Exercise Benefits
Exercise is a healthy approach to life, a hobby in varied forms, a must for a physically fit lifestyle, but also a necessity for a sharp mind and emotional stability? Physical activity promotes not only what the eyes see, but also what is felt inside. School, health administrators, and even mothers have preached the importance of exercise to our body. However, the real benefit is reaped through the most complex organ, the brain. With an organ that’s constantly at work, exercise increases the executive function, blood flow, and chemical secretion creating a euphoric experience. Exercise is the gateway to an enlightenment of a self-sustaining emotional benefaction. Wake up late, tardy to school, shirt wrong-side out, fail a test, car
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Is my phone over there? Such questions of confusion or thoughtlessness seem to be common in an aging adult’s life. Simple tasks become difficult to complete yet even remember. What’s the answer to creating a better memory? Of course, the answer is exercise. Considering that adults over 50 report staying mentally strong as a top concern, exercise is a very simple, inexpensive fix. Exercise can boost the size of the hippocampus while also increasing the blood flow to this region which is the key region affected by Alzheimer’s. The increase of blood flow produced by exercise also affects the anterior cingulate (relative to emotional tasks and linked to superior cognition in later life) which indicates a higher neuronal activity and metabolic rate. These factors contribute to quicker firing neurons as well as a greater capacity for memory retention. Studies have even proven that the parts of the brain responsible for critical thinking and memory, the prefrontal cortex and the medial temporal cortex, are shown to be enlarged in those with active lifestyles (Godman). The chief director of the Center for BrainHealth, chair at Dee Wyly Distinguished University, and researcher of physical and emotional health states that “physical exercise may be one of the most beneficial and cost-effective therapies widely available to everyone to elevate memory performance”. One study using 86 woman age 70-80 with “subjective memory complaints” were divided into
Is my phone over there? Such questions of confusion or thoughtlessness seem to be common in an aging adult’s life. Simple tasks become difficult to complete yet even remember. What’s the answer to creating a better memory? Of course, the answer is exercise. Considering that adults over 50 report staying mentally strong as a top concern, exercise is a very simple, inexpensive fix. Exercise can boost the size of the hippocampus while also increasing the blood flow to this region which is the key region affected by Alzheimer’s. The increase of blood flow produced by exercise also affects the anterior cingulate (relative to emotional tasks and linked to superior cognition in later life) which indicates a higher neuronal activity and metabolic rate. These factors contribute to quicker firing neurons as well as a greater capacity for memory retention. Studies have even proven that the parts of the brain responsible for critical thinking and memory, the prefrontal cortex and the medial temporal cortex, are shown to be enlarged in those with active lifestyles (Godman). The chief director of the Center for BrainHealth, chair at Dee Wyly Distinguished University, and researcher of physical and emotional health states that “physical exercise may be one of the most beneficial and cost-effective therapies widely available to everyone to elevate memory performance”. One study using 86 woman age 70-80 with “subjective memory complaints” were divided into