ON ABC NEWS TONIGHT: There is a small Greek island [about 25 square miles] where people live into their 90s AND STILL ACTIVE! What is their secret? Pretty simple when ABC went there to find out; natural organic foods, fish, fruits, vegetables, tea, AND no cars, no buses, natural work in gardens, walking everywhere, and an overall normal active life, like it was for most of the Western world back in the 19th century.
EXERCISE is mighty IMPORTANT
SO HERE ARE THE FACTS
From the book: "Change your Brain Change your Body" by Dr. Amen
Exercise Your Body to Strengthen Your Brain
Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness.
—Edward Stanley, former prime minister of the United Kingdom
Physical activity was a natural part of daily life for our ancestors. They hunted animals for food, tended to their gardens, built their own homes, and walked wherever they had to go. In our thoroughly modern world, we drive to work, sit at a desk all day, drive home, and loaf around on the couch. We've almost completely eliminated movement from our day-to-day lives. This is bad news for our brains—not to mention our bellies, our butts, and our backs.
If you want to have a healthy brain and body, you've got to get off your butt and move! Physical activity is the single most important thing you can do to enhance brain function and keep your body looking young. Whether you are six years old or ninety-six years old, exercise acts like a fountain of youth. If you can only follow one of the solutions in this book, make it this one.
THE MANY WAYS PHYSICAL EXERCISE PUMPS UP YOUR BRAINPOWER
Physical exercise acts like a natural wonder drug for the brain. It improves the heart's ability to pump blood throughput the body, which increases blood flow to the brain. That supplies more oxygen, glucose, and nutrients to the brain, which enhances overall brain function. The number of ways that physical exercise benefits the brain is truly remarkable. Here are just some of the things exercise can do for your brain and body.
Exercise encourages the growth of new brain cells. Aerobic activity that gets the heart rate up for extended periods of time boosts brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a chemical that plays a role in neurogenesis, or the growth of new brain cells. Think of BDNF as a sort of Miracle-Gro for your brain. When you exercise,.your brain sprouts new cells. When your brain doesn't create as many new cells as it loses, aging occurs.
Research studies on laboratory rats show that exercise generates new brain cells in the temporal lobes (involved in memory) and the prefrontal cortex (involved in planning and judgment). These new cells survive for about four weeks, then die off unless they are stimulated. If you stimulate these new neurons through mental or social interaction, they connect to other neurons and enhance learning. This indicates that it is necessary to exercise consistently to encourage continual new cell growth in the brain. It also explains why people who work out at the gym and then go to the library are smarter than people who only work out at the gym.
Physical activity enhances cognitive ability at all ages. No matter how old you are, exercise increases your memory, your ability to think clearly, and your ability to plan. In Dr. John J. Ratey's book Spark, he details how a revolutionary physical education program at a school in Naperville, Illinois, has transformed the student body into some of the smartest kids in the nation. In 1999, eighth graders there took an international standards test called TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study), which focuses on math and science. For years, U.S. students have been lagging far behind pupils from other nations—including Japan, Korea, Singapore, and China—in these two subjects. The Naperville eighth graders defied that trend, ranking first in the world in science and sixth in math. Compare those results to U.S. students' national rankings of eighteenth in science and nineteenth in math.
What's so special about Naperville's PE program? It sidelines traditional sports in favor of high-intensity aerobic activity-—-a brief warm-up, a one-mile run, and a cool-down. The only rule: Students must keep their average heart rate above 185 for the mile-long run. The burst of activity is obviously paying off. I hope other schools from around the country take notice and start implementing similar PE programs. I highly recommend that you pick up a copy of Spark to learn more about the many ways this fitness program is benefiting the students.
There's a lot more evidence that exercise boosts brainpower. In 2005, the California Department of Education (CDE) released a study that compared the relationship between physical fitness and academic achievement. The study revealed that students in the fifth, seventh, and ninth grades with the highest fitness levels also scored highest on standardized reading and math tests. On the other end of the scale, the students in these grades who were the-least physically fit had the lowest academic test scores.
In a 2005 issue of Pediatrics, a panel of thirteen researchers published the results of a large-scale review of 850 studies about the effects of exercise on the nation's youth. The panel concluded that for optimal academic performance, school-age children should participate daily in one hour or more of moderate to vigorous exercise that includes a variety of physical activities.
