Exercise and your mind. Part 1

This is part one of a series I am writing about exercise and the brain.

It was long believed in the field of neuroscience that the brain was static. You were born with an innate ability to process, think, and achieve  Our cells were limited, once they die there is no coming back. You were limited by a set IQ and that was that.

As science often does, this belief was contradicted when researchers took a look at the brain and the hormone activity that happens when we "exercise" our brains. They first looked at the ability for older individuals to "hang onto" brain cells when they kept their mind active with reading, puzzles  and the like. This research proved that the brain isn't on a timeline for failure. This proved that active stimulation of the brain is good for slowing the decay of our brain cells.

With the progression of brain research, we found that the brain can be stimulated in many different ways. Taking an ordinary task and doing it differently can provide such stimulation. This stimulates the brain to release a series of hormones and enzymes which act as a primer for brain cell generation. Very simple tasks can be made into a challenging brain game. Try standing on one foot and brushing your teeth. Or, perhaps using your opposite hand to eat dinner. Although it may be challenging, this type of stimulation can pay huge dividends in our neurological health. It keeps our brain young, strong, and turns mundane tasks into a challenge for it.

Now you might see where I am going with this, next in the progression is the tie between the body and the mind. Recent research is proving that exercise has a huge impact on our mental health. With aerobic exercise, it is now known that our brains release these same chemicals, stimulating the brain to create new cells. Our cerebellum, which controls balance, coordination, and gross motor movements grows. Studies with college students proved that students who exercises prior to studying retained significantly more information than their sedentary counterparts, not only this, but those who studied while exercising very lightly had some of the same effect. There is a ton of research on problem solving and processing that points to exercise as a sure fire way to increase your mental abilities.

If I cannot convince you to start exercising for your minds sake myself, take a look into SPARK: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain by John, J Ratey. It is a fascinating read about all the latest and exciting research surrounding this topic. From elementary aged kids to senior citizens Ratey shows through specific studies that exercising is not only an essential aspect of our bodily health but our mental health as well. The book goes into greater details than I just laid out, of course you can just take my word for it that exercise is awesome for not only our bodies but for the mind as well.

Now that I laid out the foundation stay tuned for part 2 of this series: How much, how often, and what kind of exercise to stimulate these healthy outcomes!