Monday, January 25, 2010

Another damn good reason to exercise

Study du jour: A study published in the Journals of Gerontology describes how your brain starts to go once you hit 30. Researchers wanted to find out what happens when older people exercise. (More detail at the bottom of the post.)

The conclusion:"Significant increases in brain volume, in both gray and white matter regions, were found as a function of fitness training for the older adults who participated in the aerobic fitness training but not for the older adults who participated in the stretching and toning (nonaerobic) control group."

Exercise du jour: Well hell, I'm walking! I'll try to fit in yoga in the evening, but today I'm inspired to be aerobic.

Done! Not as long a walk as I would've liked, but even 30 minutes counts. Plus, on a day like today it was really good to get out of the office and walk in the soggy forest. A place where no one wanted me to document anything at all, merely to be there.



More about this study: BEGINNING in the third decade of life the human brain shows structural decline, which is disproportionately large in the frontal, parietal, and temporal lobes of the brain .... Cardiovascular exercise has been associated with improved cognitive functioning in aging humans (3,4). These effects have been shown to be the greatest in higher order cognitive processes, such as working memory, switching between tasks, and inhibiting irrelevant information, all of which are thought to be subserved, in part, by the frontal lobes of the brain. For more information about this study, click here.

6 comments:

LaShaune said...

Well, I can't say that exercise is helping my cognitive function since in my 20s I could memorize my previous boss' calendar for 2 months, his AMEX #, SSN, TDL - all without having to write stuff down. Now, I'm good if I can remember my own phone #, let alone what's on the schedule for the day without having to make a to-do list.

Oh well, at least I remember to zip up my pants after putting them on. That's a plus, right?

The Merry said...

Especially if you put them on your legs as opposed to your head ;)

The website for Bikenhike provides waist and /chest/ sizes for their cycling pants, which makes me wonder about their exercise habits.

Gigi said...

Oh, that's just great....another good reason to exercise. Just when I was building up a good repertoire against it.

LMI said...

Well--that explains A LOT (unfortunately).

messymimi said...

So, my brain has been deteriorating that long?

Oh, well, back to the stair climber.

On the Bright Side said...

Interesting study, thanks for posting it! And Yes, 30 minutes definitely counts!!!