Category Archives: Brain Health

The Great Benefits and Joy of Movement

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“Anytime you engage in regular activity, you’re becoming this version of yourself that is more hopeful, more motivated, more energized, and better able to connect with others.” ~Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D.

Knowing only great benefits and happiness will result from movement, why are Americans so resistant to making movement a priority in their day?

While our brains and bodies reward us for moving and exertion, we also are built with an instinct to avoid overexertion, conserve energy, to rest, to avoid discomfort, and avoid failure and embarrassment, says Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D., a research psychologist, a lecturer at Stanford University, and an award-winning science writer and author of The Joy of Movement.

To retrain our bodies to encourage movement, we must first start with self-compassion and the practice of gratitude. We must remove the negative connotations from movement and recognize how the practice of movement can be really rewarding on its own.

“Exercise is health-enhancing and life-extending, yet many of us feel it’s a chore.” Kelly McGonigal

Research shows, according to Dr. McGonigal, there are three motivations that keep people moving:

  • Enjoyment – doing something you actually enjoy
  • The activity provides social community or sense of identity (i.e. “I’m a runner”), … positive social connection, and
  • It’s a personal challenge and meaningful to you as you’re making progress toward a goal.

If you can find an activity that gives you all three – you’re hooked for life! Exercise is health-enhancing and life-extending, yet many of us feel it’s a chore and burden.

Movement can be a source of joy and is intertwined with some of the most basic human joys, including self-expression, social connection, and mastery–and why it is a powerful antidote to the modern epidemics of depression, anxiety, and loneliness.

Basically, bliss can be found in any sustained physical activity, whether that’s hiking, swimming, cycling, dancing, or yoga. However, the runner’s high emerges only after a significant effort. It seems to be the brain’s way of rewarding you for working hard.

McGonigal tells the stories of people who have found fulfillment and belonging through running, walking, dancing, swimming, weightlifting, and more, with examples that span the globe.

Along the way, Dr. McGonigal paints a portrait of human nature that highlights our capacity for hope, cooperation, and self-transcendence.

Movement is integral to both our happiness and our humanity. By harnessing the power of movement, you can create happiness, meaning, and connection in your life.

The latest theory about the runner’s high claims that: Our ability to experience exercise-induced euphoria is linked to our earliest ancestors’ lives as hunters, scavengers, and foragers.

As biologist Dennis Bramble and paleoanthropologist Daniel Lieberman write, “Today, endurance running is primarily a form of exercise and recreation, but its roots may be as ancient as the origin of the human genus.”

The neurochemical state that makes running gratifying may have originally served as a reward to keep early humans hunting and gathering. What we call the runner’s high may even have encouraged our ancestors to cooperate and share the spoils of a hunt.

In our evolutionary past, humans may have survived in part because physical activity was pleasurable. It takes about six weeks of consistent moderate movement to see structural and neurochemical changes in your brain. And, increase intensity amplifies the benefits. The harder stuff seems to payoff. Exercise gets easier and more pleasurable sooner.

The key to unlocking the runner’s high is not the physical action of running itself, but can be achieved on continuous moderate intensity exercise. And in fact scientists have documented a similar increase in endocannabinoids from cycling, walking on a treadmill at an incline, and outdoor hiking.

If you want the high, you just have to put in the time and effort. 

References:

  1. https://getmadefor.com/blogs/perspective/the-joy-of-movement-how-looking-backwards-moves-us-forward
  2. https://www.amazon.com/Joy-Movement-exercise-happiness-connection/dp/0525534105/ref=nodl

Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D., is a research psychologist, a lecturer at Stanford University, and an award-winning science writer and author of The Joy of Movement.

Better Workouts Include the Brain and Body

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Movement is Medicine: ‘We can use our bodies as a tool to affect the way we think and feel, like a hotline to the mind.” Caroline Williams, researcher and author of ‘Move: How the New Science of Body Movement Can Set Your Mind Free’

“Movement affects your brain; but your brain also affects movement.”

