Science Reveals 5 Surprising Benefits of Sports for the Brain! | "Big Brain Gym" reading #audible

Hello and welcome to Audible Wisdom Today we're sharing a book called The Brain Gym It's about brain science Brain science has been a hot topic for a long time and it's no surprise For a group of scientifically literate people who care about personal growth the appeal of brain science is overwhelming Our brains are amazing devices It's about the size of two fists and the weight of a carton of milk It contains 100 billion neurons about the same number of stars in the entire Milky Way galaxy It's not an exaggeration to say that each of us has a small universe in our brain Everything you've experienced everything you've learned everything you've done everything you remember everything you've learned since you were born is stored in your brain It's probably the most complex thing we know and yet it uses less energy than a light bulb Considering these facts the author of this book begins his book with a poignant statement: "If a man is not interested in the brain there's nothing else that can fascinate him The gist of the book is good news: Exercise improves our brain function To put it more bluntly when you exercise your brain gets smarter In his book author Anders Hansen focuses on 5 brain functions They are: Stress Resistance, Concentration Resistance to Depression Memory, and Creativity Neuroscience research over the last decade has shown that exercise has a positive effect on all five of these abilities That sounds pretty exciting Of course we need to understand the science behind it I'm going to explain how exercise improves each of these five areas of brain function Because the principles behind them are different So what specific exercises are needed to improve these five abilities? 1 How does exercise improve the brain's ability to resist stress? To answer this question we must first understand what happens in our brains when we experience stress This involves a regulatory mechanism called the HPA axis First, what is the HPA axis? "H" is for hypothalamus "P" is for pituitary "A" is for adrenal gland These 3 parts of our body are organized in a top-down order The hypothalamus is part of the brain tissue and is located at the base of the brain Just below it is the pituitary gland an endocrine gland and the adrenal glands are above our kidneys When your brain detects a threat from the outside world A hungry lion is coming your way Your hypothalamus sends a signal to your pituitary The pituitary gland receives the signal and immediately releases a hormone It travels through your bloodstream to your adrenal glands The adrenal glands then release cortisol which makes your heart beat fast and hard The idea is to get your body on edge ready to fight or flee This whole process happens very quickly From the moment you see the lion to the moment your heart starts racing takes only a second or so To put it simply Cortisol secreted by the adrenal glands is what makes you feel stressed The lion encounter we've just described would probably only have happened in prehistoric times when our ancestors hunted on the grasslands of Africa But in the modern world We still feel the stress of cortisol and more often than in prehistoric times That's because there are more things in modern life that our brains recognize as threats while most of these things don't actually threaten our lives they do cause real stress For example pressure to get a loan criticism from our leaders pressure from our families and so on One thing about these stressors in the modern world as opposed to lions on the prairie is that they take a long time to dissipate A loan, for example can take 10 or 20 years And in the meantime it's going to come back to bite you in one way or another even though it's not as scary as a lion it seems a lot tougher than a lion When you compare the two you see a problem In most scenarios in modern life cortisol is not really necessary If you're facing a lion fight or flight your body needs to be in a pretty tense state But when you're thinking about a loan or an exam next month or a public speech tomorrow your heart is pounding That doesn't really help you solve the problem It is probably messing with your mind and affecting your performance So here's the question How do you get your HPA axis to stop freaking out and producing so much cortisol? Actually it's not your HPA that's acting up We need to go one level higher In our brains there's a part of the brain that directly controls the HPA axis called the amygdala Simply put the amygdala is an ever vigilant sentry When it senses that we're under threat So far, so good But here's the thing about the amygdala It becomes more active when stimulated by cortisol So when it activates the HPA axis the cortisol produced by the HPA axis stimulates it in turn and it's going to push the HPA axis even harder to produce more cortisol In this way the amygdala and the HPA axis are in a cyclical relationship If we only had this set of mechanisms in our brains they would spin faster and faster under each other's stimulation In fact this is the cause of many fear-based mental illnesses In a healthy brain the alarm function of the amygdala must be able to be suppressed And the brain tissue directly responsible for this task is our hippocampus The hippocampus and the amygdala are like the brake and the accelerator Whenever the amygdala screams for cortisol The hippocampus comes out to calm it down The amygdala stops being alarmed thanks to the hippocampus and the cortisol returns to normal But as we mentioned earlier the stressors of modern life are pervasive and long-lasting In this case The amygdala is alerted much more frequently than it was when our ancestors lived on the African savannah It's a lot of work on the brakes when you're constantly stepping on the gas Our hippocampus is worn out from years of fighting the amygdala And as we all know the hippocampus has another important function which is to store our memories That's why many people who are chronically anxious feel that their memory is deteriorating They often forget things and can't even name people they know This is because their hippocampus the brake pads of the amygdala are worn out Can worn brake pads be repaired? That's the good news in today's book Experiments have shown that