Let's Talk About Exercise - The Magic Pill And How It Affects Our Brain

Exercise is great for the body, it gives that shape that makes you want to love yourself, that was what I thought exercise was solely for, until I started my research on exercise because I was trying to know what type of exercise that would help me lose belly fat, yea, belly fat, don't start laughing me, I'm just too young for belly fat. I like flat belly a lot, so when I started seeing myself getting a little belly fat, the first thought that pop into my head was exercise, why? exercise = perfect body shape(six packs abs, yeah yeah). During the process of getting the perfect type of exercise for the loss of belly fat, I began to notice that perfect body shape was even one of the least benefits of exercise, yea, perfect body shape is one of the least benefits of exercise.

Exercise affects our brain, in ways you won't imagine and even helps us prevent incurable neuro degenerative diseases, don't worry yourself already, I would let you guys in on the major benefits of exercise, which might or would make you guys believe that exercise could actually be a Magic Pill. I suggest you get comfortable and read through this article that might change your life positively forever, winks(smiles). Let me get you guys started with two quotes from Dr. Mark Tarnopolsky, according to him;

If there were a drug that could do for human health everything that exercise can, it would likely be the most valuable pharmaceutical ever developed. Source.

But as time goes on, paper after paper after paper shows that the most effective, potent way that we can improve quality of life and duration of life is exercise. Source.

[Jogging Exercise. Source: Pxhere. CCO Licensed]

Exercise?

Exercise is any planned or structured physical activity that enhances our physical fitness and general health. Running, jogging, practicing yoga, lifting weight, swimming, cycling, even walking and lots more are different forms of exercise. Exercise is so underrated, just imagine people watching Titanic, the movie and saying this movie isn't romantic, or people saying Messi and Ronaldo are not even good footballers, that's how most people see exercise, I can't exercise, I don't have such time to waste. It's so funny, although I was once like that, I know how they feel. People normally say, I'm not a sport man or woman, I'm no model, I'm not a movie star, hence, I don't see the need of exercising, unknowing that they are preventing themselves from getting the best medicine of their life for free. Exercise requires not much from you, just some few minutes like 10 -30 minutes and your body, some people may give excuses of having no money for gym classes, who needs gym classes for running, or walking, or doing some push ups, and many more, so there should be no excuses for not exercising. Although, I think people don't really know the numerous benefits of exercising that's why they are reluctant, because if they knew, I don't think they would continue living for weeks without exercising. I know some of you guys are already, hmmm, what's this guy saying, isn't exercise just for building muscle and some others are like, c'mon tell me the wonders of exercise already(smiles), just relax and continue reading, we are getting there.

Doctors in the past have known of the wonders of exercise, back in 400 B.C, the famous Greek physician Hippocrates known till this day as the Father of Medicine, knew that exercise could help in preventing and treating numerous kind of diseases and according to him;

Eating alone will not keep a man well, he must also take exercise. Source.

As we can see, even in the ancient ages, exercise was seen as medicine for preventing and treating diseases. With the introduction of modern surgery and pharmaceuticals, exercise was pushed aside. And if you carefully think about this, modern surgery and pharmaceuticals are used by people for treating diseases, treating, while there is something that could actually prevent it, exercise. Presently, exercise is seen as the rights or let me say privilege for sport men and women and also celebrities, but why? I really don't know. Let me go into sport, football, we see these players on the pitch, very fit and fast and we cheer them up, why are they so fit and fast? are they super humans? no !! they regularly exercise and it makes them fit and fast.

Let me say that exercise is actually poorly advertised, as the general opinion which most people have about exercise is that it helps you lose weight and is very good for the heart, and these are just the little benefits of exercise and this has led to the reason why exercise is practiced more by these two categories of people - the people that want to lose weight like me and the old people who want to have their heart in proper condition. Most people see exercise as the best technique to lose weight, and that's wrong, exercise doesn't too much extent help you lose weight, it increases your muscle mass and enhances your insulin sensitivity for a better body composition. Exercise and good diet would help you lose weight, but only exercise without watching what you eat and how much you eat won't help you lose your weight, but the idea that exercise helps in weight loss and upon trying it out for weeks and seeing no substantial result, discourages a lot of people from exercising and that's why I said earlier on that exercise is poorly advertised. More complying advert would be that, exercise affects our brain, mood, prevent diseases and cancers and so on, that would make a lot of people want to exercise.

