How To Keep Your Brain Healthy
The goal of brain fitness is to revive certain mental abilities before they slow down. In LePoncin's own words, "Our team does not claim to work miracles. We simply develop the previously unknown fertility of land that had been lying fallow." The exercises are simple and fun to do. And, by repeating the exercises over several weeks time, real progress can be seen in a relatively short time.
By increasing blood flow to your brain, you are giving it a vital shot of oxygen. To the "remember tip-top cognition is not too useful if you can't get out of bed or your chair and enjoy the world. Likewise, tip-top physical fitness is useless if you can't remember why you want to get up out of that chair!"
Exercise may improve Brain Fitness by helping the brain cope better with stress, according to research into the effect of exercise on neurochemicals involved in the body's stress response. Norepinephrine is particularly interesting to researchers because 50 percent of the brain's supply is produced in the locus coeruleus, a brain area that connects most of the brain regions involved in emotional and stress responses. The chemical is thought to play a major role in modulating the action of other, more prevalent neurotransmitters that play a direct role in the stress response. And although researchers are unsure of exactly how most antidepressants work, they know that some increase brain concentrations of norepinephrine.
We are not stuck with a static brain, nor are we necessarily stuck with a deteriorating brain. Neuroscientists have discovered within the past twenty years that an adult brain can regenerate brain cells.
The new research says that almost seventy percent of brain ageing is controllable, through mental and physical exercise, along with diet. Physical exercise can encourage a healthy brain to function optimally in ways that are not widely known or their value appreciated. For example, exercise can help the brain by promoting the production of new neurons (brain cells) and strengthening the connections between neurons. Some of those programs have real science that, at best, shows how some specific cognitive skills (like memory, or attention) can be trained and improved-no matter the age. This is a very important message that hasn't yet percolated through many brains out there: we know today that computer-based software programs can be very useful to train some cognitive skills, better than alternative methods.
By increasing blood flow to your brain, you are giving it a vital shot of oxygen. To the "remember tip-top cognition is not too useful if you can't get out of bed or your chair and enjoy the world. Likewise, tip-top physical fitness is useless if you can't remember why you want to get up out of that chair!"
Exercise may improve Brain Fitness by helping the brain cope better with stress, according to research into the effect of exercise on neurochemicals involved in the body's stress response. Norepinephrine is particularly interesting to researchers because 50 percent of the brain's supply is produced in the locus coeruleus, a brain area that connects most of the brain regions involved in emotional and stress responses. The chemical is thought to play a major role in modulating the action of other, more prevalent neurotransmitters that play a direct role in the stress response. And although researchers are unsure of exactly how most antidepressants work, they know that some increase brain concentrations of norepinephrine.
We are not stuck with a static brain, nor are we necessarily stuck with a deteriorating brain. Neuroscientists have discovered within the past twenty years that an adult brain can regenerate brain cells.
The new research says that almost seventy percent of brain ageing is controllable, through mental and physical exercise, along with diet. Physical exercise can encourage a healthy brain to function optimally in ways that are not widely known or their value appreciated. For example, exercise can help the brain by promoting the production of new neurons (brain cells) and strengthening the connections between neurons. Some of those programs have real science that, at best, shows how some specific cognitive skills (like memory, or attention) can be trained and improved-no matter the age. This is a very important message that hasn't yet percolated through many brains out there: we know today that computer-based software programs can be very useful to train some cognitive skills, better than alternative methods.
