Building Brains and Brawn

Next time you’re at the gym pumping iron, you might be interested to know you’re building as much brain as brawn.  

You read right. The physical benefits of exercise are well known, even by those who don’t engage in any, but a lesser known and equally important fact is that exercise works wonders for your brain too! Turns out a good workout doesn’t just help keep your body fit and healthy but does an amazing job of keeping your brain healthy as well.  

That the mind and body interrelate is long established, at least in some cultures. Western medicine is now accumulating more hard evidence to support what those cultures have known and which have probably been dismissed as absurdity.  

The link between mental stress and physical illness has been established, but science is slowly discovering evidence to suggest that the reverse is also true-that the body can affect the brain. For example, if you’ve ever completed an intense or grueling workout that you know should leave you slumped in a corner of the gym puking your guts out, but instead leaves you with this strange and inexplicable desire to inflict more punishment on your body because it just feels so damn good…chances are you’ve experienced what’s known as a natural or runners’ high…the result of endorphins being pumped into the brain as a result of exercise. You know you’ve hit it (or it you) when the pain suddenly vanishes and your exhaustion is replaced by an amazing sense of euphoria and a desire to go climb the nearest mountain or bungee dive off the edge of the nearest cliff, or this strange voice goes off in your head saying “let’s do it again.” That’s what some people refer to as a second wind.  

But beyond the feeling of well being and self confidence that exercise helps create, scientists have discovered a more extensive and substantive link between exercise and physical activity, and the healing of mental illness and the attainment of better mental health.  

Apparently the demand for oxygen that physical exertion causes results in that oxygenated blood speeding not just to the working muscles but to the brain as well, to an area in the temporal lobe called the hippocampus, which is associated with memory skills, and processing speech and vision. It is a sea horse shaped area, which is the site of an amazing chemical chain reaction in which mimics the effect of drugs like Prozac and Ritalin and helps you feel energized and helps you focus. But more than that it helps increase the size and improve aptitude!  

Turns out parents who keep their kids away from sports and play because they think it interferes with their academic performance are dead wrong. 

The fact is that kids who engage in physical activity aren’t just doing their bodies good, but are outperforming inactive kids on tests, because they enjoy better focus, memory and problem solving ability. But more than that, the data is suggesting that maintaining that physical activity throughout life can actually stave off a number of neurological illnesses, including Alzheimer’s disease. Studies are showing that exercise can significantly increase the relative hippocampus volume in patients with schizophrenia and that physical fitness helps improve spatial memory, increases the size of the brain structure. 

The scientists are suggesting that exercise may help increase hippocampal neurogenesis and reverse some of the changes in the hippocampus and the cognitive decline that aging causes. You know that old saying use it or lose it? Turns out it actually has a scientific basis and it’s not just true about your muscles. In exercise science there’s a concept called reversibility which suggests that physiological effects of weight training diminish if you stop working out for an extended period of time, resulting in the body’s return to its pre-training shape. Weight training results in muscle hypertrophy or the increase of the size of muscle cells. If you don’t use your muscles, the result is muscular atrophy or a wasting away of muscle from neglect. The same is true of the hippocampus, which is now associated with some severe mental illnesses. In the case of schizophrenia and some severe depressions, the hippocampus appears to shrink. Recent evidence suggests that this shriveling can be reversed and perhaps prevented in people with depression and bipolar disorder through exercise treatment.  

Exercise and physical activity, actually helps in the creation of brain cells and allows the brain to regenerate itself and helps keep the brain healthy and functional well into your latter years, so that you’ll not only look good but you’ll be nimble, quick-witted and smarter, not just for exercising but because of it.  

ABOUT THE AUTHOR; Kendal Burton is a Certified Personal Trainer, Yoga Instructor and Certified Sports Nutrition Specialist