We all know that exercise is gold for the body – it improves cardiovascular function; reduces the risk of certain cancers; helps people maintain a healthy weight; and builds and maintains muscles, bones and joints.

If this isn’t enough to get you moving, new evidence suggests that exercise can also help you keep your mind young. And this doesn’t mean you have to start training for a triathlon. Taking three brisk 50-minute walks a week will do the trick. 

This news is coming out of the University of Melbourne in Australia, where it was found that exercise helps to treat memory problems in adults. Participants in the study had memory problems, but didn’t yet meet the criteria for dementia.

The study looked at 138 people age 50 and older who had an increased risk for dementia. They were randomly assigned to either the 24-week physical activity program or to receive their regular care. Findings showed that a 24-week home-based physical activity program led to improvements in cognitive function.

The participants in the exercise group were encouraged to do at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity per week in three 50-minute sessions. The exercise group ended up doing an average of 142 minutes more physical activity per week than those individuals in the regular care group.

Over 18 months, those in the exercise group had better Alzheimer Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive Subscale (ADAS-Cog) scores and delayed recall, and lower Clinical Dementia Rating scores, than those in the usual care group. The findings were published in the Sept. 3 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Exercise and other lifestyle factors may benefit older adults at risk for Alzheimer's disease, Dr. Eric B. Larson, of the Group Health Center for Health Studies in Seattle, wrote in an accompanying editorial in the journal.

"Health advances of the past century have led to more individuals surviving to extreme old age, when their risk of Alzheimer disease and related dementias increases substantially," Larson added. "Exercise -- and possibly other lifestyle factors -- appears to affect vascular risk and late-life brain health."

Similar findings were also reported in the first part of this video, a Dan Rather news report on the mind.

Update: Helene Hadsell's Book and DVD have now Launched. Please visit TheWinningSage.com

We had over 9,500 people sign up for a recent interview with Helene Hadsell. Starting from the moment that the first few people got a chance to listen to Helene's interview, her phone has been ringing off the hook and her inbox has been flooded with emails. I spoke to her this morning and she told me that she still had 350 emails to reply to.

Pic Above: Vishen, Melissa and Mike with Helene Hadsell

I don't know where Helene, who is 84 years old (a correction, in our last post we mentioned she was 83), gets all of that energy from!

I first heard about Helene Hadsell through my friend Kate Roberts. She told me about an out-of-print book Helene had wrote decades ago, and showed me a blog post on her by Joe Vitale. I was intrigued, so I Googled her name to find out everything I could about her life. Somehow I stumbled upon her email address and wrote to her to ask if I could interview her for FinerMinds.

She replied within 24 hours.

That first interview blew me away. Helene's stories mesmerized me. What was supposed to be a one hour interview turned into two solid hours. I decided I had to meet this lady.

Pic Above: Helene at Home

Coincidentally, it turned out Helene lived in Alvarado, Texas. And I was actually going to be in Whitney, Texas in 4 weeks for a charity fundraiser. Whitney and Alvarado are only 35 minutes apart.

And so on a beautiful summer day in September, Mike, our friend Melissa, and I drove to visit Helene. We planned on spending 6 hours with her before flying out to LA.

Helene was not happy to hear this. She was under the impression that we were going to stay the night. She had prepared her guesthouse for us and cooked a nice meal. "It's nice to have company," she said.

And then another coincidence struck. Our plans to LA got changed.

Turned out we were spending the night!

We spent all day filming Helene. We shot over 8 hours of footage and our encounter with Helene left us completely transformed. Helene's wisdom and knowledge are so profound and yet so simple and easy to apply to your own life, I was completely stunned.

In between the filming, Mike, Melissa and I each had private sessions with Helene where she told us things about our lives and who we are that only a close friend could have known.

Pic Above: Melissa interviews Helene for the film

She told me things about my son, my career, my way of doing business that were spot on. It was slightly eerie, yet amazing.

We left at 5am the next morning to catch our flights. Helene shakes up your view of "reality". She's an amazingly joyful, loving person. And after you've met her - you never feel the same again. During the trip, Helene shared some of her goals with me. She no longer needs to win contests. Now she's working on a play she wants to get on the Hallmark channel, a new bestselling book she wants to get into Borders, and she's aiming to get on the David Letterman show.

I decided to help her with her book.

The footage we took is going to be turned into a documentary.  And we'll be bundling this with her book and some CDs to create a product based on Helene's teachings. She can no longer do seminars. It's too tiring for her. But being able to spread her light via DVD, book and CD is the next best thing.

Pic Above: Mike interviewing Helene

Pic Above: Melissa and Helene

Dec 22 Update: Helene Hadsell's Book and DVD have now Launched. Please visit TheWinningSage.com.

