The Health & Fitness Show with Tracy - Podcast
The Health & Fitness Show with Tracy is your source of practical, uplifting, and science-rooted guidance for living a stronger, safer, and more confident life — at any age.
Hosted by Tracy Markley, internationally recognized fitness educator, award-winning author, stroke recovery specialist, and creator of the bestselling books The Stroke Recovery Workbook, Brain & Body, and Balance Walking and Fall Prevention, this podcast blends expertise with heart. Tracy’s decades of experience helping stroke survivors, seniors, and everyday adults rebuild strength, balance, mobility, and hope shine through every episode.
Whether you’re looking to improve your proprioception, feel steadier on your feet, better understand your body, prevent falls, recover from injury, or simply age with power and grace, this show gives you real tools — not fluff. Tracy brings compassion, clear explanations, and encouraging motivation to help you feel capable, empowered, and ready to move forward.
🎧 Tune in for:
- Balance, gait, and fall-prevention tips
- Stroke recovery insights from one of the most trusted voices in the field
- Fitness and mobility guidance for seniors and pre-seniors
- Brain–body education and nervous system support
- Strength training, walking programs, and functional movement
- Real stories from people who regained independence and confidence
- Encouragement, mindset support, and realistic strategies you can use today
- Hearing loss
- Fitness and exercise for all ages
- Muscles, joints, ligaments, fascia and more
- and much more
⭐ Learn More & Stay Connected
Website: https://www.tracymarkley.com
Books by Tracy Markley: https://www.amazon.com/author/tracymarkley
YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/@TracyMarkley
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tracy.markley
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracyfitt
⭐ Your Host
Tracy Markley is a fitness trainer, educator, and author known for blending anatomy, neuroscience, and compassion to help others move better and live better. Her work has transformed lives around the world — from stroke survivors rebuilding mobility to adults who simply want their body to feel like home again
The Health & Fitness Show with Tracy - Podcast
Stroke Recovery: How Your Favorite Music Boosts Cognition, Verbal Memory & Emotional Healing
Music is one of the most powerful — and most overlooked — tools in stroke recovery.
In this episode, Tracy Markley explains how listening to meaningful, familiar music can improve cognition, verbal memory, language recovery, emotional regulation, focus, and motivation during stroke rehabilitation.
You’ll learn how the brain responds to your favorite songs, why familiar music activates multiple regions of the brain at once, and how this multisensory stimulation supports neuroplasticity. Tracy also shares insights from neuroscience research and a lecture from a leading neuroscientist whose clinical studies show that personalized music strengthens cognitive processing after a stroke.
This episode includes two powerful personal stories of stroke survivors who transformed right in front of Tracy when listening to music they loved — changes so profound they inspired her to research this topic further and write about it in her book Stroke Recovery: What Now? When Physical Therapy Ends but Your Recovery Continues.
Music is not just entertainment. It’s a healing tool for the brain.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN:
- How familiar music activates multiple regions of the brain
- Why your favorite songs stimulate verbal memory and language pathways
- How music improves focus, emotional stability, and motivation
- The role of rhythm in gait, timing, and coordination
- Real-life examples of stroke survivors transformed through meaningful music
- How to use music safely and intentionally during home recovery
- Neuroscience research on auditory–memory pathways and neuroplasticity
- Why emotionally significant music enhances healing and cognitive function
If you or a loved one is healing after a stroke, adding meaningful music to daily routines may provide new progress, renewed motivation, and a powerful emotional lift.
🎙️ ABOUT TRACY L. MARKLEY (AUTHOR & STROKE RECOVERY SPECIALIST)
Tracy Markley is the author of multiple stroke recovery and brain health books, including:
- Stroke Recovery: What Now? When Physical Therapy Ends but Your Recovery Continues
- Stroke Recovery: Regaining Arm Movement
- Stroke Recovery: Leg Stability and Walking Gait
- The Stroke of an Artist: The Journey of a Fitness Trainer and a Stroke Survivor
- Your Brain: The Engine of Your Body – A Fitness Trainer’s Guide to Brain Health
- Balance, Walking & Fall Prevention: A Fitness Trainer’s Guide for Seniors and Pre-Seniors
📚 Amazon Author Page: www.Amazon.com/author/tracymarkley
🌐 Website Bookstore: www.tracymarkley.com