physical activity can restore and strengthen the damaged hippocampus Normally our brains shrink as we age This process starts around the age of 25 In each subsequent year the brain shrinks by an average of 0.5 to 1 percent from the previous year The hippocampus which is part of the brain also naturally shrinks at an average rate of 1% from the previous year The hippocampus is the main reason why people with advanced age have poor memory In 2011 a team of researchers from the University of Pittsburgh organized 120 subjects between the ages of 55 and 80 They were randomly divided into two groups One group was given regular endurance training for the next year That's three 40-minute walks a week The other group had to exercise at the same frequency but at a much lower intensity without any significant fluctuations in their heart rate The results showed Instead of shrinking the hippocampus grew by 2% in those who exercised for a year In other words after a year of exercise these people's hippocampi were not one year older but two years younger What's even more interesting is that the stronger the person the more the hippocampus grows Since then research institutes around the world have conducted similar experiments The results have been consistent: Regular aerobic exercise can slow down or even reverse the shrinkage of the hippocampus 2 Now that we've talked about the hippocampus let's talk about memory The hippocampus is the memory center of the brain Exercise promotes the growth of the hippocampus which is obviously good for our memory In addition exercise helps us remember new things in at least two ways First exercise increases the blood flow through the brain per unit of time This means that brain cells can access energy and nutrients more efficiently and process information more effectively But here's the caveat to get your brain into this active state you need to keep the intensity of your exercise within a reasonable range not too hard If you choose to do heavy weight training which is the type of training that is used to build muscle mass then when you're lifting more of your blood goes to the muscles and less of your blood goes to your brain which is not helpful for memory In addition to increasing blood flow exercise has a very positive effect on our brains It stimulates the cerebral cortex and hippocampus to produce an amazing protein This protein is called Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor or BDNF for short BDNF is a good thing and it's beneficial to our brains in many ways For example it protects brain cells especially newborn brain cells from harmful substances It also allows them to survive a lack of oxygen or low blood sugar in the brain It also increases brain plasticity and slows the aging of brain cells We can think of BDNF as a kind of "natural fertilizer for the brain It's very versatile and plays an important role in many brain activities BDNF also plays a key role in memory To understand this we must first understand how the brain builds memories If we think of the brain as a vast universe where each brain cell is a star and memory fragments are like constellations of stars When we need to recall a memory one of the constellations a three-dimensional network of brain cells is activated The information stored there can be retrieved Interestingly the network of cells that store memories in our brain is often not stable We need to consolidate these networks through learning and training before the cellular connections can be stabilized And in this process BDNF is like a powerful glue It builds strong connections between brain cells and helps us build memories with less effort Now that we understand this principle let's look at a practical application In the book author Anders Hansen asks an interesting question: Can running help you play the piano better? At first this question sounds a bit silly But now that you know how BDNF works you'll understand: Before you learn any new knowledge or skill a moderate amount of exercise will help you learn more efficiently Because exercise prepares your BDNF for memory formation 3 Concentration Now that we've talked about the memory benefits of exercise let's take a look at how exercise affects our ability to focus In a nutshell exercise produces dopamine and dopamine improves concentration Dopamine is probably the body's most famous hormone Dopamine is essentially a "pleasure molecule" that makes us crave high-calorie foods and objects of the opposite sex the things we crave are often good for our survival and reproduction Which begs the question why does exercise produce dopamine? On the surface exercise depletes our physical energy and increases the likelihood of injury seemingly to the detriment of survival So why does dopamine reward this behavior? Well it's because movement is how our ancestors explored the world People who lived in prehistoric times didn't have the conveniences we have today: When you're hungry you order takeout and it comes to your door They had to travel long distances across vast steppes in search of prey and when they found it they had to do everything in their power to subdue it so they could eat it In this way of survival sports such as running and fighting were judged by the brain to be good for survival Although today we don't exercise to hunt we exercise to burn fat which is valuable for survival But our brains haven't caught on and still work with our kidneys to produce dopamine when we exercise which encourages us to run faster What is the relationship between dopamine and focus? Well you can see it in the example of exercise: The dopamine-producing cells are like a cheerleading squad in our body When it's cheering us on we can't get enough of what we're doing And that's when our focus is strong of course But that cheerleader has its own preferences and it only cheers for what it's interested in If it decides that what we're doing has nothing to do with survival or reproduction it loses interest and becomes demoralized At that point without hearing the cheerleaders our brain loses motivation for the task at hand and looks for other things to do to regain the cheerleaders' attention That's when we lose focus and start to wander The question is how do we stay on top of things like reading and studying that the cheerleaders often don't understand? How do