Gerald O'Donnell, who coined the term "Remote Influencing," is a former remote viewer for several European Intelligence agencies. Gerald now lives in Florida where he writes, meditates and shares his knowledge with the world. Gerald claims that we live in an "illusion" and that we all have the ability to influence this "illusion." He teaches people how to deepen their awareness and manifest their dreams.

When Gerald does an interview, it's always a hit. His last two interviews had over 11,000 listeners online. Very soon we'll be sharing an interview with Gerald. But until then, we wanted to give you a taste of what he teaches.

In this article, Gerald shares three techniques to get you started on your path towards greater happiness. He believes that these techniques should be an integral part of our daily lives, for they dissolve many old, pre-programmed patterns of thought that fail to serve us.

Techniques to Help You Enter the Gateway to Happiness

By Gerald O'Donnell

The next three exercises are intended to be done on a regular basis. They will open up a new level of awareness and prepare you for advanced personal and spiritual development.

Exercise 1: A New Way of Being

This first exercise is a pleasurable and powerful life-changing tool. The effects of daily stress associated with materialistic obsession (and its by-products: anxiety, isolation, frustration, fear, anger and depression) can be dissolved by this technique. It is, at the same time, simple and profound. It increases greatly the vibratory rate of your non-physical Higher Self. Its premise is “smile at the world and the world will smile back at you.”

As you go about your daily activities, from the moment you get up in the morning up to the the time that you go back to sleep, constantly imagine that you are smiling inwardly at your outer reality as you go about your daily activities. Imagine that you are smiling from the deepest recesses of your mind and chambers of your heart, and that you are projecting this happiness and smile outward through your eyes and expression. No matter what the circumstances are, you will increasingly find that your eyes will be smiling and so will your mouth.

At the same time, imagine that your heart constantly expresses a great inward smile filled with pure joy of being alive.

After two weeks or so, you will notice significant changes. Not only in the way you interact with the ‘outside’ world, but also in how the world acts and projects its reality toward you. Your fears will begin to abate and an inner feeling of peace and love will emerge. Notice how people seek your presence and ‘Inner Love'.

Exercise 2: The Witness

Set aside 5 minutes and close your eyes. Turn your attention inward. Move from being a 'thinking' human being to viewing your thoughts as an independent observer in a detached remote manner. Treat your thoughts as if they are 'things' or a spectacle to watch. Notice the train of your thoughts and images, the succession of often unrelated thoughts that appear to you. Don’t analyze anything.

Learn to switch from the state of being 'in' your thoughts to withdrawing from them and becoming the detached, totally passive observer of them. Get the feeling for the mental shift that occurs when doing so. Go within the thoughts and then withdraw to a more detached level. After a while of repeating this exercise you will notice that your thoughts become more isolated and that your inner mind starts taking a break.

For this exercise, keep increasing by 2-3 minutes every other day until you reach 20 minutes.

Here is the next part of the exercise: As you observe your train of thoughts, pick up one particular thought that you find interesting and “plunge into it” with full concentration. Remain focused on that thought to the exclusion of the others for as long as possible. If other thoughts interfere, do not push them away, but watch them pass by as if they were foreign ‘things’ in your consciousness. At first, you might only be able to do this for maybe 1 minute or less. Slowly increase it up to 7 minutes.

The last part of the exercise consists of blanking your thoughts out. This is done by deciding to concentrate on perceptual dark nothingness. If a thought comes in, imagine throwing white light on it. Imagine that the light dissolves that thought and that the screen then goes back to nothingness. Try to maintain that state up to 5 minutes. Start with 1-2 minutes.

Exercise 3: The Movies

This exercise is the “going in and out of movies” exercise. The first step is to choose a film and go and watch it, preferably on a big screen. Allow yourself to get immersed in the captivating story (make sure you choose a film that you can 'get into').

As you forget about your identity and start going ‘into’ the plot, suddenly withdraw your awareness from the big screen and become the observer of reality again. Now slowly reconnect to the plot, but this time allow yourself to remain with the awareness of being yourself watching, as a spectator (observer). Keep this dual awareness for a moment and then let go and plunge within the movie, forgetting your real inner self again. And then repeat the exercise over and over.

Keep on doing this exercise of mental withdrawal and then plunging in again, until you get to know intimately the feeling of diving into the movie and withdrawing into reality. Easy isn’t it? This simple technique is very powerful.

As you get the knack of it try the same system as you go about your daily life. Use the same 'mental trick' when engaged in your daily activities, especially the ones that cause you fear and stress. Soon you will become aware at all times of being the ‘observer’ (inner self) observing the observed (reality and outer self). This exercise will deepen your awareness and allow you to become more calm and relaxed.

P.S. Gerald O'Donnell will soon be giving a Free Teleseminar about the positive trends in the world that are going to impact everyone. An excellent complement these exercises. We will keep you posted!