- Exercise alters the brain in a variety of beneficial ways, according to experts.
- One expert told Insider that it can stimulate the part of the brain associated with memory.
- Exercise can also make the brain more resistant to deterioration as we age.
Regular exercise is one of the best things that can do for your brain.
Wendy Suzuki, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at New York University, said that not only does your brain experience certain benefits immediately after exercising, but years of repeated exercise can permanently alter your brain and improve your cognitive health. And Teresa Liu-Ambrose, who studies healthy aging and cognition at the University of British Columbia, said that as long as you keep moving throughout your life, exercise makes the brain more resistant to decline as you age.
They also told Insider that long-term exercise was associated with more efficient brain function, growth in the brain’s memory center, and faster connections in the region associated with focus.
Exercise floods the brain with “feel good” neurochemicals
Suzuki, who is he? Author of the books “Healthy Brain, Happy Life” and “Good Anxiety,” said that during and immediately after you exercise, your brain releases a “bubble bath” of neurochemicals like endorphins, serotonin, and dopamine that decrease anxiety and make it feel good .
“Endorphins seem to be associated with a runner’s high, that happy, exuberant feeling,” he said.
In addition to making you happy, dopamine also increases your focus right after you exercise, because the part of the brain associated with attention uses dopamine to function, according to Suzuki.
Exercising stimulates the growth of neurons
Researchers have found that exercise stimulates the growth of new neurons in the region of the brain primarily associated with memory, called the hippocampus, Suzuki said. These new brain cells then integrate with the rest of the hippocampus, making the area physically larger and increasing your memory capacity.
Exercise also affects the size of the prefrontal cortex, located just behind the forehead, by increasing the thickness of a part of brain cells called axons, he said.
“The axon is covered with an insulating substance called myelin that basically makes the electrical activity through the neuron go as fast as possible,” Suzuki said. “The more myelin, the faster it goes. That’s one of the things that differentiates humans from other animals that don’t have our cognitive power. We have more myelin, which makes our connections work faster. With exercise, you get more myelin. “
Exercise can keep your brain healthy as you age
Suzuki said that hippocampus Y the prefrontal cortex they are also very susceptible to deterioration as we age. “So these are the two areas that are lost over time,” she said. “With regular exercise, the longer you do it throughout your life, you’re building a big, fat, spongy hippocampus, a big, spongy prefrontal cortex. And you’re not curing dementia or you’re not curing aging, but we’re making these two susceptible brain areas as strong and powerful as possible. So aging literally takes longer to take its toll.”
Liu-Ambrose said that around age 50 to 60, the hippocampus shrinks by 1% to 2% each year, and exercise has been shown to reduce the rate of this shrinkage. Exercise also helps prevent the spread of small blood vessel disease, in which tiny strokes occur throughout the brain and increase the dementia risk.
Overall, Suzuki said that exercise helps form new blood vessels, which can reduce the effects of stroke as we age.
Finally, Liu-Ambrose said that exercise can make the brain work more efficiently as we age. She said older brains often need to recruit more brain regions for the same task.
“After exercise, what happens is the brain may become more efficient, so you’re recruiting fewer brain regions, but for better performance,” he said.
Switching up your exercise could be better for your brain
Suzuki said that learning a new skill has been shown to be generally beneficial for your brain, so trying new exercises may give you greater benefits for your brain. Doing a new exercise, she said, builds new circuits in the motor cortex.
“If you’re just doing the same exercise over and over again, and it becomes more routine and not challenging in any new way, is it better to challenge yourself and try something more difficult? Yes, it is. A different part of your brain , and it’s always nice to mix things up that way,” he said.
Add new moves to your weight lifting routineCross-training or taking a kickboxing or Zumba class could be a fun way to accomplish this, he said.
Although aerobic cardiovascular exercise has been the most studied, he said there is no “best” exercise for brain health. Your brain will benefit from any physical activity that increases your heart rate.
“Every drop of sweat counts. The more you train, the more benefits you see,” Suzuki said.
