Walking Is Brain Exercise

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walking exercise

Perhaps nothing is more important to your overall health and well-being than exercise. It’s a truth you already know but can’t be reminded of too often. Exercise is essential for maintaining strong muscles and joints, and it’s vitally important for your brain.

Numerous studies have demonstrated the positive effects of exercise on the brain. Exercise isn’t only for losing weight and creating good-looking muscle. It’s essential for a smart brain and a brain that feels happy. Exercising regularly will help you gain the strength and stamina to act on your creative ideas and plans, and you’ll build the self-discipline and willpower you need to achieve your loftiest goals.

According to a study conducted at the University of British Columbia, the brain’s information-processing capacity and memory improve with just 20 to 30 minutes of exercise a day. The hippocampus, a part of the brain closely related to memory and learning, gets bigger with regular exercise. It seems that aerobic exercise helps stem cells in the hippocampus divide and grow. Exercise also enhances the brain’s plasticity, expanding and connecting its network of connections by increasing the blood flow to the brain. Even the simplest muscle movements spur new synaptic connections.

Another major effect of exercise is that it promotes production of neurotropins and neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine, putting the brain into a pleasant, happy state. Exercise is a remarkable stress reducer — even the simplest movement neutralizes stress hormones and stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system. That, in turn, initiates a variety of calming and rejuvenating responses within your limbic system. Complex exercises involving coordination, balance, and diverse movements stimulate multiple brain areas simultaneously, reinforcing the connections between them. Your brain reaps instant benefits when you exercise in novel and unexpected ways. That makes cross-training far more productive than performing precisely the same exercises day after day.

The timeline of human evolution is thought to be about three million years. We’ve lived life as we do now — as modern humans — at most for 5,000 of those years. Before that, we had mostly nomadic lives, always on the move over mountains and fields. The structure of the human brain was formed long before we began leading “civilized” lives. This means that our brains developed to make active lives possible. In other words, exercise is essential for optimizing brain function.

What sort of exercise is good for the brain? In general, any exercise that’s good for the heart is good for the brain. Aerobic exercise in particular improves brain function and helps restore damaged neurons. Experts say that moderate activity combining coordination with cardiovascular exercise — such as walking briskly or dancing — is especially good for the brain. Physical activity of moderate intensity yields the best results, according to scientists. Whenever the body is pushed to release stress hormones, the positive brain effects are eliminated. “Brain education” mainly uses exercises of low to moderate intensity, such as yoga and tai chi, along with core-strengthening exercises, a variety of aerobic exercises, and exercises for enhancing left-right brain coordination.

One of the most effective and simple brain exercises is something that we do naturally — walking. Although stepping forward by placing one foot in front of the other may seem ordinary, it’s actually a complex process that requires the harmonious coordination of all your joints, bones, muscles, and nerves. Normal walking becomes impossible if an abnormality develops in even one of these components. Taking a single step moves more than 200 bones and 600 muscles in the human body, and it requires multiple brain functions for all of this to happen simultaneously. Walking, in short, is an advanced brain exercise.

We walk virtually unconsciously, but with every step an incredible amount of information reaches the sensory area of the cerebral neocortex through the leg muscles — and all this happens at an incalculable speed. An incessant exchange of complex signals between our legs and our brains takes place while we’re walking. Even if we take just one step, information about how we’re walking — whether the road surface is safe, how steeply it’s inclined, and so on — reaches the brain in an instant. On accepting that information, the brain sends instructions to the legs in real time, leading to the next movement.

In order to walk, we have to mobilize all our body’s senses — watching with our eyes, moving our hands to maintain balance, feeling the temperature of the air with our skin, and smelling with our noses. All this information is delivered to the cerebral neocortex. These diverse stimuli help activate the brain.

While we control the movement of stretching out a hand according to our own intentions, the regulation of our breathing, digestion, heartbeat, and body temperature occurs all on its own. The muscles of the internal organs and blood vessels are controlled by the body’s autonomic nervous system. This system is subject to less control from the brain because information-integration functions take place primarily in collections of nerve cells called nerve ganglia. That’s why brain researchers have given the name “little brains” to nerve ganglia, and why they say that the brain isn’t only in the head but is also in the body. To train your nerve ganglia, you have to move your whole body.

Freehand exercises that are done gently and raise only a slight sweat are better for this than exercises requiring intense, concentrated exertion. Gentle, full-body exercise gives the brain pleasant stimulation by repeatedly tensing and relaxing the muscles; in response, the brain increases ganglia functioning by releasing hormones. That, in turn, maximizes brain capabilities. “Energy sensing exercise” (which involves feeling energy) and “meridian exercises” (which sensitize the body through stretching) are among the best for strengthening the ganglia.

This article is excerpted from Ilchi Lee’s “The Power Brain: Five Steps to Upgrading Your Brain Operating System.”

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