[Only Exercise Won't Cause Weight Loss Which Can Be Discouraging. Source: Maxpixel. CCO Licensed]

A study was carried out in 2011, on mice and the aim was to prove that exercise can slow down aging and treat diseases. Two groups of mice suffering from a genetic disease were kept separately. The first group of mice were sedentary i.e inactive and the other group were forced to run three times a week on a miniature treadmill over a period of 5 months. After the 5 months period, it was observed that the group of mice that were sedentary were not looking to good, their fur had grown gray, their hearts were weakened, they couldn't even hear properly, and their muscles shriveled, they were at the point of death. While the other group of mice that were forced to run three times a week on a miniature treadmill, were so healthy that it was difficult for anyone to differentiate them from healthy mice without any genetic disease. They were still capable of running around in their cages and still able to reproduce. Although mice are different from us humans, but the study showed the incredible wonders of exercise. Well according to Dr. Mark Tarnopolsky;

I've seen all the hype about gene therapy for people with genetic disease, but it hasn't delivered in the 25 years I've been doing this, the most effective therapy available to my patients right now is exercise. Source.

Before we know the numerous benefits of exercise, let's first know the types of exercise.

Types Of Exercise

There are 4 major types of exercise and they affect different part of the brain in their ways. After going through the types, I would tell you guys the best exercise for your general health, although there is need to combine all the different types of exercise to experience all the various benefits that they offer to our body and general health, I would talk on that later. Without wasting any more time, let's jump straight into the types;

1. Aerobic Exercise

This is a type of exercise almost everyone thinks of when the word exercise is mentioned. It tends to improve our cardiovascular system, as it tends to increase our heart rate, makes us breathe harder and sweat more. It's the most common type of exercise. This type of exercise includes, running, jogging, swimming, cycling, brisk walking, any form of sport activities like playing football, tennis, basketball, and even dancing and many more. Anything physical activities that makes your heart rate goes up, makes you breathe harder and sweat more is an aerobic exercise. This type of exercise improves your heart health and your circulatory system ensuring that it becomes harder for people engaging in this type of exercise regularly to have any form cardiovascular diseases such as heart attack or stroke. This type of exercise also reduces the risk of people performing it regularly, to have type 2 diabetes. This exercise also helps in reducing our blood pressure and improving our level of blood fat. And lastly studies have shown that aerobic exercise helps in reducing the risk of up to13 different types of cancer.

[Cycling A Form Of Aerobic Exercise. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain]

2. Strength Or Resistance Exercise

This type of exercise involves the use of resistance to our weight such as dumbbell or even our own body weight such as push ups, to work your muscles. This type of exercise tends to increase our muscle mass, which helps to reduce our body weight, by burning fat. I know some of you guys would be like, didn't he just say that, exercise don't reduce body weight, yes, it doesn't, it only increases your muscle mass. It only reduces your body weight when you are under good diet, imagine, you go to gym, do a lot of strength exercise, you burn out the fat, but go back home to eat fat foods, funny enough, you would gain more weight, because you are eating fat foods and getting more muscle mass. I know of a friend, who I would describe as not been fat, and also not been fit, he wanted to be fit for his beautiful girlfriend, so he started hitting the gym, but to our surprise he was gaining more weight(hahaha, still makes me laugh), he wasn't eating well, he was eating junk foods, consuming soda drinks and beer a lot which increases body fat, it won't work that way. Exercise won't just reduce your weight without proper diet. Haven't you ever wondered why those big guys in the gym don't lose weight and yet they exercise, that's because exercise adds muscle mass for good body composition, that's why you see those guys all big and huge because they exercise and watch what they eat. Damn! how did I get that far? I was talking of strength exercise, damn! Let's continue, don't mind me(smiles), examples of strength/resistance exercise includes, weight lifting, use of resistance bands, use of body weight for resistance such as push ups, and many more. This type helps to increase our muscle mass, as already stated, it helps reduce our risk of osteoporosis, it also helps to increase our metabolism which helps in reducing our body weight or maintaining it. It also helps increasing our muscle strength, which tends to make things litter for us to lift and carry and many more.

