5 New Ways To Improve Your Mind-Body Connection

When most people think of sharpening their mental agility and focus, they picture sedentary pastimes that probably look a lot like reading long opinion pieces online, playing brain games and doing puzzles, having a debate with a friend of a friend at a party, or watching an artsy, sophisticated movie with artsy, sophisticated people. While these are all decent options, living smarter involves more than just sitting in a refined atmosphere; it requires creating harmony with your mind and body. Plants and mushrooms can strengthen this relationship on a cellular level, but exploring the mind-body connection also sometimes means getting your hands dirty. As people around the world look for new ways to forge this holistic union, they’re discovering that there’s more dynamic ways of finding quiet and focus than haunting libraries and cafes. Here’s 5:

Night Skating With Friends

As Fashion magazine and Vogue UK can tell you, 2020 was the summer of rollerskating, but this trend isn’t going anywhere. Over the last couple of years, it seems like everybody looking for a new hobby has considered strapping on a pair of skates to dance, explore, and get from A to B. While vitamins and supplements containing functional mushrooms can fight fatigue and depression, you can take your night time energy boost a step further by heading down to a nearby roller rink or boardwalk and getting your body moving.

Hitting Your Local Climbing Gym Or Crag

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to solve puzzles through intentional movement, then rock climbing or its more free flowing indoor cousin, bouldering, may be right for you. Conquering challenging routes up and across walls and rock faces engages the brain and a wide range of muscle groups simultaneously, helping climbers get more in touch with their most focused selves. Cordyceps—a mushroom commonly found in natural performance enhancing products—can assist processes of energy distribution to various muscles and fight inflammation that may result from this kind of exercise.

Archery

Staying on target is something we could all benefit from practicing more, and much like Ashwaganda—a plant full of compounds that help reduce stress and increase cognitive function—going down to a range to shoot some arrows can help clear your head while activating your body. Given its potential to guide practitioners’ attention towards conscious, repetitive motions, archery has a long history of assisting people in finding their center.

Off-Road ATV Camping

It’s one thing to commute somewhere in the city with your thoughts switched off, but riding an All Terrain Vehicle through the woods and spending time living in the outdoors allows anyone to follow their internal compass, stoking their sense of direction and adventure all at once. Look no further than the trail for an upgrade to the kind of concentration and immunity-boosting lift you might expect to gain from a reishi mushroom. Offroading will get you much closer to the earth than you’ve ever been. After all, there’s a reason people refer to going for these kinds of rides as ‘mudding’.

Wingsuiting

Have you ever imagined what it’s like to be a flying squirrel? For those who want to learn first-hand, there’s wingsuiting. If you have the resources, can control your fear, and dream of flying down a mountain face à la Wile E. Coyote (minus the crashing), this sport may just be what you’re looking for. While plants like the Passion Flower don’t quite promote the same sense of adrenaline-induced calm and focus, they can have you feeling more zen in no time.