For many, the scariest part about getting older isn’t the gray hair. It’s losing your mental sharpness. Cognitive problems aren’t just embarrassing. They can significantly impact your relationships, independence, and quality of life.
While age is associated with cognitive decline, you can take steps to fight back against brain fog and preserve your mental function. Exercise is one easy and simple way to do this.
In this blog, we’ll explore how getting older impacts your brain health, 5 ways physical activity combats age-related cognitive decline, and the best exercises to keep your brain sharp regardless of your age.
How Your Brain Health Changes With Age
When we get older, our lives tend to slow down—and so does our cognition. This is mostly due to the way the brain changes over time. As we age, we experience a number of physiological changes in the brain structure and functioning, including:
- Parts of the brain responsible for learning and complex mental activities can shrink
- Signals between neurons, nerve cells responsible for running your nervous system, can become less effective
- Blood flow in the brain can decrease
- Inflammation can build up in the brain
These changes aren’t necessarily dangerous, but they do significantly impact your mental capacity. You might have a harder time memorizing passwords, learning how to use your new phone, or remembering plans with friends. The good news is that you’ll still be able to do all of these tasks; it may just take longer than it used to.
Even healthy people will experience a decrease in mental function over time. So what can you do about it? Well, you may not be able to prevent your brain from aging, but there are steps you can take to boost your cognition. Improving your physical health is one simple yet extremely effective way to improve your mental health, regardless of your age.
5 Ways Exercise Improves Your Memory & Cognition
It’s no surprise that exercise is good for your long-term health. Not only does it help you build muscle and lose weight, but it also prevents serious diseases like diabetes and heart disease.
And the benefits of exercise don’t stop with your physical health. Research shows that exercise also improves memory, quick thinking, decision-making, and much more.
1. Exercise Enhances Circulation
As mentioned above, when you get older, the blood flow in your brain may decrease. This is why older individuals are at a higher risk of stroke. In fact, 87% of all strokes are “ischemic strokes, which occur when blood flow in the brain becomes blocked.
Exercise is an easy way to improve blood flow throughout your body, including your brain. Regular moderate exercise helps strengthen your heart muscle. This, in turn, allows your heart to pump blood to your organs and muscles.
Another benefit of exercise on your circulatory system is the way it widens your body’s capillaries. These tiny blood vessels can then carry oxygen to the brain and remove waste, both essential to keeping your brain healthy and preventing the development of conditions like Alzheimer’s Disease.
When your circulatory system is strong and healthy, you’ll experience a number of benefits beyond improved cognition. Better blood flow to the extremities means less tingling in your hands and feet, quicker recovery after workouts, and even improved sexual performance and satisfaction.
2. Exercise Sharpens Brain Signals
Neurons, the nerve cells in your brain, are responsible for keeping you alive. Everything from breathing to talking starts with healthy communication between neurons. As the signals between neurons slow and break down with age, we tend to move slower, think slower, and struggle to do more complex tasks.
Exercise helps combat this age-related problem by enhancing synaptic plasticity. Synaptic plasticity is the way your brain adapts and changes as you learn something new. This controls how effectively neurons communicate with each other and how you form new memories.
The better your long-term synaptic plasticity, the better you’ll be able to pick up a new hobby, learn about a new subject, and remember what you ate for breakfast.
3. Exercise Produces New, Healthy Brain Cells
Another way exercise keeps your brain sharp is through neurogenesis, where your body grows new nerve cells when the old cells break down. One study found that running in particular increases neurogenesis in the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for managing emotions, memory, and your autonomic nervous system.
Neurogenesis keeps your brain working at its full potential. It allows you to continue to learn new things and maintain a sharp memory as you age, and it’s not just beneficial for your cognition. Neurogenesis can also help with stress management and emotional regulation, improving your mood and overall quality of life.
4. Exercise Improves Your Brain Volume
Remember how age can affect the size of certain parts of your brain? Well that’s one issue exercise can help address. According to research, people who exercise for at least 25 minutes a week have a greater brain volume than those who don’t.