Another study, published in Brain Research, found that physically fit thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds showed significantly greater cognitive processing ability than their couch-potato peers. A host of other studies have found a laundry list of benefits tied to exercise. Physical activity boosts memory in young women aged eighteen to twenty-five, and it improves frontal lobe function in older adults. Getting your body moving also protects the short-term memory structures in the temporal lobes (hippocampus) from high-stress conditions. Stress causes the adrenal glands to produce excessive amounts of the hormone Cortisol, which has been found to kill cells in the hippocampus and impair memory. In fact, people with Alzheimer's disease have higher Cortisol levels than do normal aging people.
Exercise enhances your mood. People who exercise consistently report a general sense of well-being that people who lead a sedentary lifestyle do not experience. Getting your heart pumping allows more of the natural mood-enhancing amino acid L-tryptophan to enter the brain. L-tryptophan is the precursor to the neurotransmitter serotonin, which balances moods. It is a relatively small amino acid, and it often has to compete with larger amino acids to cross the blood channels into the brain. With exercise, the muscles of the body utilize the larger amino acids and decrease the competition for L-tryptophan to enter the brain, which makes you feel better.
Exercise helps alleviate depression. In any given year, almost fifteen million American adults and about 5 percent of children and adolescents experience major depressive disorder. Millions of these adults and children turn to prescription medication for help, and antidepressants have become the most commonly prescribed drug in the nation, according to a study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. What would you say if I told you that exercise can be as effective as prescription medicine in treating depression?
I teach a course for people who suffer from depression, and one of the main things we cover is the importance of exercise in warding off this condition. I encourage all of these patients to start exercising and especially to engage in aerobic activity that gets the heart pumping. The results are truly amazing. Over time, many of these patients who have been taking antidepressant medication for years feel so much better that they are able to wean off the medicine.
The antidepressant benefits of exercise have been documented in medical literature. One study compared the benefits of exercise to those of the prescription antidepressant drug Zoloft. After twelve weeks, exercise proved equally effective as Zoloft in curbing depression. After ten months, exercise surpassed the effects of the drug. Mfnnnizing symptoms of depression isn't the only way physical exercise outshined Zoloft.
Like all prescription medications for depression, Zoloft is associated with negative side effects, such as sexual dysfunction and lack of libido. Plus, taking Zoloft may ruin your ability to qualify for health insurance. Finally, popping a prescription pill doesn't help you learn any new skills. On the contrary, exercise improves your fitness, your shape, and your health, which also boosts self-esteem. It doesn't affect your insurability, and it allows you to gain new skills. If anyone in your family has feelings of depression, exercise can help.
The power of exercise to combat depression is yet another reason why I think schools need to make physical education a requirement for all grades. If 5 percent of kids and adolescents suffer from depression, why not get them to try exercise as a way to reduce or eliminate their need for medication? Getting depressed kids to take part in PE could even prove to be a life-saver. Consider this fascinating report from the Secret Service: National Threat Assessment Center on school shootings. The researchers examined thirty-seven school shootings involving forty-one perpetrators between the ages of eleven and twenty-one. Aside from the fact that all the shooters were male, what was the one and only characteristic they shared? A history of depression. More than half of the shooters reported having experienced feelings of depression. In fact, 75 percent of them had threatened to commit suicide or had actually tried to kill themselves before they carried out their attacks.
Exercise calms worries and anxiety.. Anxiety disorders are very common in the United States, affecting approximately forty million adults and as many as one in ten young people. Millions more of us spend far too much time worrying about the little things in life. When worry or negative thoughts take over, exercise can provide a welcome distraction. Research shows that high-intensity activity can soothe anxiety and reduce the incidence of panic attacks. If, for example, you or your family members are stressing out about an upcoming test or dwelling on an argument you had, physical activity can help clear your mind.
Exercise helps prevent, delay, and lessen the effects of dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Canadian researchers conducted a large-scale, five-year study to determine the association between physical activity and the risk of cognitive impairment and dementia. From 1991/1992 to 1996/1997, they gathered information on 4,615 men and women sixty-five years or older. The researchers evaluated the participants at the study's debut and again at its conclusion five years later. The results showed that 3,894 participants remained without cognitive impairment, 436 were diagnosed as having cognitive impairment but no dementia (mild cognitive impairment), and 285 were diagnosed as having dementia. Physical activity was associated with lower risks of cognitive impairment, Alzheimer's disease, and dementia of any type. High levels of physical activity were associated with even further reduced risks. The researchers concluded that regular physical activity could represent an important and potent protective factor against cognitive decline and dementia in elderly people.
