Keeping Young With Exercise

New research has shown that routine exercise can boost brain functions. This can help combat depression, alleviate stress, increase your memory, and even help fight the aging process. Regardless of age, exercise has been proven to help sharpen your brain's abilities. This is perhaps nowhere as important as it is with the elderly. Whether it is a half hour jog or something as light as a few minutes of playing Nintendo Wii, your body and mind will benefit from the stimulation.

The way it works is quite complicated, but a new book titled Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, lays it out quite clearly. Written by John J. Ratey, MD, and Eric Hagerman, the book explains in simple terms how exercise can turn your life around.

Your brain works on a system of on and off impulses. Glutamate signals action to begin in the brain, while gamma-aminobutyric acid ceases action. These chemicals are transmitted between brain cells, called neurons, and account for about 80 percent of brain activity. Your brain also has other chemicals which facilitate this transmittal process: serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. These chemicals affect the speed and efficiency of the signals sent between neurons. Known as neurotransmitters, these chemicals are extremely important.

Brain signals begin by the electrical impulses that take place within neurons. Chemicals are then emitted by the synapses which are received by other nearby brain cells. The neurotransmitters can be vital in how quickly your brain responds to the electrical and chemical impulses that your neurons create. Mood and memory are just two of the many important functions that these neurotransmitters affect.

There are a few things that can influence your brain's chemistry. The most primary is just how you are hard-wired. Some people just have different compositions. Medication is another influencer. A drug like Prozac will increase levels of serotonin within your brain. Exercise is a third influence. Going for a run will also help build up neurotransmitter levels.

This is not all that exercise does. Your brain learns through repetition. Exercise helps strengthen the attraction between neurons, thus helping to build longer term communication between these brain cells. Age deteriorates these connections-exercise helps prevent and reverse this. As you can see, not only is exercise going to keep you looking younger, it will help you to think younger as well. When the glutamate is fired off between neurons, it becomes easier and quicker for a brain that has been receiving physical exercise to receive and interpret the signals. An increase in memory is just one of the byproducts that can occur because of such a modification to your everyday routine. By simply adding exercise to your lifestyle you can keep yourself acting and thinking younger.

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