Why Do I Need to Exercise My Brain and What Are the Benefits?

Many people may ask, why do I need to exercise my brain and what are the benefits? Well just as fitness experts say, use it or lose it, the same message applies to the brain and mind function, keeping the brain active serves to protect the brain from slowing down or becoming almost unable to function.

Many experiments have been carried out over the years and a lot of research has been conducted into the function of the brain and helping to keep the brain sharp and active, reduced or slower brain function doesn’t just affect older people, young people too if they are not using and exercising the brain can find they begin to have trouble with short term memory and learning.

Research led by Dr. Kristin Yaffe and carried out at the University of California which involved taking blood samples and measuring brain function of 1000 people over a 9 year period found that bets-amyloids found in the blood have a direct relationship with Alzheimer’s disease, but interestingly, brain exercise actually produced highly protective benefits for the brain. The findings of the research by Dr. Yaffe and the team went on to be published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

It’s not just mental exercises which help protect the brain function; both physical and cardio vascular exercise, play an important role in the health of the brain and mind.

The process called neurogenesis, which is the ability of the brain to produce new neurons or brain cells, has been known to science since 1992, it’s the brain stem cells which produce most of the new neurons, and sadly these stem cells can rapidly lose their ability to produce new neurons or brain cells.

The body naturally produces a protein both in the brain and other parts of the body, which slows down the stems cells ability to produce new cells (in the brain neurons), however this BMP as it is known, can be controlled by both brain exercises and physical and cardio exercise.

By exercising the brain it has been scientifically proven, the brain benefits from the ability to continue to renew its self with new brain cells, which is vital; needed for memory, cognitive ability etc. Alzheimer’s is a devastating disease not only for the sufferer but also for those left behind as the sufferer disappears in all but physical body.

Protecting the brain with brain exercises has many positive benefits.