[Weight Lifting A Form Of Strength/Resistance Exercise. Source: Pxhere. CCO Licensed]

3. Balance Exercise

This is a type of exercise that helps gives us the ability to control and stabilize our body position. This type of exercise is very important for athletes as the main activity of the game is their ability to control and stabilize their body movement. And also this type of exercise are needed for old people as they seem to lose control and stability of their own body as they get older. And also for pregnant women as it helps them to throw off their center of gravity and that is why you see pregnant women using the balance board or stability ball a lot. Examples of balance exercise include. shifting your body weight from one side to another, for those us who are football lovers or have watched players trained especially C. Ronaldo, you see that he tends to shift his body weight side to side which helps to improve his level of balance. Standing on one foot, try it now, stand up and stand on your weaker foot for 30 secs, you would be trying to control to your body, and I can see you, you couldn't even last 15 secs(hahaha). Using the balance or stability ball, as I earlier said, helps pregnant women a lot and even athletes, I have seen a lot of athletes standing on a stability ball, don't mind me I'm a sport lover(winks). And finally, doing yoga, tai chi, and pilates. This type of exercise helps to improve our proprioception i.e our ability to know where we are in space which is very important for athletes and old people. And also it helps to reduce the risk of injuries such as ankle injuries and many more.

[Tai Chi A Form Of Balance Exercise. Source: Pixabay. CCO Licensed]

4. Flexibility Exercise

This type of exercise involves stretching of our muscles which would help in improving our range of motion at our joints. This exercise would give us the ability to move without any restriction. You see that pen on the floor you bend down without feeling any restriction from your waist, that's what this type of exercise helps us for. You can stunt, get out of the bed easily, squat without feeling any hindrance from any joint in your body. There are two types of flexibility exercise which are, static stretchingwhich involves stretching of our muscles without moving and the dynamic stretching which involves stretching of our muscles while moving. This type of exercise tends to improve the performance of athletes as they feel no hindrance while playing. Let's imagine a tennis player like Roger Federer, having no flexibility, it would be difficult for him to swing his hand back and forth when striking the ball, hereby reducing his performance on the court. It also tends to reduce the risk of getting injury. It also helps to keep our muscles loosed and relaxed. And also it helps to reduce muscle soreness after workout as it helps to reduce our lactic acid in our muscles which is responsible for that burning sensation or muscle soreness after workout.

[Flexibility Exercise. Source: Pixabay. CCO Licensed]

Let's Now Talk Of Which Type Of Exercise Is Best For Your Brain

Exercise affects the brain, but now, does all types of exercise affect the brain positively? We would be looking at the aerobic exercise and the strength/resistance exercise. Let me start off with a study with rats, there were two groups of rats, one of the group were focused to do aerobic exercise by running on treadmills while the other group of rats were focused to do strength/resistance exercise which involves the rats climbing a wall with weights attached to their tails. Studies have shown that running can double or even triple new neurons in the hippocampus section of the brain which is responsible for learning and memory. From the study with the rats, it showed that rats that were running had an increased level of neurogenesis i.e their hippocampus section of their brain had more new neurons, and those that ran longer time showed higher level of neurogenesis. While the other group of rats that did strength/resistance exercise showed greater strength but had no increase in their level of neurogenesis i.e their hippocampus section of their brain had no new neurons, it was as if they didn't do any exercise at all. From this study, it is seen that best exercise for our brain is Aerobic Exercise.

