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Writer's pictureFanny Pauwelyn-Baert

How sport can stimulate your change



Combining a physical activity with an intellectual activity helps to develop your cognitive abilities such as reasoning, problem solving, planning, abstract thinking, complex idea comprehension, and learning from experience. These are skills you need to implement change.


Three ways to inject intellectual activity in your training or workout: 1) Try something new, 2) diversify your workouts and 3) make them complex. You can apply this to almost every sport like running, biking, fitness at home, etc. but let me talk about swimming as it is the sport I love the most.


I have a very special coach, called MySwimPro (don’t worry sometimes I also ‘use’ some very nice human coaches😉). MySwimPro gives me the opportunity to try a new workout every time I swim. I can vary my strokes which gives me the diversity and I can also adjust lengths and speeds of intervals, swim faster or slower, to make it more complex.


Swimming does create new brain cells and improves mental health; it reduces stress and anxiety. Swimming also improves memory, sleep and blood flow . It is a sport that is good for all ages and that’s what I also like; in my swimming lane, no matter age or background, I have created a special bond with my fellow swimmers.


When I come back from swimming; I feel renewed, I have regained motivation and I have some new ideas to work on, not because I was thinking about them during my workout but my brain was being sharpened while swimming. So most of the time, after swimming, coming back home, I jot down some new thoughts and ideas . Yesterday evening, I wrote this blog!


So when you think about change and all the activities you have to plan and organise to implement your change, do not forget to plan a regular physical activity as it will be your companion. It will stimulate your brain and develop your cognitive skills that you will need more than ever to implement the change you want!


Let me know in the comments what physical activity you do and how it stimulates you !






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