Exercise and brain health

/ Mental Health / By
body health

Exercise is good for your body. It promotes cardiovascular health and increased strength. Further, it can also improve flexibility, coordination, stamina, quality of life, and increased balance. Lesser known, it effects your brain. Exercise is linked to improved mood,4 improved quality of sleep,6 improved memory,1 and improved problem solving.3

Exercise makes you feel good

Let’s start by looking at exercise’s effects on mood. Anyone who exercises can think of a specific time that exercise increased their energy. This is due to exercise’s effect of releasing endorphins.

Endorphins are the bodies natural ‘feel good’ chemicals. They are released during pleasurable experiences, for example, eating your favourite foods or hanging out with your friends). It just so happens that exercise also releases these same endorphins.

Exercise therapy is being used and recommended to people with mood disturbances like anxiety and depression, to help treat them alongside traditional medical treatments and counselling.4,5 Simple ways in which you may be able to amplify the effect of exercise on mood is by picking an activity that you enjoy, working out with a friend, or getting outside.

Sleep Quality

Additionally, exercise is linked to better quality of sleep.6 It is thought that by using some of the body’s excess energy; sleep quality is improved. The best results are in those who exercise in the morning. Exercising too close to bedtime (less than 3 hours before) has been linked to decreased sleep quality. This is because the body is ‘activated’ for some time after exercise. If you are having trouble sleeping or staying asleep, try adding in 20-30 minutes of moderate intensity exercise before work or on your lunch break.

Memory and executive functioning

A more recently studied area in exercise therapy is with memory. Exercise is being linked with increasing other chemicals in the brain, which stimulate growth and neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is your brains  ability to change, grow, and form new connections. For centuries it was thought that after reaching maturity the brain did not have the ability to grow or repair itself. Newer research has proven that to be incorrect, as neuroplasticity associated with specific therapy and aerobic exercise takes place.

Aerobic exercises and cardiovascular training has been shown to improve memory in childrens, preadolescence,3 and the elderly. Specifically, it has been shown to increase the size of a specific brain area called the Hippocampus, which is responsible for regulating emotions, formatting memories, and guiding navigation and spatial processing.1 By incorporating aerobic exercise into daily routines and improving the size and function of this area of the brain, better results on executive functioning and memory testing have been seen in students and the elderly.

Moreover, some nursing homes
specializing in treating patients with dementia and other disorders of the brain use specific exercise programs to help people manage and regain some executive function, memory, and problem-solving ability.

Exercise Prescription

Finally, the Canadian Physical Activity Guideline recommends about 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous intensity exercise per week for health and wellness. These recommendations are very attainable and can be broken down to yield 30 minutes 5 times per week, or 20 minutes daily. Types of exercise which are recommended are walking, hiking, biking, swimming or aqua-size, resistance training and running, to name a few. Before starting any exercise program meet with your doctor to ensure that you body is fit to move.

Get out, and get active!

References

  1. Erickson, K. I., Voss, M. W., Prakash, R. S., Basak, C., Szabo, A., Chaddock, L., … & Wojcicki, T. R. (2011). Exercise training increases size of hippocampus and improves memory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(7), 3017-3022.
  2. Bossers, W. J., Scherder, E. J., Boersma, F., Hortobágyi, T., van der Woude, L. H., & van Heuvelen, M. J. (2014). Feasibility of a combined aerobic and strength training program and its effects on cognitive and physical function in institutionalized dementia patients. A pilot study. PloS one, 9(5), e97577.
  3. Chaddock, L., Hillman, C. H., Buck, S. M., & Cohen, N. J. (2011). Aerobic fitness and executive control of relational memory in preadolescent children. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 43(2), 344-349.
  4. Carter, T., Morres, I., Meade, O., & Patrick, C. (2017). Exercise for depression in adolescents: A meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. European Psychiatry, 41, S433.
  5. Moody, S. U., & Robertson, S. (2017). Combining Mental Health Treatment and Exercise is Medicine into an Integrated College Wellness Model: Whole Texans.
  6. Kelley, G. A., & Kelley, K. S. (2017). Exercise and sleep: a systematic review of previous meta‐Journal of Evidence-Based Medicine, 10(1), 26-36.