Want an all-natural way to lift your mood, improve your memory, and protect your brain against age-related cognitive decline?
Get moving.
A wealth of recent research, including new guidelines from the American Academy of Neurology published in December, suggests that any type of exercise that raises your heart rate and gets you moving and sweating for a sustained period of time — known as aerobic exercise — has a significant, overwhelmingly beneficial impact on the brain.
"Aerobic exercise is the key for your head, just as it is for your heart," write the authors of an article in the Harvard Medical School blog "Mind and Mood."
While some benefits can emerge just a few minutes into a sweaty workout, others might take several weeks to crop up. That means that the best type of fitness for your mind is any aerobic exercise that you can do regularly and consistently for at least 45 minutes at a time.
The latest guidelines are based on a series of 6-month studies that suggest aerobic workouts could help improve memory in people with a form of early-stage Alzheimer's known as mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Based on those studies, the academy updated its guidelines to recommend that people diagnosed with MCI do some form of cardio exercise twice each week.
Exercise may help keep the brain young
As we age, the brain — like any other organ — begins to work less efficiently, so normal signs of decline begin to surface. Our memory might not be quite as sharp as it once was, for example.
Exercising regularly as we get older appears to help defend against some of this decline, both for healthy people who show normal signs of aging and for older people who may be on the path towards developing Alzheimer's disease.
Researchers still aren't sure why this is, or how it happens. Exercise could strengthen some of the pathways our brain uses to relay signals for recent events or boost the size of certain brain regions that are key for learning and storing memories.
Regardless of the specific mechanism at play in our bodies, the most recent recommendations suggest that working out twice a week may be beneficial in curbing some symptoms of mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a stage some older people who go on to develop Alzheimer's disease enter beforehand. This typically involves more serious problems with memory, language, thinking, and judgment than those that might be displayed by a healthy older person.
A study published in May looked at adults with MCI between the ages of 60-88, and had participants walk for 30 minutes four days a week for 12 weeks. The results showed strengthened connectivity in a region of the brain where weakened connections have been linked with memory loss. That development, the researchers noted, "may possibly increase cognitive reserve," but more studies are needed.
A study of older women with MCI found that aerobic exercise was tied to an increase in the size of the hippocampus, a brain area involved in learning and memory.
For that study, 86 women with MCI between 70 and 80 years old were randomly assigned to do one of three types of exercise twice a week for six months. Some did aerobic training (like walking and swimming), while others focused on resistance training (like weight-lifting) or balance training.
Afterwards, only the women in the aerobic group were found to have significant increases in hippocampal volume, but more research are needed to determine what effect this has on cognitive performance.
Working out could boost your mood, too
In addition to protecting the brain from aging, cardio workouts "have a unique capacity to exhilarate and relax, to provide stimulation and calm, to counter depression and dissipate stress," according to an article in the Harvard Medical School blog "Mind and Mood."
The reason aerobic workouts lift our spirits seems related to their ability to reduce levels of natural stress hormones, such as adrenaline and cortisol, according to a study in the Journal of Physical Therapy Science. Activities like running and swimming also increase overall blood flow and provide our minds fresh energy and oxygen — another factor that could help us feel better.
Aerobic exercise may also have a uniquely powerful positive impact on people with depression. A pilot study in people with severe depression found that just 30 minutes of treadmill walking for 10 consecutive days was "sufficient to produce a clinically relevant and statistically significant reduction in depression."
So whether you're looking for benefits related to mood or memory, the take-home message is clear: the more you move, the healthier you may be.
"It's exciting that exercise may help improve memory at this stage, as it's something most people can do and of course it has overall health benefits," Ronald C. Petersen a fellow of the American Academy of Neurology and the lead author on the most recent guidelines, said in a statement.
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