Your Brain on Exercise by Gary L. Wenk

Author:Gary L. Wenk
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2020-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

The hazards of thinking too fast

Neuroscientists have discovered that a healthy balance is also necessary for thinking, just as it is for exercising. The major culprits underlying our vulnerability to increased brain and muscle activity are oxidative stress and inflammation. Inflammation worsens the negative consequences of oxidative stress within the brain. Because the brain uses more energy than any other organ in your body, the mitochondria inside its billions of neurons produce a lot of ROS. Neurons face injury from the inside via increased levels of ROS and from the outside due to the presence of elevated levels of inflammatory proteins; the combined negative consequences of this environment place neurons at increased risk of oxidative damage and death. ROS production varies in parallel with brain activity: The more active your brain becomes, the more ROS it produces. Recent studies have identified the biological mechanisms that underlie the death of overly active neurons in the hippocampus. By now you might have noticed that the hippocampus is highly vulnerable to the consequences of exercising, breathing, eating, and thinking. Thus, it is not surprising that the hippocampus shows degenerative changes during the earliest stages of age-related brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. Memory loss due to hippocampal dysfunction is one of the most characteristic symptoms during the initial stage of the disease. Neuroscientists now understand why the hippocampus is so vulnerable to chronic neuroinflammation and oxidative stress. In addition, epidemiological studies have discovered an interesting correlation between overusing your hippocampus and becoming demented in old age. For example, the decline in cognitive function of patients with Alzheimer’s disease is faster, after diagnosis, in patients who attended college versus patients who did not attend college. Think about the irony of this (but not too much, because doing so might kill some neurons!). When it comes to your muscles, the mantra is “use it or lose it,” but when it comes to your brain, the new mantra is “use it too much and you will lose it.” Thus, you should also take time every day to sit quietly and rest your mind in some form of contemplative silence, such as mindful meditation, to maintain good mental health and reduce ROS production. And try to get some sleep.

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