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 breaks down… then, it’s time to workout. The frustration, depression, anxiety, and stress dissipates and the remainder is efficiency and fulfillment as the worries of the day fade into the subconscious. Due to the release of serotonin and endorphins, exercise acts as an anti-depressant.
It regulates insulin and norepinephrine, adrenaline, while ultimately increasing brain cells in the hippocampus. Stress increases protein products while running counteracts stress by enhancing local inhibitory mechanisms in the hippocampus. Exercise helps with anxiety continually as well by producing the neurotransmitter galanin which helps lessen the body’s stress response. In teens, studies show depressionistic symptoms can be cut by 50% with 30 min of aerobic activity completed three to five times per week (7 “Invisible” Ways ).
In research supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, an experiment was conducted testing the results of a stressor, cold water, on the hippocampus region of mice. Immediately after the stressor was applied, the control and experimental group encountered different results in the activity of the hippocampus. The sedentary mouse lacked the increase of inhibitory neurons. Thus, this research proves “that running improves anxiety regulation”(Schoefeld).
Another study found in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, the official journal of the American College of Sports Medicine, contained data that was supporting the conclusive evidence that “reaching moderate-intensity PA (physical activity) levels during midlife may be protective against depressive symptoms” (Dugan). Study after study and research piled upon research clearly solidifies that symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress are relieved through exercise. Where’d I put my keys? 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 three different groups each performing a different type of exercise or simply no exercise at all. Using the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning test and a spatial memory, computerized test, each woman was assessed after a time span of 6 months.
Those participants in the aerobic training group performed significantly higher on both tests than the other groups. “Our results provide support for the prevailing notion that exercise can positively impact cognitive functioning. ”(Nagamatsu) Enlargements of parts of the brain, increase of blood flow, and higher metabolic rate purposefully come together for the end result of BDNF, a chemical called brain-derived neurotrophic factor. BDNF rewires memory circuits for better memory production. Have you forgotten your keys today, or just your daily dose of exercise?
