Ready to Exercise Your Mind Start with Your Body: the Use of Short Term Aerobic Exercise to Help in Your Learning Readiness

The older adult workforce needs to be activated, reeducated, or retrained to new areas of work or competencies. Research supporting the belief that senior adults can be revitalized and used for more productive years in the workforce by keeping thier bodies as well as their minds in shape would be a significant contribution to society as a whole. Despite the growing understanding of the influence of health, exercise, education, personality, and social status on cognitive aging, a lack of theories exist relating the knowledge of such influences on congnitive aging to theories of biological aging. (Antsy, Stankov, & Lord, 1990) Understanding that exercise influences the cognitive area of aging is important. Retirement creates a new dilema for older adults. Some adults, for the first time, have free time or time to do what they want to do. This free time could be used to start another vocation. When retirement age comes, they need to have the option and encouragement that they are still marketable and prospective employees and that a totally new vocation is possible.