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February 5, 2012
Your Brain On Exercise
by Bob Tschannen-Moran

Laser Provision

I have often written about the connection between my running routines and these weekly Provisions. Schedule permitting, I often sit down and write them soon after I clean up from a long run. I'm doing that right now. If you thought that running for 2+ hours just gives me a lot of time to think, you have only a small part of the picture. Exercise doesn't just give me time to think, it fuels the brain with ideas, happiness, vitality, alertness, and creativity. That's because, as we have seen my current Provision series, the brain is not just in our heads. It is distributed throughout the body and is nourished through a physiology of extracellular chemicals and fluids. If you want to make your brain smarter, then exercise may be just what the doctor ordered. Intrigued? Read on.

LifeTrek Provision

• Exercise increases alertness by increasing blood flow in and to the brain.
• Exercise reduces depression by releasing feel-good chemicals like serotonin and dopamine.
• Exercise combats ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) in both children and adults.
• Exercise smoothes out behavior for 2-4 hours after the exercise.
• Exercise causes new stem cells to grow, refreshing the brain and other body parts.
• Exercise also stimulates nerve growth factors. That's why John Ratey, MD, refers to exercise as "Miracle-Gro for the brain."
• Exercise calms the nerves, reducing anger, fatigue, and tension. It's great for anxiety disorders.
• Exercise improves "executive function," the ability to make wise, situation-appropriate decisions.
• Exercise strengthens working memory, the type used to execute everyday tasks.
• Exercise reduces the risk of dementia later in life.

Are you persuaded yet? I hope so. The problem with our world is that we have become a sedentary society. Activities that used to be the norm, like walking and playing outside, are now things we have to make ourselves do. With the advent of the digital age, it's become possible to live and work without leaving home. And even those who still go to an office may only walk to and from their cars as part of their daily routine. Then we wonder why we're not thinking as clearly or feeling as good as when we were younger. The problem is not aging; the problem is a lack of exercise.

In his excellent book, Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, John Ratey, MD, makes this case persuasively right from the start of the book:

"We all know that exercise makes us feel better, but most of us have no idea why. We assume it’s because we’re burning off stress or reducing muscle tension or boosting endorphins, and we leave it at that. But the real reason we feel so good when we get our blood pumping is that it makes the brain function at its best, and in my view, this benefit of physical activity is far more important -- and fascinating -- than what it does for the body. Building muscles and conditioning the heart and lungs are essentially side effects. I often tell my patients that the point of exercise is to build and condition the brain."

"In today’s technology-driven, plasma-screened-in world, it’s easy to forget that we are born movers -- animals, in fact-- because we’ve engineered movement right out of our lives. Ironically, the human capacity to dream and plan and create the very society that shields us from our biological imperative to move is rooted in the areas of the brain that govern movement. As we adapted to an ever-changing environment over the past half million years, our thinking brain evolved from the need to hone motor skills. We envision our hunter-gatherer ancestors as brutes who relied primarily on physical prowess, but to survive over the long haul they had to use their smarts to find and store food. The relationship between food, physical activity, and learning is hardwired into the brain’s circuitry."

"But we no longer hunt and gather, and that’s a problem. The sedentary character of modern life is a disruption of our nature, and it poses one of the biggest threats to our continued survival. Evidence of this is everywhere: 65 percent of our nation’s adults are overweight or obese, and 10 percent of the population has type 2 diabetes, a preventable and ruinous disease that stems from inactivity and poor nutrition. Once an affliction almost exclusively of the middle-aged, it’s now becoming an epidemic among children. We’re literally killing ourselves, and it’s a problem throughout the developed world, not merely a province of the supersize lifestyle in the United States. What’s even more disturbing, and what virtually no one recognizes, is that inactivity is killing our brains too -- physically shriveling them."

"Fortunately, exercise unleashes a cascade of neurochemicals and growth factors that can reverse this process, physically bolstering the brain’s infrastructure. In fact, the brain responds like muscles do, growing with use, withering with inactivity. The neurons in the brain connect to one another through 'leaves' on treelike branches, and exercise causes those branches to grow and bloom with new buds, thus enhancing brain function at a fundamental level."

So how much exercise is enough? The short answer is that no exercise is too little to be insignificant when it comes to the effects on the brain. Even short breaks to walk or stretch have a measurable impact. So don't use time as your excuse. Those simple things that you have heard about when it comes to physical fitness and weight loss, things like taking the stairs instead of the elevator or parking further away from the entrance of a building, are also good for cognitive and emotional abilities. If you want to remember what you went in the store to get then walking a few extra steps may help you do that.

The longer answer is that more and harder is better. When it comes to the brain, vigorous cardiovascular exercise at least three times a week is the best medicine. Five times a week, totaling at least 150 minutes, is even better. Walking, running, swimming, rowing, cycling, or working out on any machine that raises our heart rate is all we need. Even chores like gardening, sweeping, raking, or cleaning can help to meet our brain's exercise requirements.

And it's never too soon or too late to start. The earlier in life the better, so we set good habits. But even senior citizens who start to walk regularly after long periods of sedentary lifestyles demonstrate measurable improvements in memory skills, learning ability, concentration, abstract reasoning, and mood.

The bottom line is this: exercise is not just good for the brain, it is essential for optimum brain functioning. Sitting around all day and sleeping all night is a surefire formula for brain deterioration and dysfunction. If we want to stay sharp and happy, then we have to stay active.

Coaching Inquiries: What is your pattern when it comes to exercise? Are you getting at least 90 minutes of vigorous exercise a week? What could help you to push that up to 150 minutes or more? Who could help you? What are some of your favorite exercises and activities? How might your life be better if your brain was sharper and your mood was happier? What's keeping you from taking the first step? Top

To reply to this Provision, use our Feedback Form. To talk with us about coaching or consulting services for yourself or your organization, use our Contact for Coaching Form to arrange for a complimentary conversation.

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