Fitness and Brain Training

How Does Exercise Keep Your Brain Young?

To most people, physical and mental fitness are thought to be independent of one another. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Research in the areas of neuroplasticity, neurogenesis (the creation of new neurons), and brain vascularization demonstrate a direct link between the two. Our cognitive abilities include attention, stress and emotional management, memory, visual/spatial processing, auditory processes, language, motor coordination, and executive functions (such as planning and problem solving). These processes diminish over time unless they are used regularly.

Brain health can be nurtured by lifestyle, formal education, being physically and mentally engaged in life, and by improving our mental skills. Healthy lifestyle habits including mental stimulation, physical exercise, good nutrition, stress management, and sleep can significantly improve brain fitness. On the other hand, chronic stress, anxiety, depression, lack of rest, and foods that increase inflammation, can decrease brain and general health.

Many large studies suggest staying active and fit throughout life lowers the risk of memory problems later on. For example, a recent project tracked more than 1000 Swedish women over 4 decades and found that for those judged to have “high” cardiovascular fitness on entering the study (as measured by the maximum workload they could handle on a stationary cycle machine before exhaustion) the onset of dementia was delayed, on average, by 9.5 years compared to those with “medium” fitness. Wow! 9.5 years!  

Your brain is no different than rest of the muscles in your body; you either use it or you lose it! You utilize the gym to stimulate the growth of muscle cells, just as you use cognitive “exercises” to increase connections in your brain. Therefore, you can actually get an additional brain boost by donning your sneakers and hitting the gym. My goal is to share the most up-to-date research on physical and brain exercise, to help motivate YOU to keep your brain young!

Here are some quick tips to help you improve your mental fitness:

• Exercise for at least 30 minutes every day. Physical exercise oxygenates the brain! This will help improve your memory, reasoning abilities and reaction times. Starting your routine with morning stretches. Exercising in the morning not only spikes brain activity and prepares you for mental stresses for the rest of the day, but also produces increased retention of new information, and better reaction to complex situations.
• Drink Water! Your brain is 80% water. Even two hours of dehydration can affect cognition. Functions such as complex problem solving, coordination, and attention suffer the most if you are water deficient.
• Read as much as possible. Keeping an active interest in the world around you will help to exercise your brain and improve your mental fitness.
• Keep learning. Stretch yourself mentally by taking a class at your local technical college, learning a new language, completing the newspaper crossword or playing chess. Use apps like Luminosity for daily brain exercises!
  
• Take time to relax. Meditate, tree bathe or go for a walk outdoors to activate all your senses and think positive! Excess stress hormones like cortisol can be harmful to the brain. Schedule regular periods of relaxation into your week.
  
• Take up a new hobby. Learning something new gives the ‘grey matter’ a workout and builds neural pathways in the brain.
• Engage in stimulating conversations. Talk to friends and family about a wide range of topics. This gives your brain an opportunity to explore, examine and inquire. A study published in the American Journal of Public Health, reported that older women who had large social networks reduced their risk of dementia by 26%, and women who had daily contact with their network cut their risk of dementia by almost half!
• Take up a manual activity or craft. Hobbies, such as woodworking and sewing, require you to move both sides of the body at the same time, in precise movements. This can help to improve your spatial awareness and increase your reaction time.
  
• Exercise your brain with others. Watch, question and answer game shows or play trivia and enjoy the competitive spirit. Involve your spouse or family to make it more fun.
• Believe in yourself. People who believe that they are not in control of their memory function (joking about “senior moments”), perhaps are less likely to work at maintaining or improving their memory skills and therefore are more likely to experience cognitive decline. If you believe you can improve your memory, and translate that belief into practice, you have a better chance of keeping your mind sharp.