We have all heard about the importance of daily exercise to our physical health.
A daily walk, jog, swim or some other form of aerobic activity will help prevent heart disease, lower blood pressure, prevent diabetes and reduce our waistline.
Daily exercise can also help aging brains stay sharper and help prevent the onset of age-related brain disorders, like dementia.
This knowledge gives us even more incentive to get up and get moving each day for at least 30 minutes.
How It Works
A study was conducted at the University of British Columbia to discover how daily exercise impacted the brain.
The researchers discovered that any type of aerobic exercise that increased the heart rate and caused the person to sweat also increased the size of the section of the brain known as the hippocampus.
This area of the brain is associated with short and long term memory, verbal memory and learning.
Alzheimer’s and dementia patients have a smaller hippocampus due to the atrophy of this small organ in the brain.
Daily exercise helps prevent the hippocampus from atrophying and also helps the brain to stay sharp.
To provide benefits to the brain the daily exercise must be aerobic, meaning the activity must cause an increase in heart rate and breathing.
Brisk walking, jogging, dancing, aerobic exercise class, basketball and bike riding are some examples of brain-benefiting exercises.
Strength training, yoga, resistance or balance training won’t help keep the brain in good shape because these activities don’t raise the heart rate and cause a sweat.
These non-aerobic exercises are good for the aging body and should be incorporated into a fitness routine, they’re just not beneficial to the brain.
Indirect Brain Benefits
Daily aerobic exercise directly prevents the hippocampus from atrophying, and there are indirect brain benefits that keep the brain sharp too.
Regular exercise reduces inflammation throughout the body. It will also reduce insulin resistance and stimulate the release of growth chemicals in the brain.
These growth chemicals promote the health of brain cells and the growth of new blood vessels in the brain.
Exercise also helps us to feel better by reducing stress, improving our mood, and enabling us to sleep better at night. All of these are indirect factors that affect brain health.
Bigger Brain
Multiple studies have been conducted to help determine how exercise helps aging brains as part of the ongoing fight against Alzheimer’s.
One discovery is that people who exercise regularly have a bigger brain.
The two parts of the brain that control memory and thinking, called the prefrontal cortex and the medial temporal cortex, are bigger in people who exercise daily than in people who don’t exercise.
One study discovered that in just six months these two areas of the brain became larger when study participants engaged in moderate exercise regularly.
This suggests that it’s possible to reverse brain shrinkage and regain lost memory function.
When it comes to an aging brain, bigger is better.
Slow Alzheimer’s Progression
For those who have already developed Alzheimer’s, it’s not too late to begin a daily exercise program.
Amyloid plaque, which is a sticky substance that surrounds and kills neurons in the brain, is present in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.
Studies have shown that this sticky amyloid plaque is greatly reduced in the brains of mice that run on an exercise wheel regularly.
Further studies have shown that the diseased mice that ran on the exercise wheel scored higher on memory tests than the diseased mice that did not run on the exercise wheel.
Going through mazes and remembering where treats were located became easier for the diseased mice after they had been running on the exercise wheel for a period of time.
While exercise is not a cure for age-related brain disorders, it can slow down the progression of the disorder and improve the quality of life for the patient.
What Kind of Exercise is Best?
Scientists have not yet discovered which exercise is the best, but they all agree that any moderate-intensity form of activity that gets the heart beating faster is beneficial to the brain.
Walking is recommended most often because it’s affordable, can be done anywhere at any time, and can be done at your own pace. Walking is also easy on the joints.
Other moderate-intensity forms of exercise include swimming, tennis, dancing, stair climbing and low-impact aerobics classes (some classes are designed with the senior citizen in mind).
Find a physical activity that you enjoy, and you’ll be more likely to stick with it. Joining an exercise group and having a partner will also help keep you motivated to work out every day.
For optimum brain benefits, strive for 30 minutes each day of exercise. Start out slowly, perhaps just a few minutes each day, and build your way up to 30 daily.
