What’s in it for me? Move your body and keep your mind sharp.
Humans didn’t evolve from a species of couch potatoes.
Our ancestors were "movers," always on the go.
To survive, early humans had to keep changing location, hopping from waterhole to waterhole, fleeing hungry lions or hunting other animals for food.
Today, however, the modern human spends plenty of time at a desk, moving nothing but his fingers.
And while this may seem like progress, this lack of activity is wreaking havoc with the human brain.
Why is movement so important to the brain?
As you’ll learn, the human brain thinks we’re living in a world in which we’re still “movers.
” Consequently, the brain needs the body to move so it can continue to function and remain healthy.
In these blinks, you’ll also discover why you don’t need Chardonnay if you have a skipping rope; what anti-allergy medicine taught physicians about depression; and what a broken hip can do to your brain.
You know that you can tone your muscles by lifting weights.
Exercising is not only good for your body but also is good for your brain.
But did you know that your brain is also a malleable organ that gets stronger with use?
Think of your brain as just another big muscle – which means that if you keep your brain active, it will get stronger.
Every time you learn something new, the cells in your brain forge stronger connections to process the new information.
But what’s even more fantastic is that physical exercise also helps facilitate this connection process, prepping your brain to learn even more.
But wait a second – how does physical exercise help the brain learn?
Exercise works to boost the brain’s infrastructure, or its ability to create the connections you need to learn.
In part, this happens because exercise leads to an increase in the levels of important neurotransmitters that foster connections in the brain, like dopamine and serotonin.
But exercise also physically changes your brain cells, too.
When you work your muscles, these organs produce a specific type of protein known as growth factors.
These proteins travel to the brain, where they make brain cells more capable of connecting.
Growth factors also supply the building blocks for new brain cells and connections.
And the icing on the cake is that dopamine and serotonin, neurotransmitters that are released as you exercise, also sharpen your focus while improving your mood and motivation.
Thus the more you exercise, the better your brain’s ability to learn!
At Naperville Central High School, many students were struggling with English literacy and were required to attend extra lessons to improve reading comprehension.
The school decided to explore the effects of exercise on learning and required that one group perform vigorous exercises right before class.
This exercise program, called Zero Hour PE, improved the group’s reading comprehension by 17 percent – while classmates who didn’t exercise improved only by 10.
7 percent.
So clearly, exercise can help boost your brain’s capabilities, but that’s just one of the many benefits of exercise.
Next you’ll learn about how exercise alleviates stress.
Don’t reach for a bottle of wine to cope with a stressful situation, but do some jumping jacks instead!
Imagine you’ve hired a contractor to perform home renovations.
Before you know it, your home has become a living hell, torn apart and messy, with no end to the project in sight.
This is what happened to Susan, an energetic mother of four.
Her story is a great example of how stress can potentially lead to stress-related health issues.
Here’s the story.
Susan hired a contractor to renovate her kitchen.
Quickly the project became a hassle, and Susan felt overwhelmed as the project demanded so much of her time.
The contractor and his employees also were inconsiderate, leaving chaos behind them every day, stomping through the house with impunity.
Soon Susan was drinking wine to calm herself down; it got so bad that she was pouring herself a glass of chardonnay before noon every day.
This stressful situation could have inspired a serious drinking problem, but Susan found a way to overcome her crisis through exercise.
While exercise itself works because it stresses our muscles, performing exercise can also help a person control psychological stress.
The definition of stress is anything that prompts cellular activity in the brain.
Thus lifting weights or jogging “stresses” the body, just as a new or chaotic situation does.
But stress only harms you if it gets out of control – exercise can help to control its potentially harmful effects.
When you exercise, certain molecular byproducts of the brain’s metabolism damage brain cells.
But when that happens, a repair mechanism then toughens cells against future damage, making the brain more resistant to everyday stressors.
Susan took her problem to a psychiatrist, and he told her to replace her daily glass of wine with physical exercise.
Since she was fond of jumping rope, Susan did that every time she began to feel stressed.
The physical exertion calmed her down, and she no longer needed to drink.
Next, we’ll learn why exercise is also a great tool to battle depression.
Have you ever found yourself feeling down, perhaps for months on end?
You might have been depressed.
Depression isn’t just in your mind, it’s in your body, too. Exercise can help alleviate a dark mood.
If you spoke to a therapist, for example, he may have asked you about childhood experiences that could be the cause of your depressive episodes.
Depression was once considered a psychological issue, unrelated to the physical body.
But all that changed when physicians discovered how a person’s body could also affect mood.
In the 1950s, doctors noticed that patients would cheer up after taking a tuberculosis drug.
A similar effect was observed with patients on certain allergy medications.
Physicians began to reason that if something physical, like a drug, can improve a person’s mood, then perhaps a “bad” mood can have a physical cause.
Thus researchers began to search for a biological explanation of depression, and in the process, they uncovered a biological link between exercise and mood.
We now know that while everyone feels grouchy or sad at times, this doesn’t mean everyone suffers from depression.