Although, other types of exercise shouldn't be neglected, as doing all would guarantee you total fitness and prevent you from injury. For instance, athletics like footballers would need all four types as exercise to have a better performance, aerobic exercise would help them to be faster and is good for their general well-being, strength/resistance would give them the strength and stamina to play the game, balance exercise would give them better coordination and stability in their movement and lastly flexibility would help prevent them from injuries and improve their range of motion with is very required from quality players. So as you see, there is need to do all the 4 types of exercise but aerobic should be done more. According to the co-director of the Mayo Clinic Sports Medicine Center in Rochester, Minnesota, Dr. Edward Laskowski;

While aerobic exercise is very important, it's not as effective for overall health when done alone compared with when people include all four types of exercise in their routine. They all kind of go together and complement each other. Source.

[Swimming A Form Of The Best Exercise For The Brain - Aerobic Exercise. Source: Wikimedia Commons. CC-BY-SA-3.0]

Benefits Of Exercise To Our Brain

This is the part most of you have been waiting for(smiles). I know you want to see some wonderful benefits that would propel you to start exercising, then today is your lucky day, after going through the benefits I have for you, you most likely would get motivated. Let me say exercise is one of the most, no, it is the most transformative thing you can do for your brain, as it is already proven as the most scientifically cognitive enhancer. So let me start off with a quote from the director of the Center for Exercise Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, called Marcas Bamman

I always tell people that exercise is regenerative medicine--restoring and repairing and basically fixing things that are broken. Source

To understand how exercise affects our brain, let's first know what's our brain is for. Many people say we use our brain to think, analyse, to create art, innovation, to solve complex challenges and many more. But according a neuroscientist named Daniel Wolpert who believes that we have brain for one purpose and one purpose only which is for producing adaptable and complex movements. Although he gave quite some good reasons after studying two creatures, the first is Sea Squirt. When the sea squirt is young, it looks for a suitable place beside rocks where it would live there forever, and upon finding such a place, it immediately digest it's brain for energy, because movement is no longer necessary for it's survival. And the second creature is Koala, this creatures doesn't really move much, it just stays in a eucalyptus tree and eat the leaves as it grows old and die. What is interesting about this creature is that when it is young it has bigger brains, but as it grows old it's brain begins to shrink, why? because it doesn't move. So from this, you can see that movement affects our brain, less movement results to shrinking of the brain.

[Koala. Source: Wikimedia Commons. CC-BY-SA-3.0]

So now that we have recognized the effects of movement(exercise) on our brain, let's now look at the benefits of exercise to our brain;

Exercise Helps Us tackle Depression

Depression as we know it, is one of the most common mental condition around the world and it has been estimated that by 2020, depression would become the 2nd biggest mental condition. Do you guys know that exercise can help prevent depression and even fight depression for those already in such condition? Isn't it amazing? When you are depressed your dopamine level and serotonin is low. Dopamine level is responsible for our reward system, by saying reward system I mean, it is what motivates us to do things. We humans like to do things that give us some reward, can you just imagine going to school and getting no certificate, would you go to school? definitely no. But if it is compulsory, you would go but you won't be happy or let me say you would be sad and sadness leads to depression because it would be a complete waste of your time going to school without getting any certificate[reward]. While serotonin level is responsible for your mood, such as anger, anxiety, sadness and so on. So if your dopamine and serotonin level is low, you would be depress. Amazing for us, whenever we exercise the dopamine and serotonin level in our blood increases instantly, that's why you feel a kind of happiness whenever you finish exercising. That's why those anti-depressant drugs are focused on increasing your dopamine and serotonin level. Now that you know this, I guess anytime you are feeling down, you would just do exercise rather than using your money to buy those anti-depressant drugs which may also have some side effects.

[Serotonin. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Author: Ben Mills. Public Domain]

Exercise Helps In Relieving Stress

Stress has become part of our daily life, and it very bad for our health. We release cortisol when we are stressed, which may lead to cardiovascular diseases as a result of too much cortisol in the body system. The cortisol and adrenaline are both stress hormones that are responsible for stress. Exercise being the best thing we can do for ourselves can help us out with stress. Anytime we exercise, mostly aerobic exercises, we release chemicals such as endorphins, dopamine, and norepinephrine which are responsible for alertness, better cognitive functioning and also helps in lifting up our mood. These chemicals helps to lift our mood and also helps us to get rid of the stress hormones in our system, hereby helps in relieving us from stress. Studies carried out on rats helps us understand that exercise helps to restructure our brain in such a way that we react differently in a stressful situation. Whenever you feeling stressed, go for a jog or hit the gym in order to keep your cortisol level down and feel less stressed.

