Halt brain decline with non-aerobic exercise

Sea Squirt

Here’s the next way to halt brain decline. Non-aerobic exercise. This is weight training or other activities that include movement, but don’t raise your heart rate a great deal or make you break out in a sweat, like gardening, dancing and walking.

 

 

Why is non-aerobic exercise so good for your brain?

Think about your brain. Where do you think it ends? At your neck? No. It ends at the ends of your fingers and the ends of your toes. Nerves are simply the ‘stalks’ of your brain cells or neurons.

As you get older the protective sheath around your nerves (the myelin) can start to degrade which means that the messages sent down those nerves are not transmitted properly.

You control all your movements by sending signals along those fibres. If the signals are not received correctly you can start using your joints badly, so they start to get damaged.

Imagine how complicated your knees and elbows are. Each muscle involved in their movement needs to contract and relax at exactly the correct moment for your knee or elbow to work properly. If not, your joints can start to deteriorate.

The good news

You can do something to drastically reduce this problem - that is non-aerobic exercise. Repeating the same movement time and time again sends signals down your nerves. Repeating the same signal along your nerve encourages it to repair any damage.

Use it or lose it

That’s what non-aerobic exercise does, so make sure you get some at least each week, if possible, get it every day.

Why movement is so important for your brain

Do you know the life cycle of the see squirt? It swims around in the ocean till it finds a nice spot to make its home. Then it attaches itself to a rock and stays there for the rest of its life.

Guess what its first meal is? It digests its own brain. This is because it doesn’t need it any more. You need your brain to decide if you are in the right place or not. If not, it makes you move to another place.

When you are young and your brain is developing, movement is a vital part of that process.

Movement is vital for keeping your brain healthy and active. It’s pretty good for your heart too.

Look out for more ways of keeping your brain from decline on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday this week.

Go here for the last post on stopping the decline in your brain.