Mastering the Health Continuum: 8 Daily Practices to Boost Energy, Optimize Health, and Age Gracefully by Nancy Miggins

Author:Nancy Miggins [Miggins, Nancy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-09-04T17:00:00+00:00

Lack of Movement

Movement is the cerebrospinal fluid pump circulating this fluid within your central nervous system. Cerebrospinal fluid protects the brain and spinal cord, acting as a shock absorber. It bathes the brain with vital nutrients and helps to eliminate toxins.

Movement works to balance brain hemisphere activity and stimulates neurotransmitter and hormone production, leading to improved mood and cognitive function. There is a consistent association between higher levels of physical activity with greater volume of the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus in older adults. These are the areas that tend to decline in adulthood and that support executive and memory functions. Incorporating daily movement into your life can be an effective prevention for cognitive impairment and other behavioral problems associated with brain atrophy.

Your brain is not the only thing that can waste away with age. Your muscles tend to do the same. Sarcopenia, an age-related condition resulting in muscle wasting and weakness, is one of the most important causes of functional decline and loss of independence in older adults.

Beginning as early as our forties, evidence suggests that our muscle mass and muscle strength decline in a linear fashion, with up to 50 percent of our developed muscle mass being lost by the time we reach our eighties according to an article published in Current Opinion in Rheumatology in 2012. Obesity and fat infiltration into the muscle accelerate this degeneration.

There are many factors that contribute to sarcopenia, including the obvious decline in activity level and nutrition, as well as an increase in generalized inflammation. But mitochondrial performance is at the center of this degenerative and progressive condition. It is vitally important to foster the optimization of mitochondrial function to support and maintain muscle. It gets harder and harder for us to build and keep muscle as we age.

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