Just like the rest of your body, your brain needs the right food and exercise to perform well. Studies show a strong link between regular exercise and a boost in verbal memory and learning.
In this segment, Gail Ericson, physical therapist with the Penny George Institute's LiveWell® Fitness Center, joins the show to give great advice on how exercise can improve brain function, and possibly even ward off diseases such as Alzheimer's, depression and many others.
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Exercise and the Brain
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Learn more about Gail Ericson, PT, MS
Gail Ericson, PT, MS
Gail Ericson, PT, MS is a physical therapist with the Penny George Institute's LiveWell® Fitness Center. She enjoys working with a clients seeking services for a variety of reasons. They may be recovering from cancer, transitioning from clinical therapy to community-based exercise, or seeking a more active lifestyle. Ericson is a past marathoner who now enjoys yoga, strength training, and a multitude of summer and winter activities.Learn more about Gail Ericson, PT, MS
Transcription:
Melanie Cole (Host): Just like the rest of your body, your brain needs the right exercises to perform well. Studies show a strong link between regular exercise and a boost in verbal, memory, and learning. My guest today is Gail Ericson. She’s a physical therapist with the Penny George Institute’s Live Well Fitness Center. Welcome to the show, Gail. Exercise and the brain – people think of the brain as not something that benefits from exercise, so speak about how that works.
Gail Ericson (Guest): There’s quite a few benefits to the brain, both directly and indirectly, from exercise. They used to think that the brain – the neurons – we didn’t ever gain any more neurons. Our brains inevitably would shrink as we age, and there was no way to change that course. Now, they’re finding that that’s not true.
Directly, exercise obviously brings more oxygen and blood flow to the brain. At the cellular level, they are finding that there is a protein that helps to increase your neuron growth and activates more neuron growth, especially in the area of the brain called the hippocampus, which is our main piece of our brain that helps us with memory and new learning. Yeah, there’s really great evidence out there, and lots of ways that it can help your brain.
Melanie: When we think of exercise – people have heard about brain games, and then they think of regular, formalized exercise. Let’s start with the regular, formalized exercise. Are we talking about all kinds of cardiovascular specifically, or weight training and yoga – because some people say yoga and meditation, that can help? Tell us what kinds of exercise you’re talking about?
Gail: What they’re finding currently in the research is that it is mostly – you’re mostly going to get the effects of new brain cell development with sustained aerobic activity, so anything that gets your heart pumping – from walking to riding your bike – for as little as 20 minutes a day. Even better, 30 minutes a day, seven days a week is great. Strength training hasn’t been really found to have those effects on the brain because typically, you’re not going to have a sustained heart rate during that time. Anything that gets your moving is going to affect your brain.
Melanie: If the American College of Sports Medicine and other organizations are recommending 150 minutes a week of cardiovascular sustained exercise, which can be broken up, Gail – they say into ten-minute increments and such. Are those then just as good for the brain if we break them up, or is this a little caveat to that 150 minutes a week where it should be a sustained 45 minutes kind of thing?
Gail: I don’t know if they know for sure at this point. For most people, I would just say you just need to move. If it’s for ten minutes -- if it’s for twenty minutes, if you can do it for thirty minutes -- and if you can do it every day, the more, the better especially as you age. They have found that in the elderly population – maybe 60 and over – if you keep moving, you’re going to prevent some of that brain shrinkage that comes with normal aging. You’re also going to help with mood, with depression, with decreasing stress, improving your sleep. At this point, I would just say, “You just need to move, and the more you move, the better.”
Melanie: We’ve talked about how much exercise is needed, what type of exercise, how it really benefits the brain. People hear about these brain games – there’s even ones you can do online. There’s ones that you can do all over the place. Are these proven to help the brain cells as well, and even, possibly, help to pre – not prevent, but maybe even delay some kinds of brain disorders – Alzheimer’s, dementia, things like that?
Gail: I think there’s a little bit of research out there that it can help more in the short term. They’re having trouble linking that to any real long-term changes, and they’re not finding that there’s actual physical changes in the brain whereas exercise they can do MRIs and do different things and they can see that, yes, there are actual increases in that hippocampus in the brain. They’re not necessarily seeing that with brain games. It’s hard to tell sometimes if those types of games are helping people in real life with their functioning or do they – if you work on, say, math games, does that transfer into anything else? It also might contribute – if you’re doing a lot of brain games, and my thought, is that it’s going to lead to probably more isolation – because you’re probably doing these things alone – and probably contributing to more sitting --
Melanie: Interesting point. That’s an interesting point. But when people want to know what type of games?
Gail: There are so many out there I wouldn’t be able to give you an idea of what the best kinds of games there are. If they are games that have activity involved with them -- even something like the Wii --because you might be learning some new movement pattern and you have to think about it. That’s what they say about exercise, as well. You’re going to get better brain effects if it’s something that you have to move and you have to think. Dancing is a great option. If you take dance lessons or something like that, you’re learning something new, and you’re moving.
Melanie: What’s so important is that people hear all of this, and they want to do what’s right for their brains. Wrap it up, Gail. You’re a physical therapist, so you work with all parts of the body, and the brain being a muscle, which people don’t really think about – and the heart, as well. Tell people what you want them to know about brain health and even feeding their brain nutritionally, eating foods that are full of antioxidants, and that are getting enough hydration. All of these things go together to help us think a little bit clearer, so wrap it up for us.
Gail: Yeah, you put it all out there. It’s all the things that people know they should do as far as eating better, trying to cut out as much sugar as you can out of your diet, and moving – making those excuses to move as most often as you can. It’s going to help affect your – both your muscles, your muscle strength, your endurance, your learning capability, your memory capability, help you sleep better. There are so many reasons to move, and probably fewer reasons not to, but we have to get around those [LAUGHTER].