One study of more than 10,000 healthy men and women found that those who exercise had larger brain volume in every type of brain tissue, including:
- Gray matter, the outermost layer of the brain
- White matter, which supports the brain’s wiring and thinking cells
- The hippocampus, which tends to shrink as we age
- The frontal, parietal, and occipital lobes to keep the brain healthy and robust
Brain volume is an important marker for overall health as well as brain function. In fact, people who have higher total brain volume have been found to have a significantly lower mortality rate for both cardiovascular- and non-cardiovascular-related deaths.
5. Exercise Boosts Your Sleep
Have you ever noticed how difficult it is to think clearly and quickly when you’ve had a bad night’s sleep? Sleep is essential to your brain functioning.
While you sleep, your brain goes into cleaning mode and clears away waste build-up, particularly plaque-forming amyloids and tau proteins linked with Alzheimer’s disease. The REM cycle of sleep also impacts learning, memory, and emotions.
Poor sleep quality, either not getting enough sleep or experiencing disrupted sleep, impacts your neurotransmitters and stress hormones. This can impact your cognitive function, mood, and stress management.
We can’t always ensure our sleep cycle is regular and healthy. However, we can take steps to improve our sleep—and exercise is one of many ways to get better Z’s. Regular physical activity has been shown to improve your sleep quality, help you fall asleep faster, and reduce the symptoms of sleep disorders like insomnia.
The Best Exercises For Brain Health
So now we know exercise can help keep your brain sharp and healthy, even as you age. But this begs the question: What kind of exercise has the biggest impact on your cognition?
According to research, the type of physical activity that provides the most benefits for your brain health is aerobic exercise. Aerobic workouts include repetitive exercises that use your body’s largest muscles. The most common types include:
- Walking
- Riding a bike
- Swimming
- Using an elliptical, rower, or stair climber
Aerobic exercise is associated with structural and functional changes in the brain and has been shown to improve a number of cognitive functions, as well as your overall wellbeing. On top of that, it helps you build stronger bones, improve your balance, lose weight, and enhance your muscle strength.
Even a single moderate-intensity aerobic exercise can improve your mood, emotional state, and mental clarity. But for the best results, you should aim for around 30 minutes of aerobic exercise per day per week. If you don’t have time for a morning jog or after-work bike ride, you can set aside 4 days a week for a longer workout to keep your mind and body active.
Stick with it for 6 months or longer, and you’ll start to see improvements in your brain volume as well as your mental clarity.
Another low-impact exercise shown to enhance cognitive performance in older adults is tai chi. This gentle form of martial arts uses slow, focused movements that force you to learn new skills, pay attention to your breathing, and follow technical instructions for your movements. In other words, tai chi gives you a mental workout while exercising your muscles at the same time.
Just as important as the type of exercise you do is the environment in which you do it. According to studies, working out in natural outdoor environments actually increases cognition better than exercising indoors or in a gym. A simple 15-minute walk outside increases your cognitive function, memory, problem-solving, and executive functioning even more than a 15-minute walk inside.
The North Texas weather isn’t always ideal for an outdoor walk, but if you have the chance to take an early morning weekend hike in one of these DFW hidden hiking gems, go for it! Not only will you have the opportunity to breathe fresh air and take some incredible photos, but you’ll also boost your mental and physical health at the same time.
Keep Your Mind & Body Sharp With The Resurge Clinic
Age is inevitable, but losing your mental clarity doesn’t have to be. At The Resurge Clinic, we offer a wide variety of services designed to keep you on your toes, regardless of the number of candles on your next Birthday cake!
Fight back against brain fog and memory loss with our proven age management treatments, including:
- Alzheimer Risk DNA Screenings
- Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy
- The Trim & Fit Exercise and Weight Loss Program
- Peptides Supplements For Enhanced Mental Function
- And Much, Much More
You don’t have to settle for reduced cognitive function as you age. Reach out to our team now, and let’s work together to keep your mind and body as healthy as possible.
