize things and concepts not only help us to learn them in a better and fast way but also acts as a mental exercise for our brain. It trains our brain to think and connect different parts of the text with each other and think of a way to learn and retain it in a better way.
Slowing down: Being slowed down doesn’t mean that one has to completely stop doing things in life and just be tense and stressed free but it means to be able to take time out from the busy routine for oneself and just spend that time with one’s own company, knowing own self in a better way, analyzing the things going in life and looking for ways to handle the chaotic life in a better way.
Set goals: Now these goals can be either on a daily basis or weekly or monthly or yearly that depends on you what matters is to design and set goals according to your environmental demands and your capabilities. Now settings goals mean that you are challenging your brain and body to work on that goal and this can prove to be a great exercise for both mental and physical health.
Hobby: Everyone has something as a hobby now can be gardening or traveling or reading it can be anything, the point is to work on your hobby and make it better, engage in it let your mind and body improve in your hobby, think of ways to make your hobby more meaningful to you and to others. For example- If one likes reading, he/she can start a youtube channel and provide people the summary, and the main key concepts of that book, or you can become a book narrator or a freelancer content writer, now thinking about this again requires our brain to work.
Benefits of mental health exercise:
- It increases our self-esteem and confidence.
- Makes us feel better.
- Improves concentration.
- Improves logical and critical reasoning and thinking skills.
- Reduces the risk of developing mental disorders.
- Reduces the risk of anxiety.
- Helps in better decision-making.
- Helps in better retention and learning of data.
- Reduces daily life stress and helps in better dealing with the stressors.
- The energy level is increased.
- Well, being is increased.
- The mood is uplifted.
- Reduces the risk of physical diseases like cardiovascular diseases.
- Helps in putting in a routine.
- Helps in socializing with others.
- Improves one’s mindset
Conclusion
In conclusion, we can state that being both mentally and physically fit for an individual is very important as both mental health and physical health are important aspects of a human being, and being careless in any of them can disturb the full homeostasis of one’s body. There is no hard and fast rule for practicing mental exercises it totally depends on you on how you want to train your brain In a healthy way and more it more productive.
