Exercise and Your Brain – 5 questions
By
I last wrote about how exercise can improve your brain by improving it’s cognitive reserve.
It seems to be a well documented fact that exercise has a beneficial effect on your thinking, feelings and the ability to preserve your thinking functions. I am obsessive compulsive. I like to measure how much and how often and to track my effort and progress so I had some questions. I searched for some answers. Here are some of the results.
Q1. Which exercises should I do? I knew if it was run marathons I was going to be left out. It turns out that moderate exercise like walking briskly, swimming, hiking and exercises that make you sweat are very beneficial.
Q2. How long should I exercise to derive a benefit? The experts varied in their opinion on this but some where between 12 minutes of huffing and puffing and 90 total minutes in several smaller workouts per day is ideal. You have some leeway.
Q3. How often should I exercise? Well, again some variation but everyone agrees not less than three times per week. It also seems that the less often you exercise the longer each period of exercise needs to be.
Q4. What brain benefits will I derive from regular exercise? Better focus, a calming effect, resistance to depression and anxiety are some. Better sleep is another. It will help you to keep a brain with more dense tissue longer, which is associated with better thinking and memory as we age.
Q5. Are there any downsides on the brain from exercise? Well, it does not seem to help bipolar disorder the way it does anxiety, depression, or ADHD. You can over do it. Regular moderately intense exercise is good enough. Those who have depression are benefited but the motivation to do anything when depressed is in very short supply.
To read more try the web site and blog at Sharp Brains. Don’t forget to subscribe if you like what you read and of course tell me about your experiences. Leave me lots and lots of your personal anecdotes.
Popularity: 2% [?]