we stay focused on those things? Well that's where practice gives us a solution It helps us get a head start the dopamine-secreting cells love to see us moving so we can give them a show before we learn We can increase the intensity of the exercise to get the brain and kidneys to produce more dopamine When we sit down and start studying there's still a lot of dopamine in our bodies Our brain is still hearing loud applause and cheers and that makes it very energized for the task at hand If you exercise enough your body's dopamine levels can stay high for hours During this time it's not hard to concentrate on your studies 4 Resistance to depression Having understood these principles it should come as no surprise to you that exercise can also help us fight depression Depression is a fairly common negative psychology among modern people It's not necessarily accompanied by strong negative emotions like sadness or anger More often it's a feeling of apathy and boredom a loss of interest in life What is it that stimulates our interest in life? From a brain science perspective we've already mentioned dopamine and BDNF Dopamine is the “desire molecule” and it's not surprising that it can trigger our desire for certain things Why would BDNF play a similar role? Well it comes down to an interesting principle of brain science called “pattern separation” Pattern segregation is the ability to recognize subtle differences The author gives an example: One day you go to a cocktail party there's a guy at the party who looks familiar to you You're almost certain you've seen him before but you can't remember who he is Who is he? While you're thinking about it Your brain is comparing this man's face to every similar person in your memory bank The key to this is a part of the hippocampus called the dentate gyrus which is a tooth-shaped protrusion What the dentate gyrus does best is to separate patterns that is to detect small differences between similar things When you were a kid you probably played a game where you had to find the differences between two nearly identical pictures When you play these games the most active part of your brain is probably the dentate gyrus The reason we're talking about the dentate gyrus and its ability to separate patterns is because that's what's missing in depressed people In the eyes of a depressed person the world around them becomes dull and gray like it's mush This is because their dentate gyrus has deteriorated and they have trouble noticing subtle differences How do you rejuvenate the dentate gyrus? Well, as we mentioned earlier BDNF produced by exercise is a powerful brain cell regenerator When BDNF is applied to the hippocampus the dentate gyrus quickly responds to the BDNF stimulus by producing new brain cells Depressed people's ability to distinguish patterns is sharpened They'll see the world again in all its richness and variety and this will help them out of their depression 5 Creativity Finally let's talk about how exercise can improve creativity in the brain You've probably heard many examples of this Many successful people in creative fields believe that they come up with more great ideas when they exercise Einstein, Beethoven, Darwin, Kant all of these leading thinkers in different fields took long walks and came up with brilliant ideas In more recent times Steve Jobs started the Apple tradition of walking meetings Zuckerberg the founder of Facebook Dorsey, the founder of Twitter both borrowed from this practice They both found that meetings were more productive when they walked Does exercise like walking really improve our creativity? A study from Stanford University confirms that it does They conducted a group experiment with 176 people The results showed that after a period of walking People's ability to generate creative ideas and brainstorm increased by 60% What's the principle behind that? Well, at the moment brain scientists have come up with a hypothesis that deserves further testing They think that exercise can change the way the thalamus works The thalamus is a very important brain tissue located in the center of the brain and its role is to act as a filter for information As information from the outside world reaches the thalamus through our senses the thalamus sifts through the mass of information to find the little bits that deserve our attention and allows them to enter our consciousness This layer of filtering is necessary to keep our cerebral cortex from being overwhelmed by information and shutting down During exercise the thalamus seems to open up a little bit more in its filtering of information and it allows more information to enter our consciousness than it normally would That's where a lot of creative ideas come from Conclusion This is the essence of The Brain Gym so let's summarize: 1 To truly experience the benefits of exercise on brain function you need to exercise for more than 30 minutes at a time; 45 minutes is an appropriate length 2 The ideal frequency of exercise is three times per week 3 You need to keep your heart rate up when you exercise For improved concentration alone your heart rate should be at 70-75% of your predicted limit Here are two guidelines For people in their 40s the heart rate during exercise should be no lower than 130-140 beats per minute For people in their 50s the heart rate should not drop below 125 beats per minute 4 Do aerobic exercise Strength training is also good for the brain but the research is still inconclusive The five brain functions we're talking about today are all primarily improved by aerobic exercise 5 Avoid overexertion If you're very tired after exercising your memory and creativity will not improve significantly 6 Exercise must be done regularly over a long period of time It takes months or longer for fundamental changes to occur in your brain creating new brain cells and blood vessels and improving connections between different regions of the brain You'll need to keep at it for months or longer Realistically if you continue to train three times a week for six months or more you're likely to experience improved brain function Finally I hope that you enjoy exercising stay healthy, and gain wisdom Ok, that's it for this edition If you liked our video please like subscribe and share it with your friends let us know what you think in the comments See you next time