Exercise Body for Mind

Just as regular exercisal work-ups strengthen the heart, the lungs, the bones and the muscles, primarily by improving blood circulation and also the supply of nutrients to these organs and tissues, these power the brain too — for similar reasons. High on the list of self-help techniques to improve the brain’s functioning and to prevent age-related cognitive slumps, therefore, is exercise (CF ABC of Human Mind — a Reader’s Digest publication). Although cognitive decline with age is inescapable, it certainly can be retarded by regular exercise, not necessarily a strenuous one.

Physical exercise, more so that of the aerobic kind, helps the brain in many ways. Persons who exercise regularly improve both physically and mentally, are less likely to be anxious or depressed and are generally better equipped to cope with mental fatigue.

Exercise does even help older people in forestalling memory loss and in keeping the brain fit, leading to better reflexes and increased mental equity and alertness. Exercise heightens the sense of well-being.

A vigorous workout stimulates the body to pump out the so-called stress hormones such as cortisol and epinephrine that put the body in a state of alertness to react appropriately and less intensely to the anxiety-provoking events.

Exercise also stimulates the brain to secrete more of endorphins — the brains’ natural opiates that mimic the action of morphine and have pleasurable and pain-suppressing effects which produce a natural high.

Exercisal workouts are vital for cardiovascular health. Improving the blood/nutrient supply to the body as a whole is imperative. Older people, in particular, should undertake appropriate exercises suiting their state of health.

It is now being accepted that neurones of the hippocampus region (memory centre) in the human brain continue to divide throughout life, a finding that has significant implications in mental functioning as people age (Health and Nutrition, September 1999).

Mice, when subjected to strenuous exercise, add “vigorously” to the brain neurones and the same is expected to happen in the human brain.

“Time may make you older but perhaps workouts make you wiser” is the conclusion of the study undertaken by the Salk Institute (USA). Efforts made in youth to remain mentally agile signify an investment in the future to guard against age-based mental deterioration.

Science has established that the supply of the nutrients alone, which undoubtedly gets improved by exercise through better circulation, is not enough to sustain neurologic health. It is only one of the many factors that impinge on brain-functioning. To keep the brain healthy, mental exercises are no less important. Skill-based exercises, scientists feel, are one of the best ways to ward off age-related mental deterioration. The continuous use of the mental faculties is the paramount factor in keeping the brain fit. An ever-engaged brain, supported by an adequate nutrient supply over the years registers an increase in the number of dendrites — the thread-like cytoplasmic extensions of the brain neurones — as well as synapses — the regions of function between the processes of two adjacent neurones.