Regular physical activity is an important part of a healthy mind, body and lifestyle. Not only is exercise good for your muscles and bones, but it is also an important part of keeping your brain healthy too. Exercise doesn’t only mean working out or playing sports, it just means moving your body and being active. A few other examples of exercise are: dancing, walking, biking, swimming, or throwing a Frisbee.

What happens in the body and brain during exercise: As your heart rate increases during exercise, blood flow to the brain increases. As blood flow increases, your brain is exposed to more oxygen and nutrients. Exercise also induces the release of beneficial proteins in the brain. These nourishing proteins keep brain cells (also known as neurons) healthy, and promote the growth of new neurons. Neurons are the working building blocks of the brain. As a result, individual neuron health is important to overall brain health.

Studies have shown that the connection between your brain and your body is a “two-way street” and that means physical movement can effectively change your brain for the better, explains Srini Pillay, M.D., Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Your brain plays a major role in your physical and emotional well-being, and it directly affects your ability to exercise. Your brain was designed for survival and avoiding danger (fight, flight or freeze). Regular aerobic exercise can reduce anxiety by making your brain’s “fight, flight or freeze” system less reactive.

One way to trick your brain is doing a Gatorade swish, which misleads your brain into thinking your body is getting a jolt of energy from a sugary beverage, even if it isn’t. The act triggers the brain, which naturally wants to preserve energy for survival, into releasing dopamine to help jump start exercise based on the false promise is sugar, Dr. Jennifer Heisz, explains in Move Your Body; Heal Your Mind.

Movement can improve your cognitive functions and mental health. Regular physical activity and movement benefit more than just the body. They actually augment brain function. Movement supplies brain cells with oxygen, promotes the production of new brain cells, and aids in creating new synapses.

Regular exercise such as aerobic, resistance, flexibility, and balance exercises can reduce depressive symptoms. Exercise can be as effective as medication and psychotherapies.

Regular exercise may boost mood by increasing a brain protein called BDNF that helps nerve fibers grow.

Mindfulness during exercises and workout.

“A 12 minute walk alters metabolites in our blood, molecules that affect the beating of our heart, the breath in our lungs, the neurons in our brain.” explains Annabel Streets, “52,ways to Walk: The Surprising Science of Walking for Wellness and Joy, One Week at a Time.

Physical activity is ignored by experts who are too focused on addressing mental health issues from the neck up. “It’s low hanging fruit,” she says, “brain chemist, thought, behaviors might take years to address on the couch.” Dr. Ellen Vora, a New York psychiatrist.

“The brain is always working against you to not expend energy, but we can override it,” says Dr. Heisz.

Exercise can be turned into a powerful meditation practice states Anita Sweeney, author of “Make Every Move a Meditation: Mindful Movement for Mental Health, Well-Being, and Insight”. Exercise can be turned into a powerful meditative practice by focusing the mind on a single thought, object or sensation during exercise can help bring clarity and peace of mind. For example, focusing on your left foot hitting the pavement can help you focus.

Exercise is essential for those seeking better emotional well-being and better mental health. Both physical exercise and meditative movement are activities that you can do to improve the way you feel.

Studies have found that people who exercise daily are at greatly reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. Rudolph Tanzi, Kennedy professor of neurology and cofounder of the McCance Center for Brain Health at MGH, states, “It’s hard to imagine anything better for brain health than daily exercise, and our findings shed new light on the mechanism involved: protecting against neuroinflammation, perhaps the biggest killer of brain neurons as we age.”

References:

  1. https://www.wsj.com/articles/best-books-2022-workout-fitness-11641905831
  2. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/how-simply-moving-benefits-your-mental-health-201603289350
  3. https://www.dana.org/article/how-does-exercise-affect-the-brain/
  4. https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2022/01/right-now-brain-on-exercise
  5. https://www.discoverhealthfmc.com/blogs/understanding-how-your-brain-affects-your-movement