Healthy Mind, Healthy Body

PBS has a pledge-drive special program called Sight and Sound 2. The show talks about the science of seeing and hearing and how it relates to our understanding of the world. Even more specifically, the program talked about the importance of maintaining one’s sight and hearing abilities throughout one’s lifetime. Often as we age, our senses diminish. Yet, we can take preventative measures to ensure that doesn’t happen or at least prolong its onset. One of the remedies the program suggested was that people interested in restoring or maintaining their senses should engage in exercises that challenge those senses.

To increase mobility and flexibility, one would engage in dance or yoga. To increase vision, one might make a conscious effort to look closer or farther away to strengthen the eyes. I have taken up dance to challenge my senses. Initially, I took it up for exercise, but I realize that the task of simply learning new moves does wonders for my brain. It’s an excellent activity that works in tandem with two of my objectives: weight loss and learning about the world. The weight loss part is easy to understand, but helping me to learn more about the world may not be as clear. The way I see it, it’s a matter of mens sana en corpo sana, which I believe is Greek or such for “a healthy mind in a healthy body.” If your mind or body is weak, it takes away from your ability to learn. So doing things to train my mind, will in turn help me become more effective at learning.