Brain Health and Exercise

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In addition to eating a diet which is heavy in fruits and vegetables and light in red meat and animal fats, which I discussed in a recent post, another way to take care of our brain is to get regular exercise. There are two reasons why exercise is so important for the brain: 1. Anything which helps your heart and cardiovascular system is good for your brain. Your brain needs access to a steady flow of fresh blood to operate properly, and exercise helps keeps your arteries open and operating properly. Exercise can reduce your risk of a stroke. Research by the Mayo Clinic also showed that even people who have already been diagnosed with mild dementia or cognitive impairment can improve their cognitive scores after six to twelve months of exercise. 2. The other reason exercise is important to the brain is because staying strong is the best way to reduce your risk of falling. Falls are the LEADING cause of death and disability in people over the age of 65. Not only can falls cause broken hips and other bones, but a cracked skull or concussion could do serious damage to your brain's function, especially as you age. What types of exercise are best? A wide variety. Aerobic exercise is good for your heart and brain, improves cognitive function, and reduces your risk of a stroke. Strength building exercises reduce your risk of falling. Flexibility training, such as you get with yoga or a stretch class, helps to keep your veins and articles flexible and can improve your sense of balance. Other balance exercises, such as tai chi, can also reduce your risk of falling. It also appears to be good for your brain to practice tossing or bouncing a ball. We can lose our spatial ability as we age and can have difficulty judging how hard or far to throw a ball to another person, which has implications in other parts of our life, such as driving or walking. Tossing a large rubber ball to another person is a good way to maintain our spatial awareness. Fun types of movement, such as playing tennis or dancing, can combine many other types of exercise, including aerobic, flexibility, balance and strength. You may even try just walking in funny ways ... spreading your feet further apart than normal, walking sideways or backwards, walking on a straight line, and walking on your heels or toes. The bottom line is to get out of that chair and get moving, if you want to maintain your brain health as you age! (This is part of a series of articles I am sharing, based on a brain health class I am taking from a local college.)