Get Out

We humans spend most of our time indoors, under artificial lighting and most of that lighting is highly efficient fluorescent tubes and LED bulbs.  But, efficient hardly ever means better. 

We can’t sense it, but the flicker from CFL and LED lights can lead to eye strain, headaches, stress, poor concentration, and fatigue.  In fact, according to an article from the National Library of Medicine, a 2010 study found that exposure to fluorescent lighting causes a heightened central nervous system arousal.  Not good. 

LED bulbs may be even more irritating to the eyes and brain, whereas although not detectable, LEDs dim by 100% with each flicker, while fluorescents dim about 35%.

Beyond that, there’s artificially conditioned air, electronic white noise, wifi signals, computer screens, and lots of sitting. First-graders, high school students, college students, and most adults all the way through retirement age. 

So, what do we do when we’ve spent most of our day in this environment?  We go to the gym where there’s artificial fluorescent lighting, reconditioned air, electronic white noise, wifi signals, and even more screens to stare at.  And, unless we’re on a treadmill, we’re probably sitting on some machine. 

Hmm … we need a better place to decompress and recharge, and it’s outside.  In Florida?  Yes, even in Florida where we love our air-conditioning. 

Just being in a natural environment has been shown to decrease tension, blood pressure, anxiety, and depression. Natural sunlight elevates mood, happiness, positivity, and mental health.  Fresh air raises serotonin levels, which helps regulate natural sleep cycles, and it’s an anti-depressant.

And that’s just being outdoors but, add exercise and movement and we’re positively stimulating the cerebellum.  This part of the brain that processes movement is also the exact same part of the brain responsible for learning.  Movement makes us smarter.

So many studies have shown aerobic exercise improves many aspects of cognitive function, such as memory, decision-making, problem solving and attention. 

Resistance training has been shown to improve “executive function,” such as the ability to selectively pay attention to your professor instead of our iPhone and the ability to think before we act – inhibitory control – cognitive flexibility, and the capacity to hold information in our mind and manipulate it.

You see where this is going:  Outdoor fitness helps us to decompress, relax, improve sleep, fight depression and anxiety, while elevating mood, positivity, and overall mental health. It improves brain function, neuroplasticity, memory, problem solving, attention and cognitive flexibility.

Rick Ruben said, “a painting is just a painting until we put a frame around it and hang it on the wall”.  Then, it becomes art.  It attracts our attention, draws us in, and becomes more valuable.

When we create an outdoor fitness space with the right equipment, that space becomes more valuable in ways that are immeasurable to all the human benefits it provides.

Let’s get outside.

Walking has many positive biological benefits, such as blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol regulation.  It helps in body fat management, improves mood, reduces stress, and improves brain health, and so much more.  Walking is good for the human body and mind in so many ways it should be a part of our daily routine.  But it’s kind of a passive movement.  It’s so natural, we’re sort of on autopilot, even though our brain is calculating and coordinating so many functions to move us forward.

Our brain tells our body how to move.  Movement improves the health of our brain.  MOVMNT by Burke encourages the focused, active interaction between the brain and the body and the benefits are beyond measure.

How?

1. Kinesthesia, of course.  What?!  Kinesiology is the study of movement and kinesthesia is the ability to know where parts of our body are and how they are moving.  Spatial awareness, timing, coordination, focus, precision, and adjustments in real time.

The more we do it, the better we become.  This is kinesthetic learning. 

According to an article by the National Math Foundation, kinesthetic learning encourages, physical activity, bolsters cognitive, social, and emotional development, enhances the brain’s capacity to retain information, and develops not just individual capacities and strengths, but also self-confidence in those capacities. 

2. When we focus our attention while moving, neurons stop signaling in sync with one another and start firing out of sync.  This sounds bad, but it’s a good thing.  This helps us to respond accordingly to different types of sensory information, allowing us to identify, categorize, and respond to sensory input that’s more important or less worthy of our attention. 

This is our cholinergic system at work, which is involved in the regulation of attention and higher-order cognitive processing. When we “exercise” our cholinergic system, we improve brain health and stave off cognitive decline.  It improves skill, reaction time, decisive action, visual acuity, hand-eye coordination, physical ability, problem solving, reflexes, and so much more. 

3. Then there’s neuroplasticity, the brain’s capacity to continue growing and evolving in response to life experiences.  Our continued ability to form new connections in learning, maintain a healthy brain, and improve cognition.  Functional neuroplasticity is how well our neuronal connections are performing.  While all forms of exercise and movement improve neuroplasticity, focused, attentive movement, engaging the mind and body together can be even better.

Focused attentive movement engages the mind and body together to perform physically skilled tasks.  MOVMNT encourages, engages, and exercises our cholinergic system, kinesthesia, and neuroplasticity.  It burns calories, and improves our strength, flexibility, and cardiovascular health. 

We hear and see the lighted button, quickly move towards it, position ourselves to perform a spatially aware skill that involves dynamic focus to effectively press the button to score and immediately get ready for the next one. 

In other words, it’s fun and really good for us.  So, let’s MOV!