Physical Fitness Improves Brain Health
Everyone knows that exercise is good for them. It helps you lose or maintain your weight. It’s good for your heart and your cardiovascular system. And it generally keeps you fit and healthier.
But did you know that exercise is also good for your brain? It can actually make you smarter. Not only that, but exercise can help prevent disorders like Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and depression. It can even increase your chances of recovering from a stroke or traumatic brain injury.
Exercise improves learning.
It turns out that physical activity actually turns on hormonal support systems in your brain. The activation of these systems strengthens brain circuits that you already have and help you develop new ones. Exercise also increases the blood supply in the brain. In laboratory studies, exercise increased the number of blood vessels that supply several brain regions. This has the effect of improving nutrient delivery and waste removal from critical regions that effect mental function.
Additionally, exercise causes a rise in several growth factors in the brain that are responsible for helping brain cells survive and divide into new brain cells, or neurons. Only a couple of brain regions can produce new neurons and exercise increases the amount and rate of neuron production in these regions.
One of the brain areas producing new neurons is the hippocampus. The hippocampus plays a critical role in learning, memory and attention. Exercise induces new neuron growth in the hippocampus and improves performance on several types of cognitive tasks.
Exercise is an anti-depressant.
Another important role of the hippocampus is in the response to stress. In fact, studies show that war veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder have compromised hippocampal function. Folks that exercise regularly know that they are much more capable of handling stress throughout their day than when they don’t exercise. Again, this is likely an effect of increased hippocampal function by regular exercise.
Interestingly, anti-depressants work in a similar manner. Although, we don’t completely understand the exact mechanism of anti-depressant action, we do know that several classes of anti-depressants increase new neurons in the hippocampus. They do the same thing that exercise does!
Anti-depressant drugs activate the same growth factor systems in the brain that exercise activates. They also induce new neuron growth in the hippocampus, similar to exercise routines. Psychiatrists have known for a long time that patients experiencing depression respond much better to therapy if they combine it with regular exercise. In some cases, exercise alone is sufficient to alleviate depressive symptoms.
Exercise protects the brain from damage and disease.
Studies also show that exercise protects the brain from aging and injury. Older adults that regularly exercise perform better in cognitive tasks and have lower rates of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. They also recover stronger from strokes and from accidental brain injury.
One can argue that people that exercise have many factors in their lives that can contribute to these findings. For example, they smoke less, eat better, etc. However, studies in laboratory animals also support the idea that exercise is protective. Animals that are exercised are protected against traumatic brain injury in laboratory tests and don’t develop the extent of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease in model systems.
Studies also show that in addition to exercise’s protective role, it is also a valuable therapeutic tool for brain function. Fitness training improves cognitive functions relative to planning, scheduling, task coordination and attention. Adults that exercise have more grey matter, representing more brain cells, than adults that don’t exercise.
Focus on the family.
All of the beneficial effects of exercise are compounded by starting early in life. It’s kind of like compound interest in the bank. The earlier you start saving, the more money there is to earn interest in the end. Yet, unfortunately, physical education lesson plans are being cut from our schools for budgetary reasons. Soccer moms must unite and get exercise back in our schools.
Inducing physically active behavior in our kids is crucial. Studies show that people tend to continue the lifestyles they are exposed to at an early age. Ignoring the value of physical activity now will make them more likely to do so as adults. In order for our kids to be cognitively active adults all the way through life, we must instill the importance of physical activity today. If we do not, we are doing them a huge disfavor.
Many of us as parents forget about looking far into our kid’s futures. We have so much to worry about in day-to-day activities that keeping our kids from premature entry into the old-folks home is not at the forefront of our minds. Unfortunately, 2 out of 3 adults age 65 or older don’t engage in any regular physical activity and are not getting the brain protection they could be.
The actions that we take with our kids now and the behaviors that we promote will have a huge impact on their life long success. Yes, once they are out of our homes they are their own people and can choose to live there lives how they want. Nevertheless, we have to give them the leg-up now to set them up for the successes they deserve.
Even if you are a new parent for the first time, please be aware that you are influencing many decades by what you deem important today.
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November 7th, 2006 at 8:21 pm
[…] There have been a number of good posts recently on the links between physical exercise and brain exercise. The Brain Code blog posted a great one that summarizes the key points: […]
January 29th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
Kids health should be a base direction of the program of development of social sphere WBR LeoP
September 25th, 2009 at 5:40 am
The nature of the brain is similar body muscles in many ways. If it is stimulated and made to work, it gets stronger and if it is not used it gets weaker. However care should be taken to not over stimulate it. Just as over training a muscle leads to injuries, stimulating the brain beyond its capacity might impair its strength.