How Exercise Can Help the Brain

Exercise is important to keep our bodies healthy. Many people exercise to lose weight, stay in shape, for health purposes, stress management, or they also do it as a hobby. There is recent research which proves that exercise can also be helpful for your brain and help you maintain a healthy mind.

In recent studies, it has been proven that exercise can increase brain power, but also assist in fighting against cognitive illnesses.

According to an article posted by the American Psychology Association written by Dr. Arthur F. Kramer, exercise can help sustain mental activity as we age and may help prevent cognitive illnesses such as Dementia. Dr. Kramer stated in his article, “From this review we have found that physical and aerobic exercise training can lower the risk for developing some undesirable age-related changes in cognitive and brain functions, and also help the brain maintain its plasticity – ability to cover one function if another starts failing later in life.”

A big problem with people in today’s society is that they are not active enough, and hardly ever participate in physical activities. The important concept we need to understand is that physical activity is beneficial to our lives in multiple ways.

University of Victoria Psychologist Brian Christie, PhD says, “At the worst, exercise is going to give you a healthier body, at the best, it will help some people gain a cognitive capacity they don’t possess right now. But, bottom line, everyone will benefit in the end. I don’t think there’s a group of people that shouldn’t engage in exercise, although some may require medical supervision.”

The fact of the matter is that exercise will not only keep you physically in shape, but it will also benefit your cognitive functioning throughout your lifetime. Exercise will help you create a balanced lifestyle of maintaining physical and mental health; it is a win, win situation. Either way you are getting something out of it and it is benefitting your body.

Depression, stress, and anxiety are all very common issues that people deal with, and exercising can help you cope with these types of issues along with helping you get in better physical shape, which will also make you feel more confident about yourself.

Take some time to implement an exercise routine sometime during the week because it will ultimately help you to become both physically and mentally fit.