Mind Your Body! Exercise is Good for your Brain!
Jenn Schwartz August 2009
My strongest belief about the benefits of exercise is that exercise is most beneficial to the brain. Other benefits, weight loss and strength gain, are secondary to the benefits for the brain and only occur because the relationship between food, energy, exercise, and learning are hard wired into our brains. The mental benefits I am referring to are improvements in self-esteem, increased ability to learn more information at a faster rate, and the ability to better regulate hormones. Recently, I attended a phenomenal class in LA about neuroscience, created and given by BioConstructs, a science-based health and fitness consultation company, which confirmed my philosophy that exercise is most beneficial to the brain. This class also refined my knowledge of the mind-body connection.
The benefits listed above are only possible because of the mind-body connection. Most of you understand that our central nervous system commands our emotions, movements, bodily functions, and posture, but what does it mean to have a mind-body connection in reference to exercise? The BioConstructs creator Jacques Taylor gives this definition to the mind-body connection or the Extended Nervous System, “[It] is a continuum of molecules and tissue that record, distribute, and integrate information…this information is distributed into movement based on recorded information.” Since we are not in science class, I can offer an overhaul of this accurate definition.
I want to explore this, so that you can have a working knowledge of the brain. Hopefully, this exploration of the nervous system will give you insight that exercise should be used to better your life rather than participating in exercise because you have to.
The brain and spinal cord are constantly communicating via billions of nerve cells. Even when we are sitting and lying down, our bodies send our brains regular updates about how our limbs are positioned. The information input (anything picked up through your five senses) to the brain needs to be detected, converted into energy, and interpreted by the brain for it to be expressed as emotion, a function, or movement. Let me explain one more time but a little more in depth: When the nervous system is detecting a disruption to the state of balance, or homeostasis, the body defines the need to control the situation. After the detection, the nervous system needs to convert the information into energy to solve the control problem. This includes the stimulation of hormone production and gene expression. The interpretation will be able to accommodate to the body’s needs to control the situation, and bring the body back to homeostasis. The initial control problem could be as basic as sustaining a yoga pose or staying awake in the car. The interpretation requires sensory feedback. Sensory feedback is necessary whenever there is sensory input, and the feedback is needed to sustain the activity. I hope this basic explanation of the nervous system will help you to apply my philosophy.
Exercise is all about learning and creating habits and movement patterns to support a healthy life. As such, exercise is so useful to the brain because of the learning process that is an ingrained function of human beings. John Ratey, MD wrote a book that illustrates the amazing connection between neuroscience and exercise, “Spark, The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and The Brain”. On page 53 he states:
” Exercise improves learning on three levels: first, it optimizes your mind-set to improve alertness, attention, and motivation; second, it prepares and encourages nerve cell to bind to one another, which is the cellular basis for logging in new information; and third, it spurs the development of new nerve cells.”
Exercise can indeed improve learning in the brain. This fact also applies to aging. Aging from a neuroscience point of view is simply the reduction in speed of processing information. This reduction occurs through the loss of synapses, nerve cells, and actual shrinking of the brain. From the statement above, if our nerve cells are encouraged to bind together to become stronger, the brain has better access to the information attached to those nerve cells; this is an improvement in processing speed. If we can generate and reinforce new nerve cells through exercise, we are replacing the older, damaged cells. We can improve the strength and amount of capillaries to the brain through exercise which means the brain will have more blood supply and less shrinkage. This is all possible through the release of Neurotrophic factors such as BDNF (Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor), and neurotransmitters such as, serotonin and dopamine. Neurotransmitters carry messages between nerves and with an additional boost from exercise you will improve your processing speed and therefore slowing down the aging process. The Neutrotrophic factors elevated by exercise are- Insulin like Growth Factor (IGF), Fibroblast Growth Factor2 (FGF2) and BDNF. The release and regulation of BDNF is activity dependent.
The following chart illustrates the goodies we secrete when muscles contract. Highlight the table to see the information.
| BDNF | IGF-1 | Serotonin | Dopamine | VEGF |
| Activates serotonin, Increases anti oxidants in the cell | Closely related to Human Growth Hormone | Helps keep brain activity under control by influencing mood, impulsivity, anger, and aggression | Calming effect on the brain and often causes feelings of happiness and excitement | Builds more capillaries in the brain and body |
| Promotes the genesis of new cells | Increases glucose uptake by the brain | Is deficient in people with depression and anxiety | Is elevated in people with addictions and ADHD | FGF-2 |
| Boosts neurotransmitter affects | Is deficient in Parkinson’s patients | Helps grow and repair tissue |
Under the correct conditions, VEGF, FGF-2, IGF-1, FGF-2 and BDNF are produced when the muscles contract. A correct condition implies that you are exercising enough and properly to reach and exceed the body’s threshold. Meeting and exceeding the threshold will cause the adaptation that will result in more strength in the muscle and nervous system continuum. More exercise is not always better! At what point, does exceeding the threshold develop into an injury causing inflammation and a response from the immune system? If this does occur it is important to recognize it and realize what could cause more damage. Unfortunately I will not delve into this particular topic in this blog, but the point to make is that when the point of injury and inflammation is reached, the body will produce a different set of hormones and the immune system will approach the inflammation to control the situation. This is particularly why you need to understand your body and its mechanisms. This knowledge will take you to the next level of performance and health if you are able to apply it.
Here are the facts. All of the benefits listed in this blog are results of regular and purposeful exercise. It is known that exercise is strongly associated with the reduced risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s, exercise increases the learning ability in people of all ages, and individuals who exercise regularly can even recover better from strokes than the victims who do not exercise. A great example of this was covered on HBO Real Sports covered Freddie Roach. Currently the boxing trainer of Manny Pacquiao and Amir Khan, he trains them at his LA gym in the boxing rink with pads exuding great hand eye coordination. One thing to point out is Roach has Parkinson’s. In his case the disease is progressing very slowly, and even though his former boxing career is linked to the cause of the disease, he still gets in the boxing ring and hangs with the best (literally) in the ring taking 40 rounds on the pads. On the REAL sports segment, Roach’s neurologist is interviewed. The segment highlights Roach’s amazing attitude and the slow progression of his disease. The neurologist makes the connection of Roach’s slowly progressing disease to the amount of physical activity and coordination involved with his lifestyle. If we can see improvement in neurological processes and dopamine regulation in people with Parkinson’s like Roach, we have a ton of possibility for preventing it and improving our own neurological functions. All individuals that can participate in regular and purposeful exercise will see the benefits of exercise go to their head, inside the brain harvesting more opportunities to learn, be young and vibrant.
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