For years, we’ve been told that our brains don’t regenerate, that “it’s all downhill.” However, findings over the years have slowly begun to debunk that myth. Researchers have known that physical activity contributes to decreased depressive symptoms, and can significantly improve one’s outlook and self-esteem.
Now, even more exciting is the news that physical activity – in the form of exercise – actually does improve mental ability!
So you know what you need to be doing now… right?
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How Exercise Could Lead to a Better Brain
By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS
The value of mental-training games may be speculative, as Dan Hurley writes in his article on the quest to make ourselves smarter, but there is another, easy-to-achieve, scientifically proven way to make yourself smarter. Go for a walk or a swim. For more than a decade, neuroscientists and physiologists have been gathering evidence of the beneficial relationship between exercise and brainpower. But the newest findings make it clear that this isn’t just a relationship; it is the relationship. Using sophisticated technologies to examine the workings of individual neurons — and the makeup of brain matter itself — scientists in just the past few months have discovered that exercise appears to build a brain that resists physical shrinkage and enhance cognitive flexibility. Exercise, the latest neuroscience suggests, does more to bolster thinking than thinking does.
The most persuasive evidence comes from several new studies of Read the rest of this entry »
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