Your Brain and Exercise
What if I told you, that while reading this article, you could do something that would immediately and positively affect your brain and mood. Would you?
Exercise, a passion for some, and an arch enemy for others. No matter what it is, there are some incredible effects of it. Dr. Wendy Suzuki, a professor of neuroscience explored this concept for herself, applied it to her own life and the outcome was life changing.
“Healthy Brain, Happy Life”- Self-Help Book By Wendy Suzuki
The implications of exercise are usually left on 2 parts of the brain. The prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus. Your prefrontal cortex, situated directly behind your forehead, is where ‘you’ live. Your personality, ability to make decisions and to focus all reside in here. Your hippocampus, on the other hand is where “you” used to live. All your memories, everything you remember from the moment you were born, its all here.
Dr. Suzuki tried something one day. After years of sitting in a lab, researching brain cells and losing her social life, she went on a river rafting trip and was the weakest person there. After that, she returned with a mission, to exercise, and exercise, and exercise. Little did she know, that all of this exercising was giving her a massive energy boost.
One day, she was sitting at her desk and trying to figure out an idea for a grant when surprisingly, it was going well! It turns out that all the exercise that she had been doing for the past 18 months led to her having a better attention span, focusing for longer periods of time and just being happier overall.
But how? There could’ve been any number of things that led to this. This is true. However, Dr. Suzuki decided to do some extra research on this to find out exactly how on earth this happened.
It turns out that exercise is the most transformative thing that you can do to your brain, for 3 reasons.
First off. Exercise immediately affects your brain. One workout results in the increase of neurotransmitter levels in your body. These include dopamine and serotonin, the ‘happiness’ hormones. Studies in Dr. Suzuki’s lab show that one workout with help your reaction times and focus drastically, so next time, you can catch your phone while its slipping out of your hand.
Moving on. Your hippocampus, the memory area. Exercising actually produces brand new, fresh brain cells in your hippocampus, which in turn increase its volume and improve your long term memory!
This brings me on to my next point. Neurodegenerative diseases which include Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and many more. Your prefrontal cortex and hippocampus are the very 2 areas in your brain that are the most susceptible to these types of diseases. By exercising, you won’t cure these diseases, you’ll be building bigger and better a prefrontal cortex and hippocampus for yourself so these diseases will have a harder, and longer time to affect you. Think of exercise like a 401k for your brain, but much better and free.
“Exercise is key not only to physical health, but to peace of mind”- Nelson Mandela
Thank you and don’t forget to live a healthy lifestyle, Varun Dhanam
