We are such complex creatures that it is not easy to know all the bells and whistles we have in us. It can be helpful to note as basic parts our muscles, our nervous systems including our senses like vision and touch, our conscious mind and our unconscious mind.
My friend says that she does qigong (kee-gong?) every day. That approach is ancient and Chinese, like Tai Chi. Other friends do yoga, which is ancient and Indian. I try to do four things M, W, and F:
some yoga stuff because of all my sitting,
run half a mile with two interval spurts,
walk 2.5 miles in my neighborhood (often with friends), and
do a short routine with weights (squat machine, inner and outer thighs, overhead press, chinning with assistance machine, and rotator cuff including standing on a balance disk)
Is that enough? Too much? Who knows? Probably depends on what I am trying to do. I am not trying to be Arnold in his youth or even Arnold today. I like being able to lift things I need to, like a suitcase or a heavy turkey. I got some good ideas from Gretchen Reynolds' book "The First Twenty Minutes."
But the most active part of me is my conscious mind. There are many ways to work with my mind. We both did the Brain Fitness Program of 6 weeks of daily computer exercises. That has morphed into the Brain HQ site, which we pay $10 a month for and I never get around to using. The most valuable thing we have done for our minds is sitting with them. We use a timer and sit for 10 minutes. Facing what my mind throws out and quietly dismissing or postponing all thoughts for that period has given us more serenity, more self-awareness than you would think possible.
We can face what we are and what we are becoming. We realize we are tiny aging specks on a planet among billions of ancient heavenly bodies that we don't really know much about. But we are proud of our speck-iness and are thrilled to accept our lives and our fortunes.
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