That is, of course, unless the symptoms won’t go away on their own.
When you’re feeling down or even if you suffer from clinical depression, exercise can help ameliorate some depressive symptoms.
Exercise creates morphine-like-substances called endorphins in the body, which inspire a feeling of euphoria.
When one of the author’s patients, Bill, turned 50 years old, he was also 20 pounds overweight.
To combat this, he went on a diet and started jogging.
To his surprise, Bill started to feel less grumpy and was much less critical of himself and others.
While Bill had never been diagnosed as clinically depressive, exercise alleviated his mild depressive symptoms.
Just one more reason to get off the couch and move your body!
Exercise doesn’t just help you shed those extra pounds; it can also brighten your outlook and improve your mood.
When attention deficit disorder makes it hard to focus, physical exercise can lend a hand.
Do you ever struggle to stay focused while reviewing an abstract concept in philosophy or math?
If you do, a specific part of your brain is to blame.
Your ability to focus depends on your brain’s reward center.
This region of the brain, also known as the nucleus accumbens, is composed of lots of dopamine neurons, or brain cells that emit dopamine – the reward hormone – to the brain’s prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for thinking, self-control and focus.
In people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), the brain’s reward center needs a little extra help to activate.
One way of offering this help is through exercise.
The brain’s attention system in people with ADHD doesn’t run optimally, as the brain forms fewer neural connections to the reward center.
As a result, a person with ADHD feels less rewarded for focusing.
But that doesn’t mean someone with ADHD can’t find the motivation to pay attention.
Rather, these people just need a little help to do so, which is where exercise comes in.
Sam is a 36-year-old thriving venture capitalist, yet his prospects early on didn’t seem so bright.
In his youth, his family considered him a troublemaker and would punish him harshly and often.
At school, his teachers saw him as the smart kid who could excel, if he would only try harder and have a better attitude, instead of rebelling against authority figures and taking drugs.
But at certain times, Sam would prove that he could focus.
When his parents forbid him from getting a driver’s license until he improved his grades, for example, he rapidly jumped from a GPA of 1.
5 to an impressive 3.
5.
How did Sam do it?
One thing that helped Sam focus was exercise.
He joined a serious college athletics program; these days he runs several miles a day.
Vigorous exercise has enabled Sam to focus and thus excel in the competitive world of venture capital.
It’s a beautiful summer’s day and you’re eager to go for a swim.
Avoid inactivity, no matter your age. Doing nothing causes the degeneration of both body and mind.
Unfortunately, you’ve committed to completing a daily crossword puzzle to keep your mind sharp.
Is choosing a crossword puzzle over swimming really so necessary?
When it comes to aging, the body and mind are intimately connected.
Poor lifestyle choices, like a lack of physical activity or smoking, will increase your chances of developing degenerative brain disorders.
Good lifestyle choices, on the other hand, such as regular exercise, will keep your brain healthy.
Lifting weights can both help you ward off osteoporosis, when bones become porous and fragile, and trigger brain cells to form new connections.
A morning run can benefit blood vessels, including those in your brain.
Running lowers blood pressure and helps to prevent blockages in the brain’s capillaries caused by fatty deposits or blood clots.
The author’s mother was always active, walking to church, shoveling snow and tending a bountiful garden.
Later in life she took up golf, swimming and walked even more than she did in her youth.
She unfortunately broke her hip twice within a couple of years.
After her first fall, the months of inactivity reduced her gait to a shuffle and, just like her body, her mind slowed down, too.
Instead of playing bridge, she chose to watch soap operas at home.
After breaking her hip a second time, her health took a turn for the worse.
She began confusing reality with the fiction in her soap operas, even hallucinating the presence of characters from the show.
Exercise isn’t just essential for your body but also for your brain.
It’s clear that the woman’s physical and mental decline were in part caused by forced inactivity following her health issues.
So going for that swim on a summer’s day could be every bit as nourishing for your brain as struggling through the Sunday crossword!
Final summary
The key message in this book: There’s a strong connection between body and mind, which makes exercise crucial for both physical and mental fitness.
Exercise can help alleviate the symptoms of stress and depression, slow the pace at which you age and improve your ability to learn.
Actionable advice: Have an addictive personality?
Try running.
If you struggle with an addiction of any kind or feel you have an addictive personality, exercise can help you stem your unhealthy urges.
Instead of indulging in drugs or other vices, go for a run or a swim.
You’ll find that exercise will get your body and mind back on track, filling you with a feeling of accomplishment and dulling any addictive cravings.
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Suggested further reading: Two Awesome Hours by Josh Davis Between open-plan offices, telecommuting jobs and freelancing in coffee shops, the modern workplace is a minefield of distractions.
Time to reclaim your brain with a little lifehacking strategy!
Two Awesome Hours (2015) reveals unexpected and insightful steps to a more productive you, from managing your mental energy to letting your mind wander.
120 minutes is all you need to make a difference.