Tag Archive for: memory

New Class To Relieve Tension

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Inner Moves – Mind Movement Dance (MMD)

Inner Moves Education provides well-being tailor made programs filled with tools to nurture and empower the self-healing journey.

This program, specifically designed by Tanya Brooks for Seniors, helps you put your mind in a calm state of being, you will lean simple tools to help you cope with daily life challenges, help aid the body to freely release tension, stagnated energy, move naturally from stresses to deep relaxation and dancing to keep the brain active. as it stimulates vitality and muscle memory.

How It Works:

Through mind exercises, movement and dance, these eight week courses are designed to assist you:

  • Reconnect socially
  • Focus and concentrate
  • Improve memory
  • Reduce stress and tension
  • Reduce blood pressure
  • Increase bone density

and so much more..

MMD

This unique fusion of mind exercises, movement and dance provides many well-being benefits and tools for those of all ages. Truly unique and fun, while at the same time improving health and well-being.

Mind Exercise:

Each week everyone will learn a new mind exercise which will incorporate anything from breathing techniques, meditation, muscle progressive relaxation, focus and music meditations and more.

Movement:

Starting with a full body gentle warm up, some elements of Tai Chi and more.

Dance: (No experience needed)

Everyone will be learning easy to follow choreography which keeps your brain active, as it stimulates vitality and muscle memory and creates strong social connections that increase your sense of happiness and well-being.

It’s in the action where the healing happens

Starting Thursday 3rd May 2018 at 1 pm until 2 pm

$10 per class

The Benefits of Playing a Pinball Machine

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Playing with a pinball machine may just seem like a fun past time, but did you know that there are a multitude of benefits?

Playing with a pinball machine can actually be crucial in developing or maintaining motor skills. It is widely known that to be good at playing pinball one has to have good hand eye coordination. Hand-eye coordination is the ability to track the movements of the hands with the eyes, thus enabling the eyes to send important signals to the brain about hand movement. Poor hand-eye coordination can greatly compromise your ability to exercise and can also affect everyday tasks such as writing.

In learning how to play or by playing pinball frequently, hand eye coordination can be increased two fold, as well as developing lighting fast reflexes and incredible timing. Pinball can be quite a mental game, as you think of moves and strategies on the spot.

Hand-eye coordination tends to deteriorate with age. However, regular physical activity that utilises both fine and gross motor skills can help.

Pinball can also help those dealing with grief. As mourners’ movement between different stages of grief such as shock and depression can be unpredictable, this process has been likened to the workings of a pinball machine, according to Mental Health Practice journal.

The authors of the September 2012 journal are in no way trying downplay grief or suggest it is a game, but they are however trying to explain through the metaphor of pinball that the process of grieving is not linear.

With grief, there can be triggers that can prolong or even restart the process – just like on a pinball machine, in which pressing the buttons can prolong the game. Anniversaries or special events can examples of triggers for mourners. Many mourners describe themselves as ‘bouncing’ from stage to stage in the grieving process, which is similar imagery to pinball. Mourners can seek comfort in the fact that their responses are normal and grieving doesn’t have to calculated. Grieving takes time and effort. This model can also be adapted to help those coping with separation, divorce, loss of employment or financial loss, say the authors.

So come by on Seniors Week (April 9-13) and play some good ‘ole vintage pinball for free!

Ballet Classes Can Strengthen Your Mind

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Going into a ballet class most people expect the physical strain that comes with the grace, poise, posture and foot work that ballet dancers are famous for enduring. However, people forget that ballet also works the mind.

“You need to really think during a ballet class,” says Dianne Harrison, principal at Elancé Adult Ballet School in Melbourne. “Your brain needs to be several steps ahead of your body. It must instruct and control multiple muscle groups, apply the correct techniques to prevent injury and create artistry through emotional expression. And then you dance!”

Fortunately, our brains respond well to these challenges. A 2017 study in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience journal compared the impact that both dance and repetitive endurance training had on the hippocampus – the part of the brain that is mostly associated with memory.

As a result of the different arm formations, steps, rhythms, and speeds, the study found that ballet dancing led to a behavioural change through improved balance.

It found that while both had a positive impact, only dancing led to a behavioural change through improved balance. The authors attributed this to dancers having to learn new routines, as well as different arm formations, steps, rhythms and speeds.

Meanwhile, a 2003 study in The New England Journal of Medicine showed that of 11 physical activities, only dancing was associated with a lower risk of dementia.

Luckily, ballet, however ungraceful, moves us forward.

Tango Is Good For Your Brain

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Research suggests that dancing the Tango greatly improves mental health.

Tango has shown a greater increase in mindfulness, as one has to be fully engaged in the present moment to execute complicated dance moves.

You can’t have a chat and dance tango.

This passionate dance needs effective communication between partners and to be able to really connect and feel what your partner is “telling”, you need to be 100% present every moment.

In this way, Tango can also act as a form of meditation. Especially if you close eyes, you will feel and connect with the music as well as move and flow with your dance partner.

It was also found to be the only physical activity associated with a lower risk of dementia. Tango is all about improvisation, as there are no fixed dance moves to follow. The dance requires split-second, rapid-fire decision making, which makes us use several brain functions at once — kinaesthetic, rational, musical and emotional — further increasing your neural connectivity.

When we take decisions by doing new physical or mental activities, our brain creates new neurological pathways. Because so many decisions are involved in dancing, it will ultimately help strengthen our muscle memory and the communication between multiple different neural systems.

You can join our Tango classes at the Coast Centre, commencing March 7, 2018 – learn more here

Delay The Impacts of Ageing

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Cardio workouts and weight resistance can help delay the impacts of ageing.

There is a number one method to adding years to your life and it is physical activity, a Swedish study has found. Even if you don’t start exercising until later on in life, moving your body can help substantially in longevity. However, it’s not about just adding years to your life, it’s about adding life to your years!

Benefits to physical activity:

  • Keeps excess pounds at bay
  • Increase your stamina
  • Ward off illnesses
  • Reduce health risks
  • Manage chronic conditions
  • Stay active and indepedent
  • Strengthen your heart
  • Keep your arteries clear
  • Boost your mood
  • Improve your memory
  • Live longer

“Aerobics pumps life giving oxygen into your blood, brain and joints!”

 

Join our Aerobics or Balance & Fitness classes today!

Aerobics Classes

Join Luda and Gina for low impact

Mondays – 1:30 pm for $7.50

 

Balance & Fitness Classes

with Anne Saville

Mondays & Wednesdays 9:30 – 10:45 am

Laugh Your Way to Health

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Research is showing that a joke a day could keep the doctor away. By Tamra Mercieca

Laughter is a release of tension, like an orgasm or a sneeze or urinating after a long wait for the bathroom.

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