Fitness

How NEAT Are You

Wonderful Wellness Wednesday All!

This week I wanted to share some information about applying NEAT (Nonexercise Activity Thermogenesis) activities into your health and wellness regiment. NEAT activities help boost metabolism and cognitive function. These brain boosters can be used to improve brain health and increase metabolism.

Let’s take a closer look at exactly what NEAT encompasses. NEAT represents the calories burned while living life; walking around a store, fidgeting, typing, chewing gum, folding clothes, washing dishes, running earned, etc. NEAT activities are the small numbers calculated in what is called TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditures) which are simply the number of calories burned during the day including all physical activity and food digestion.
Prolonged sitting deactivates the brain and lowers metabolism. Thus, limited physical activity and low levels of mental stimulation and the absence of socialization have a detrimental effect on the human brain over time.

There are number of activities that can boost NEAT while strengthening the brain. Physical activity, mental simulation, and socialization are key components to growing the trees of our mind by creating new neurons and dendrites.

Some of the benefits of NEAT Activities:

  • Improve Mood
  • Boots levels of key neurotransmitters like dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine
  • Decrease levels of cortisol
  • Help in effectively managing stress
  • Strengthen the Corpus Callosum (band of neural fibers connecting the two hemispheres of the brain)

Here is one NEAT Activity I am going to leave you with to practice. This one uses breathing techniques found in Yoga. The practice of yoga can improve metabolism, breathing capacity and cardiovascular reserves. This helps to reduce anxiety and improve focus. Follow this short breathing practice to re-energize the brain and body.

Breath Work

  • Develop a 6-second breath cycle to get 10 breaths per minute. Inhale for 2 seconds, hold for 1 second, exhale for 2 seconds, hold for 1 second. Repeat.
  • Practice alternate-nostril breathing. Gently close the opposite nostril, alternating thumb and ring fingers. Inhale through the right nostril; exhale through the left; inhale L; exhale R.
  • Practice double breathing. Sit upright, palms in thighs. Inhale twice through the nose and then the mouth, relaxing the muscles. Repeat several times.
  • Bee’s breath releases mental tension and/or reduces anger. Close the ears with the index and middle fingers, inhale deeply and hum during the exhalation (think buzzing bee).
  • Experience the therapeutic, calming effects of the three-part breath. From a comfortable position, with neutral spine. Inhale and exhale through the nose. Expand the belly, ribs and chest (in that order). Slowly exhale relaxing the chest, ribs and belly (like a wave).

Give these breathing exercises a try as well as be sure to get up and stay active in Mind, Body, and Spirit!

Until next week! Stay in Wellness!

Wonderful Wellness Wednesday!

Today is a great day to share some wellness wisdom with you as it is a day, we celebrate love! Happy Valentine’s Day all, be sure to express love in its many forms today.

So, let me get to this week’s message on imagination. Do you recall being a little kid and playing with your toys and using your imagination to make your play time more exciting?

There was something magical and powerful about that thing called imagination. It allowed you to create things that did not exist or allowed you to escape to a place outside your current reality. Yet, have you ever really thought about what imagination really is, and how powerful it can be?
Imagination is defined as the action or process of forming mental images or concepts of what is not actually present to the senses. The images are invisible to the outside reality. Your imagination is a tool that creates mental/conceptual images or ideas of things that don’t exist in real time.

Think about it, everything that man has created started with an image in the mind ‘aka’ the imagination. This image/concept/idea grew with inner concentration and outward actions that brought it forward to the visible reality.

The questions I have for you today; Have you lost your imagination? Do you no longer use that creative power to push forward aspects of your life that you want? Where has your desire gone?

Answering these questions can help you get on a path of discovering then hopefully action to getting back your child like imagination and use that tool/gift to bring your life to a level that you would be excited about as if you were a kid again!

“When you employ your imagination properly, you see yourself doing a thing and you go ahead and do it.” – Claude Bristol

Begin again to employ your imagination! It can be the preview of the coming attractions in your life if you use it as a tool and the gift it is.

So today not only give off love but imagine and dream again, believe again, turn up your desire and act on all of that and allow your life to be big!

Scroll to top