By It can be as simple as a small, enjoyable daily act
When it comes to keeping fit and healthy, social media can set the bar high enough to overwhelm. I stopped looking through Instagram because I always felt that I wasn’t doing enough exercise or eating up to the standards needed to achieve my goals. By all means, we can all do a little bit extra to increase our capacity in small ways, but do we need all these complicated and wildly unrealistic expectations splattered on social media daily?Maintaining your health isn’t that complex — I promise you. You can make it very simple and fit it into your daily life — or you can be a weekend warrior and take on a large volume of training, combining it with the necessary nutritional requirements to work towards a competition or event. All of this is fantastic — whatever lights your innermost fire of passion. But let me break it down; science has told us it doesn’t have to be “a lot of exercises” or “complicated food combinations.” Studies show that exercise protects brain health and cells. Géraldine Poisnel, PhD who conducted this study involving 134 people with an average age of 69, wanted to see just how effective exercise was for different activity levels. These individuals filled out a survey and by no means had any memory problems. It’s not surprising that the total volume of grey matter in those active people’s brains was higher than in inactive ones. The higher activity also measured heightened glucose metabolism in the brain compared to the least active ones. The number of Amyloid plaque people had in their brains (the marker of Alzheimer’s disease) was not associated with physical activity. “These results may help us understand how physical activity affects brain health, which may help us develop strategies to prevent or delay age-related declines in memory and thinking skills.” Said Author Géraldine Poisnel, PhD.
Key take away
This study shows that older adults who are more physically active gain cardiovascular benefits, which positively impact the structure of brain integrity. Without a doubt, controlling your body mass index by consuming whole foods and exercising is key to protecting our brain health and helping prevent disturbances with insulin management. Unfortunately, this is often seen in older individuals who are inactive. All of this impacts the health of our brain in many ways. Although you may not be within this age group, the learnings from this are very clear. Maintaining a fit, healthy and strong body will help you combat age-related diseases down the track. It pays to do the work when you are young so that as an older and vulnerable person, you have the best possible chance to stay healthy and happy! For more insights on this piece, please find the paper here.
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