Do you want to improve your mood , increase your focus and work performance, and protect against depression, anxiety and Alzheimer's? ...
Do you want to improve your mood, increase your focus and work performance, and protect against depression, anxiety and Alzheimer's? Just by moving your body, you can reap immediate, long-lasting, and protective benefits for your brain. Some of these benefits come immediately, some come months and some years later. Here's what exercise does to your brain:
What does exercise do to your brain?
Here are the effects of exercises on the brain:
Daily effects of exercise on our brain
- As we all know, exercise often becomes painful. As a response to this pain, your brain begins to release certain chemicals, including endorphins. Endorphins are often known as a source of euphoria and not only kill your pain, but also increase your addiction to sports and improve your mood. A single exercise instantly increases levels of neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin and noradrenaline.
- Additionally, a single daily exercise allows the body to pump more blood to the muscles. This increases blood flow, which is beneficial for your brain and you feel more alert and alert. The minute you start exercising, your brain cells will work at a higher level.
Six-month effects of exercise on our brain
- You need more oxygen when you exercise. Therefore, your heart rate increases to pump more blood and increase oxygen circulation. After about six months, the heart enlarges because it pumps blood more intensively. As a result of this process, blood flow to the brain becomes stronger and more efficient. In this way, your months-long exercise efforts provide permanent fitness to your brain.
- Long-term regular exercise produces brand new brain cells in the hippocampus, increases the volume of the brain and improves your long-term memory. The most common finding in neuroscience studies is that long-term exercise improves the focusing function, which is under the control of your prefrontal cortex.
- Not only does it result in better focus and attention, but the mood effects are long-lasting, making exercise more effective than antidepressant medications in treating depression.
Annual effects of exercise on our brain
- Exercise is one of the most effective methods, especially in coping with stress and reducing anxiety. After twelve months, exercising becomes a habit, gives you pleasure and significantly improves your mood. You may now become addicted to this natural medicine.
- Exercise combats stress by reducing the stress hormone cortisol, which causes the brain to become inflamed when exposed to it for long periods of time. Recent studies suggest that inflammation in the brain is a prelude to Alzheimer's and other types of dementia. Because the inflammatory burden that increases with stress causes mental confusion and brain filtering systems to not work effectively. Stress also causes nerve cells in the hippocampus, which has an important role in memory and cognitive performance, to die and the hippocampus to shrink.
- Exercise that improves blood flow ensures that more oxygen and nutrients are sent to the brain bloodstream, better nourishment of nerve cells, and also clears metabolic waste more efficiently. In particular, with oxygen-rich aerobic exercise that increases blood flow, the brain's own special immune and filter system sweeps Alzheimer's-causing protein deposits, nerve cell-damaging free radicals and other harmful toxins from the brain.
- Exercise may improve cognitive function in people with dementia, and people who are regularly active are not at risk of dementia and cognitive impairment. Here you can think of the brain as a muscle. The more you exercise, the larger and stronger your hippocampus and prefrontal cortex become. Why is this important? Because the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus are the two areas most susceptible to neurodegenerative diseases and cognitive decline that comes with aging.
- Exercise stimulates the production of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which helps grow new connections. Imagine you have so many connections in your brain circuits that if some of them are lost or damaged by disease, you still have additional connections in the brain that can do work without losing function. Exercise also helps improve the insulation of the brain's nerve cords, which deteriorate due to age or disease. Even just walking reduces the risk of developing dementia. Many studies show that exercising for at least 15 minutes three times a week reduces the risk of developing dementia by 30 to 40 percent.
- There are many studies in the scientific literature investigating the contribution of sports to educational life. For example, a recent study of students at the University of Michigan found that students who played sports had significantly higher grade point averages and 7 credits more course success than students who did not.
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