The brain, like many other parts of the body, requires stimulation to maintain it in favorable conditions and avoid the natural deterioration that can occur over the years.
Exercising it and incidentally leading healthy lifestyle habits helps reduce the risk of cognitive impairment, It allows you to maintain a better memory and can reduce the possibility of suffering from dementia, according to experts.
Staying active and engaging in health-protective activities help people have better brain fitness. The benefits of exercise for the brain are extensive.. For example, it helps maintain the ability to concentrate, increases cognitive flexibility, increases long-term memory, relieves stress and reduces anxiety, and slows down brain aging.
The area in which exercise most influences is the hippocampus, related to memory and learning and which is known to tend to be reduced in people suffering from mental illnesses such as depression or dementia. Thus, physical activity could, in a certain way, help to compensate or limit the effect of these pathologies, specifies a publication of the Vitónica portal, specialized in information on fitness and wellness.
aerobics for the brain
Although there are various physical activities that are ideal for helping the brain to become stronger and stay in shape, regular aerobic exercise is one of the most important to take care of it.
Research indicates that this activity increases blood flow to this organ and also increases the size of the hippocampus, the part of the brain that is involved in verbal memory and learning, according to information from the AARP, an American organization that serves the elderly. 50 years.
AARP cites a study published in The Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences which found a link between low physical activity and dementia risk. As part of the analysis, the scientists obtained magnetic resonance images of approximately 2,000 people aged 60 and over and found that the more active they were, the larger the size of their hippocampus.
Another investigation led by Marc J. Poulin, a researcher at the University of Calgary in Alberta (Canada), concluded that aerobic exercise causes blood to move through the body and also causes it to reach the brain, particularly to areas responsible for verbal fluency and executive functions.
In the study, published in the journal Neurology206 adults participated with an average age of 66 years and no history of heart or memory problems. The participants completed a supervised aerobic exercise program that was performed three days a week. As they progressed through the program, they increased their training to an average of 20 minutes each day.
After six months, the scientists found that these people improved 5.7% in tests of executive function, which include mental flexibility and self-correction, and 2.4% in verbal fluency. For its part, blood flow increased from an average of 51.3 centimeters per second (cm/sec) to an average of 52.7 cm/sec, that is, an increase of 2.8%, which corroborates the importance of aerobic exercise for the brain. .
Other options
In case people cannot practice aerobic exercise, there are other alternatives that are also beneficial and are, for example, tai chi, juggling and karate. Juggling balls or hoops can increase the volume of brain white matter by up to 5%, according to research from the University of Oxford.
In the case of karate, the white matter of the brain can also benefit. According to a magazine article Very interestingin experienced karate fighters this substance is structured differently from that of other people. “Specifically, their cerebellum and motor cortex better control and coordinate body movements, have more muscular strength and are more precise. Very useful qualities at advanced ages”, she specifies.