Monday, October 1, 2012

Exercise improves brain function....

The way in which movement affects and effects brain development is something that fascinates me.  I have nothing much to say here other than to record my wonder at how something so mundane is of such importance!  Moving, practicing new skills generates new growth in the brain, new connections new specific intelligence.

I have previously pointed to Ratey's book Spark!  but there is more out there on this topic.  Tim Anderson - Becoming Bulletproof - has developed some cool ideas around applying simple tactics, like crawling.  Tim also expose me to the book Smart Moves by Carla Hannaford, which was the foundation for some of his ideas, again a very useful read.

Todd Hargrove also has a huge wealth of thinking on this topic.

Anyway, I was prompted to think about this again by this report of how Exercise improves memory, thinking after stroke


However, Ms. Marzolini says, "these results provide compelling evidence that by improving cardiovascular fitness through aerobic exercise and increasing muscle mass with resistance training, people with stroke can improve brain health."

6 comments:

Todd Hargrove said...

Thanks for the link Chris!

Chris said...

Todd, thanks for all you do. You have taught me a lot.

FeelGoodEating said...

I've been sitting around for 4 weeks now with my leg...
my brain feels like mush!
There's no question in my mind on the validity of this relationship.

Todd, I echo Chris. Thank you so much and keep the good stuff coming.

Marc

Fred Fornicola said...

Great book. Read it a year or so ago. It's too bad that the so-called health field doesn't recognize exercise as a means of helping with ADD, depression, learning disabilities, etc. before looking to drugs as a solution.

Anonymous said...

In the middle of all this data it's amazing that there are still Big Names in the exercise science field who still think packaging your body movements with machines is the way to go.

Ondrej said...

Fred Fornicola: I think they do...they just don't usually recommend resistance training because of possible lawsuits in case of injury...you can hardly sue someone for walking or gardening recommendation, and patients dom't have to learn any technique. I think they are also realistic and know many people just won't follow hard exercise, so they aim for lower goals that also immensely help. The same case is when you set the goal for someone who weighs 120 kg to get to 110, instead of discouraging him by saying he needs to get to 80...Every doctor knows how important the amount of muscle mass is. But the reality is, patients rarely listen anyway. They don't have the inner motivation of people contributing here. They usually won't step out of their comfort zone in case of smoking, drinking, eating...why would they exercise hard?