A number of other studies support these findings and show that physical exercise prevents or delays the cognitive decline associated with dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Research has shown that in people over sixty-five, mild to moderate exercise reduces the risk of cognitive impairment and dementia due to Alzheimer's disease by about 50 percent. A study conducted at Case Western Reserve University examined how much TV people watch each day, which correlates inversely to their exercise level—the more TV people watch, the less they tend to exercise. People in the study who watched two or more hours of TV a day (couch potatoes) were twice as likely to develop Alzheimer's disease. In contrast, people over forty years of age who exercised at least thirty minutes per session two or more times a week reaped many protective benefits.
People already suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's disease may also see rewards from physical activity. Australian researchers found that memory-impaired older adults who followed a six-month exercise program experienced a decrease in cognitive decline over an eighteen-month follow-up period.
Exercise eases symptoms of ADD. The best natural treatment for ADD is physical exercise. In my experience, I have seen a direct correlation between the level of exercise a person gets and the severity of their symptoms. I have noticed that when my patients exercise on a regular basis, their ADD medication works better. In particular, I work with a lot of children and adolescents with ADD. In the spring, these patients will sometimes complain that their medications aren't working as effectively as before. When I hear this, I always ask them if they've changed their exercise routine. Often, they will tell me that they had been playing basketball, a highly aerobic sport, but the season ended, so they aren't doing any physical activity at the moment. When I get them to exercise again, their medication starts working better again. I could just as easily raise the dosage of their medication, but there are side effects associated with that. Exercising has no side effects and a wealth of benefits, so I prefer trying that route first.
If you want more proof that exercise is a great natural treatment for ADD, look at Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps. Diagnosed with ADD at the age of nine, Phelps had trouble concentrating in class and struggled with his schoolwork. He started taking prescription stimulant medication for ADD to ease his symptoms. In the sixth grade, he told his mother he wanted to stop taking the medication. By then, he was spending hours a day swimming in the pool, and thanks to the intense aerobic activity, he managed to stay focused without medication.
Physical fitness sparks better behavior in adolescents. Researchers at the University of California, Irvine, studied 146 healthy adolescents to determine the effects of physical exercise on their lives. The results showed that teens who were more physically fit were less impulsive, felt happier, and were more likely to do good things with their lives than their less-fit peers.
People who exercise regularly sleep better. Regardless of your age, engaging in exercise on a routine basis normalizes melatonin production in the brain and improves sleeping habits. If you've ever watched your kids horse around in the backyard for hours and then collapse into bed at night; you know how true this is. In Chapter 10, you will learn why sleeping is critical for maintaining optimal brain function throughout your lifetime. Remember, although regular exercise is advised, it is best to avoid doing vigorous exercise too close to bedtime. Try to complete physical activity about four hours before going to bed.
Exercise helps women cope with hormonal changes. Evidence shows that regular exercise tends to minimize symptoms associated with PMS. It also helps women deal with the hormonal fluctuations that occur during pregnancy, perimenopause, and menopause.
EXERCISE IS KEY TO BETTER HEALTH, BETTER ENERGY, AND A BETTER MOOD
Exercise promotes better health and helps you live longer. Regular exercise increases the chemical nitric oxide, which tells the smooth muscles in your blood vessels to relax and open, allowing blood to flow more freely throughout your body. You probably never think of your blood vessels as having muscles, but they do. Every time you exercise, you give your blood vessels a workout too. With consistent exercise, your blood vessels become more robust. That helps keep blood pulsing to your heart, organs, and tissues. This boosts the health of vital organs and reduces the risk for high blood pressure, stroke, and heart disease—all of which have been linked to cognitive decline.
Physical activity also enhances insulin's ability to prevent high blood sugar levels, thereby reducing the risk of diabetes. In addition, exercise increases the production of glutathione, which is the major antioxidant in all cells. Pumping up the levels of glutathione protects muscles and other tissues from free radical damage and premature aging. Research has also shown that mild to....
TO BE CONTINUED
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