Sharpening your mind and mood through exercise

I am reading a book about the latest surprising  science reveals about exercising "The first 20 minutes" by Gretchen Reynolds.

Here you have some very interesting ideas about how working out make different positive changes in our mind.

• In one study, elderly sedentary people who began a walking program showed significant growth in several areas of the brain after six months. The walkers' brains were bigger, faster, and younger, and consequently performed better on test of memory and decision making than people who had remained sedentary.

• A little may be enough. In mice, a fairly short period of exercise and a short distance seems to produce results in terms of improved cognition. "Walking around the block, cooking, gardening, cleaning, and that sort of thing" significantly improved cognitive function in a group of older people, says Dr. Middleton.

• "Epidemiological studies show that long-term runners have a lower risk of neurological disease" including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's days Dr. Mark Tarnopolsky, a professor of medicine at McMaster Hospital.

• Get kids out. Studies from the University of Illinois have found that "just twenty minutes of walking" before a test raises kids' scores, even if the children are otherwise unfit or overweight, says Dr. Hillman, who has done the study. Other work from his lab has shown that aerobically fit children score higher on test of complex memory than less fit youngsters.

• Japanese researchers did an experiment with loaded rats running wheels. After eight weeks, these rats had gained muscle while the rats jogging on unloaded wheels had not. The muscled rats also displayed increased levels of gene activity in the brain associated with improved brain functioning- more, in fact, than the animals that hadn't added muscle. The stronger the animals became, the better their brains worked.

• Exercise speeds the brain's production of serotonin. Abnormally low levels of serotonin have been associated with anxiety and depression. In some studies, exercise has been as or even more effective than antidepressant medications at making people feel better.

• Be patient. The stress-reducing changes in the brain induced by exercise don't happen overnight. In experiments at the University of Colorado, rats that ran for only three weeks did not show much reduction in stress-induced anxiety, but those that ran for at least six weeks did. You may not feel a magical reduction of stress after your first jog or swim. But the molecular biochemical changes will begin, Dr. Greenwood says. ANd eventually, he says, they become profound.

• Find a training partner. In another experiment with rats, scientists found that exercise did not benefit animals which were  housed alone as  much as animals sharing cages. Socially housed rats produced copious amounts of new brain cells when they exercised; the lonely animals did not.
• Sex can spur neurogenesis. When male rats at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute were given to "sexually receptive" females, they responded as nature intended and vigorously engaged with the girl rats. The resultant activity led to an increase in neurogenesis in their brains. Sex improve their ability to think.

Starting II

Before starting working out you should ask yourself: what do I want? What are my fitness goals?

The most common goals to do exercise are (from special Eurobarometer march 2010 ):

• To improve your health 61%
• To improve fitness 41%
• To relax 39%
• To have fun 31%
• To improve your physical appearance 24%
• To control your weight 24%
• Others

As you can see the most important reason to do physical activity for most of the people is to improve their health. So what should I do to improve my health?

Health is a tree with many branches, but the most important, in my opinion, are:

• Physical activity.
• Eating.
• Emotional state.

You should take care of all these branches.

• What kind of physical activity I should do to improve my health:
• Cardiovascular endurance or aerobic exercise. Go for a walk, jog slowly, ride your bicycle, roller skating, swimming, dance, hiking... These activities will improve your aerobic capacity and will make a big difference in your health.  Try to do aerobic exercise almost everyday for at least 30'. Try to put your heart rate between 120 and 150 heartbeats per minute. (try to be active everyday, walk, take the stairs...).
• Strengthening your muscles. I will explain how in upcoming posts.
• Stretching your muscles.
• Try enjoying the time you are working out.

• Eating. This is a very controversial subject. I will try to give you some very single and accepted tips:
• You should avoid (or at least try to eat a little of them):
• Sugar (cakes, cookies, ice-cream, sweets, candies...)
• Salted snacks.
• Food which has too much fat (fried food, some meats, some sauces, some cakes...).
• Sodas. The best way to hydrate yourself is drinking water.
• You should eat more:
• Fruit and vegetables.
• Different kind of whole grains and legumes.
• Fish and "white" meat (chicken or rabbit instead beef or pork).

• Emotional state. This is a very deep issue but if you exercise yourself and if you take care of your eating you will feel better. Try to take care of your relationships and to be more balance.

You can take a look of this pyramid.

The best medicine

• Do you know what makes the biggest difference to your health?

• Do you know that low fitness is the strongest predictor of death?

• Do you know what is the best medicine?

As you can imagine, the best medicine is exercise, so can you limit your daily regular activities (work, home, sitting, sleeping...) to 23 hour and a half?

Take a look of this presentation made by Dr Mike Evans.

Starting I

Everybody  has  ups and downs with the exercise habit.

Most people’s experiences consist of starting and stopping and starting again. Don't worry about that, the most important thing is starting again.

Tips

• Start easy. Many people set out with a lot of ambition and enthusiasm: “I’m going to go to the gym for an hour a day!” or “I’m going to run 30 minutes every day!” The problem is that the goal is too difficult to sustain for very long. You can do it for a few days, but you soon run out of energy, and it becomes hard to do it. So start becoming more active in your regular life: use the stairs instead of the elevator, walk or ride your bike instead of use your car...  At first you can start   doing some exercise twice or three times a week. Could be to take a walk (try to go fast) and sometimes try to jog for a while. But remember always will be better to do something than nothing.
• Don't start with too many goals. Often we set out to do too much. We want to run, and lift weights, and eat healthy, and quit sweets, and stop drinking soda (coke...). You should start with small steps and with one big goal at a time.
• Get enough motivation. It’s not a lack of discipline, it’s a lack of motivation. You should find your own motivation. One good way could be to make your goals public. Tell your friends and your family about your goals. 
• Write down which activity, when, at what time, for how many minutes and where are you going to do. Try to measure it. After you do the workout record what you have done: 30' walking-joggin or 3 sets of 10 abds, whatever you do.
• Be patient and persistent. You are starting a long race, a race which should last all your life. And be aware that you won't see the results very soon so as I told you be patient and persistent.

I adapted this text from the blog of Leo Babauta, zen habits