Aerobic exercise cognitive fitness
Exercise offers an impressive array of overall health benefits, many of which can help protect brain health. For example, aerobic exercise:
- promotes the growth of new nerve cells within the brain
- lowers the risk of high blood pressure and increases blood flow to the brain
- increases the brain's ability to form new connections as you learn
- boosts the release of neurotransmitters that improve brain function.
Exercise changes the brain in ways that can improve cognitive function in the short run and prevent cognitive decline down the road. Aerobic exercise improves functions such as cognitive speed, auditory and visual attention, and motor control. Studies have also shown that aerobic exercise aids executive function. These benefits may be related to the improvements in heart and circulatory fitness that come with aerobic activity.
Researchers continue to examine ways in which exercise changes the brain. Some of their findings include:
- Moderate-intensity aerobic exercise three days a week appeared to boost the size of the hippocampus, the brain area involved in memory and learning, by 2%. An increase of this size is enough to offset one to two years of age-related brain changes.
- People ages 65 and older without a genetic predisposition to Alzheimer's disease who exercised four times a week had about half the risk of dementia as those who were sedentary.
- In healthy but inactive middle-aged adults who walked briskly for 45 minutes, five times a week showed significant benefits in attention and working memory, compared to a control group. The exercisers also saw improvements in verbal fluency and mental processing speed.
The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommend one the following amounts of aerobic activity each week:
- 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise (such as brisk walking)
- 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic exercise (such as jogging or swimming laps)
- an equivalent amount of combined moderate and vigorous exercise.
It's also important to include muscle-strengthening activities (such as lifting weights or using resistance bands) that involve all major muscle groups on two or more days a week. Weight training also helps to prevent or control diabetes.
For more information on conquering distractions and finding focus, check out Improving Concentration and Focus , an online guide from Harvard Medical School.
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