[Stress. Source: Flickr. CCO Licensed]

Exercise Lowers The Risk Of Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease

Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease are becoming very popular and are making the youths fear getting old(smiles). The good news is that, you can actually lower the risk of becoming a sufferer of these conditions by exercising, yes, exercising, no financial cost, just for you to be fit and you can lower the risk, exercise is really a Magic Pill. Our brain is just like our muscle, the more you it work out the bigger and stronger it gets, when we do exercise we work out our brain, making the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex bigger and stronger. The prefrontal cortex and hippocampus are the two areas of our brain that are very vulnerable to neuro degenerative diseases like Dementia and Alzheimer's disease and are also responsible for the decline of our cognitive function. As I said earlier, exercise makes our hippocampus and prefrontal cortex bigger and stronger, hereby making these two areas of our brain less vulnerable to neuro degenerative diseases and decline in cognitive functions. Studies have shown that regular exercise helps to reduce the chances of dementia by a whopping 60%. Exercise regularly, about 30 minutes, five times a week to lower the chances of these neuro degenerative diseases and also to keep you fit and healthy.

[A Woman Suffering From Dementia. Source: Pixabay. CCO Licensed]

Exercise Improves Academic Performance

Our memory and learning skills goes a long way in our academic performance. And exercise can help improve these two skills, I just have say it again, exercise is really a Magic Pill. Whenever we do exercise we release a chemical called Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor and in short BDNF which helps our memory and learning skills. Studies have shown that, just about 20 - 40 minutes of aerobic can help increase our BDNF in our by 32%. A study from the California Department of Education also showed that the students who have higher fitness gets higher test scores. Studies have also shown that a high intensity exercise before classes could help students learn vocabulary words 20% faster than those who didn't engage in the workout. And as I said earlier on in the article, that running can double or even triple new neurons in the hippocampus section of the brain which can really help improve learning and memory skills. It is therefore advisable that you do exercise just to get your heart rate up in order to get your blood pumping, so that BDNF is released just before your assignment, or big task or class and so on.

[BDNF. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Author: Microswitch. CC-BY-SA-3.0]

Exercise Improves Our Quality Of Sleep

Sleep as we know is very essential for the proper functioning of our brain. Better sleep results to better brain because studies have been that, sleep have a direct effect over our memory and cognitive functions. Studies have shown that people with less activities, in other words, people who don't perform any form of exercise are known to be have sleeping disorders such as insomnia or sleep disturbances. From the study above we can see that less activities result to sleep disorder meaning more activities such as exercising would go a long way in helping people with sleeping disorders, which in turn lead to better brain because such an individual would start having better sleep. It's best you exercise, for better sleep which in turn results to better brain.

[A Girl Sleeping. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Author: Rachel Calamusa. CC-BY-SA-3.0]

I can go on and on with the benefits, but let's stop here, I know the article is already getting too lengthy(smiles). Now, I know some of you guys would be wondering how much exercise do I really need to do, to start enjoying these wonderful benefits, the good news is that, you don't have to be as fit as an athletic or those big guys you see in the gym to enjoy these benefits, all you have to do is to get 3 to 4 times exercise session lasting about 10 - 40 minutes and even more if you wish every week to enjoy these benefits and not including the fact that you would be fit and hot, if you know what i mean(winks) and always make sure you do more of aerobic exercises than any of the other types of exercise in your exercise sessions. Indeed, exercise is a Magic Pill.

I myself i'm already experiencing some benefits of exercise so far, I'm happier, I'm less stressed, I have good sleep time and many more and I know you can also enjoy these benefits because it is free for everybody. I leave you guys with the words from a neuroscientist called Wendy Suzuki.

Bringing exercise into your life will not only give a happier and more productive life today but it will protect your brain from incurable diseases and in this way, it will change the trajectory of your life for better. Source.

Till I Come Your Way Next Time, Stay Safe

Thanks For Reading

References

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