Exercise Your Brain

For decades now we have known participating in some form of exercise several times a week makes us a stronger, healthier person, improving the quality of our lives as well as increasing the years we live. We've been encouraged, by experts, to find something we enjoy doing such as dancing, walking, hiking, tennis or bicycle riding. They say if we enjoy the exercise we are more likely to stick with it. As our lives have become busier time is at a minimum. Yet, we still get that jog in after work or at least take the stairs or park our car farther out in the parking lot. But, how much have we considered exercising our brain as an important daily ritual?

What the Research Shows

Researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine have studied ways to halt dementia for the last 21 years. They have found Alzheimer's (or other forms of dementia) can be significantly reduced when you are involved in cognitive stimulating activities such as playing an instrument, checkers, chess, reading or writing.

When asked how this "brain health" seems to work, Professor John Verghese said there seemed to be two reasons. "One is to do with something called a cognitive reserve theory, which is that by engaging in these activities you're building a buffer or a reserve in the brain by increasing the connections between the cells or promoting new cell growth, and this way, when you do get the disease, you're resistant to the effects of the disease for a few more years. Then you only manifest the disease say three or four years later.

The other possibility could be that the brain is plastic and if you challenge the brain and stress the brain by these mental activities you lay down new connections and even, you know, promote growth of new cells in areas which are affected by Alzheimer's disease."

Simple Brain Exercises

The Brain Body Connection

Neurobics

Neurobic exercises are changing the way you normally do things, breaking routine. For instance: brush your teeth or get dressed with your eyes closed; go to a new grocery store; go to work by a new route; learn new ways to communicate besides words. Another way to accomplish a neurobic exercise is to combine the use of two senses together such as enjoying music and smelling perfume or watch clouds go by while kneading clay in your hands.

Healthy Heart - Healthy Brain

Recent animal studies have shown that active exercise creates new blood vessels in the brain. With more blood vessels, the brain has more oxygen, carbohydrates and proteins giving it more energy access. In fact, during these animal studies, it was found that, as you would expect, development increased in the area of the brain associated with movement. But, it also increased areas of learning and memory. In short, the aerobic exercise benefits were widespread.

The studies similar to those mentioned with animals, done with humans, have shown similar reactions. However, when people were put on an exercise plan that involved stretching and toning the results showed no change in the brain. A research study done with senior citizens put on a walking plan of regular exercise showed improved memory skills as well as their learning skills. Those who walked as short a time as twenty minutes a day decreased their stroke risk by 57%. Therefore, we must surmise the kind of exercise you do, mainly aerobic, makes the difference.

The Toe Trick

New Pathways

As mentioned earlier, these studies are still very new. But, there seems to be enough evidence to warrant encouragement of physical exercise as well as mental exercises in keeping a healthy mind now and into old age. Earlier we spoke of learning new skills and how that resulted in increased brain power. The same results can be accomplished through physical exercise. Learning new techniques or exercising in a different way can give you the same results. In other words, you can accomplish two jobs with one effort. With learning a new skill, comes the formation of synapses. Synapses is the contact point between two brain cells. Taking this benefit one step further, it was found that people who participated in aerobic exercise on a regular basis learned other things more easier. They became better problem solvers.

An easy way to activate your nerves and stimulate your brain as well as internal organs is to wiggle your toes. While still in bed in the morning after hitting the snooze button on the alarm clock, take five minutes to wiggle your toes. It will help you to wake up and start the day off with an alert mind. If you have a desk job, after sitting for a long period, try wiggling those toes for a quick pick-me-up. All the while you were running, walking and swimming you were feeling proud. You were doing great things for your body. But, did you know you may have also been doing great things for your brain? Although studies are still new and not all is known about how physical exercise improves your brain, researchers have found that it does.

It has been determined that aerobic exercise does make your brain function better. Neurobics is a system that encourages your brain to provide it's own nutrients that will preserve, strengthen and grow new brain cells. It involves using your five physical senses along with your emotional sense. This unique system was developed by Lawrence C. Katz Ph.D. He is a professor of neurobiology at Duke University Medical Center. Neurobics exercises can help you activate nerve pathways and connections that are underused, increasing the power of your brain.Cleveland Clinic Foundation researchers conducted a study in which they tested a control group of 30 people with a group of 30 people who performed an exercise for 5 minutes a day, five days a week. They were to concentrate on the muscle in their small finger as hard as they could. In their imagination they were to contract the finger muscle without actually physically doing it.

The control group did nothing. After 12 weeks, the finger image group increased their pinky muscle by 35% where the control group showed no muscle increase. The finger image group also increased their focus as seen in their frontal cortex through brain scans.

For the next half hour try using your computer mouse in the opposite hand. Feels a bit uncomfortable, doesn't it? It's like when you first learned how to hold a pencil and write letters on a piece of paper. Well, guess what? Your brain is learning a new skill with your computer mouse just like it did when you first learned to write. Work on your brain through out the day. Use the opposite hand when ever you are doing any everyday task such as brushing your hair or teeth, eating with a fork or even using the TV remote control. Scientific research now shows that our brains change throughout our life time.

We can grow new neurons even in old age. The old way of thinking was, as adults, our brains were fully formed. Scientists at the Delos Institute studied two groups. The first group participated in "brain games" for one month, while the control group did not. The "brain game group" exhibited an average 9 point increase average in their IQ while the control group showed to have an average 1 point increase..