Melanie: And you know what they say – the American College of Sports Medicine does say, “Exercise is medicine.”
Gail: Absolutely.
Melanie: And in this case, it’s actually brain medicine. Thank you, so much, Gail, for being with us today. That’s really great information. You’re listening to The Well Cast with Allina Health, and for more information, you can go to AllinaHealth.org, that’s AllinaHealth.org. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks, so much for listening.
Melanie Cole (Host): Just like the rest of your body, your brain needs the right exercises to perform well. Studies show a strong link between regular exercise and a boost in verbal, memory, and learning. My guest today is Gail Ericson. She’s a physical therapist with the Penny George Institute’s Live Well Fitness Center. Welcome to the show, Gail. Exercise and the brain – people think of the brain as not something that benefits from exercise, so speak about how that works.
Gail Ericson (Guest): There’s quite a few benefits to the brain, both directly and indirectly, from exercise. They used to think that the brain – the neurons – we didn’t ever gain any more neurons. Our brains inevitably would shrink as we age, and there was no way to change that course. Now, they’re finding that that’s not true.
Directly, exercise obviously brings more oxygen and blood flow to the brain. At the cellular level, they are finding that there is a protein that helps to increase your neuron growth and activates more neuron growth, especially in the area of the brain called the hippocampus, which is our main piece of our brain that helps us with memory and new learning. Yeah, there’s really great evidence out there, and lots of ways that it can help your brain.
Melanie: When we think of exercise – people have heard about brain games, and then they think of regular, formalized exercise. Let’s start with the regular, formalized exercise. Are we talking about all kinds of cardiovascular specifically, or weight training and yoga – because some people say yoga and meditation, that can help? Tell us what kinds of exercise you’re talking about?
Gail: What they’re finding currently in the research is that it is mostly – you’re mostly going to get the effects of new brain cell development with sustained aerobic activity, so anything that gets your heart pumping – from walking to riding your bike – for as little as 20 minutes a day. Even better, 30 minutes a day, seven days a week is great. Strength training hasn’t been really found to have those effects on the brain because typically, you’re not going to have a sustained heart rate during that time. Anything that gets your moving is going to affect your brain.
Melanie: If the American College of Sports Medicine and other organizations are recommending 150 minutes a week of cardiovascular sustained exercise, which can be broken up, Gail – they say into ten-minute increments and such. Are those then just as good for the brain if we break them up, or is this a little caveat to that 150 minutes a week where it should be a sustained 45 minutes kind of thing?
Gail: I don’t know if they know for sure at this point. For most people, I would just say you just need to move. If it’s for ten minutes -- if it’s for twenty minutes, if you can do it for thirty minutes -- and if you can do it every day, the more, the better especially as you age. They have found that in the elderly population – maybe 60 and over – if you keep moving, you’re going to prevent some of that brain shrinkage that comes with normal aging. You’re also going to help with mood, with depression, with decreasing stress, improving your sleep. At this point, I would just say, “You just need to move, and the more you move, the better.”
Melanie: We’ve talked about how much exercise is needed, what type of exercise, how it really benefits the brain. People hear about these brain games – there’s even ones you can do online. There’s ones that you can do all over the place. Are these proven to help the brain cells as well, and even, possibly, help to pre – not prevent, but maybe even delay some kinds of brain disorders – Alzheimer’s, dementia, things like that?
Gail: I think there’s a little bit of research out there that it can help more in the short term. They’re having trouble linking that to any real long-term changes, and they’re not finding that there’s actual physical changes in the brain whereas exercise they can do MRIs and do different things and they can see that, yes, there are actual increases in that hippocampus in the brain. They’re not necessarily seeing that with brain games. It’s hard to tell sometimes if those types of games are helping people in real life with their functioning or do they – if you work on, say, math games, does that transfer into anything else? It also might contribute – if you’re doing a lot of brain games, and my thought, is that it’s going to lead to probably more isolation – because you’re probably doing these things alone – and probably contributing to more sitting --
Melanie: Interesting point. That’s an interesting point. But when people want to know what type of games?
Gail: There are so many out there I wouldn’t be able to give you an idea of what the best kinds of games there are. If they are games that have activity involved with them -- even something like the Wii --because you might be learning some new movement pattern and you have to think about it. That’s what they say about exercise, as well. You’re going to get better brain effects if it’s something that you have to move and you have to think. Dancing is a great option. If you take dance lessons or something like that, you’re learning something new, and you’re moving.
Melanie: What’s so important is that people hear all of this, and they want to do what’s right for their brains. Wrap it up, Gail. You’re a physical therapist, so you work with all parts of the body, and the brain being a muscle, which people don’t really think about – and the heart, as well. Tell people what you want them to know about brain health and even feeding their brain nutritionally, eating foods that are full of antioxidants, and that are getting enough hydration. All of these things go together to help us think a little bit clearer, so wrap it up for us.
Gail: Yeah, you put it all out there. It’s all the things that people know they should do as far as eating better, trying to cut out as much sugar as you can out of your diet, and moving – making those excuses to move as most often as you can. It’s going to help affect your – both your muscles, your muscle strength, your endurance, your learning capability, your memory capability, help you sleep better. There are so many reasons to move, and probably fewer reasons not to, but we have to get around those [LAUGHTER].
Melanie: And you know what they say – the American College of Sports Medicine does say, “Exercise is medicine.”
Gail: Absolutely.
Melanie: And in this case, it’s actually brain medicine. Thank you, so much, Gail, for being with us today. That’s really great information. You’re listening to The Well Cast with Allina Health, and for more information, you can go to AllinaHealth.org, that’s AllinaHealth.org. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks, so much for listening.