Is your brain shrinking prematurely & needlessly?
If you are like most Americans, the answer is yes.
If you are like most Americans, the answer is yes.
It’s time to talk about the critical impact of exercise on the size of your brain. As many of you know, I broke my arm while taking my cockapoo for a morning jog—I was holding his leash as I rode my bicycle. So I spent the next month with my arm held snug to my body. And I spent a couple weeks mostly sleeping because healing bones requires so much energy.
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When I was able to take my arm out of the immobilizer, my shoulder was very stiff. So was my elbow. Furthermore, the muscles in my upper arm had atrophied or shriveled. This is exactly what we see when a person comes out of the cast.
But not only was my body affected, my brain was too. Because I was less active in the last month, my brain made fewer nerve growth factors. Our brains expect a big dose of nerve growth factor every day, and those hormones are critical to keeping our brains big and well connected. Sadly, most Americans are not giving their brains the daily dose of exercise that is needed to create and maintain those nerve growth factors for optimal brain health. For the next two months, I will work hard in physical therapy and at home to reclaim the strength and mobility of my arm. I am back to daily workouts again. Are you?
When I was able to take my arm out of the immobilizer, my shoulder was very stiff. So was my elbow. Furthermore, the muscles in my upper arm had atrophied or shriveled. This is exactly what we see when a person comes out of the cast.
But not only was my body affected, my brain was too. Because I was less active in the last month, my brain made fewer nerve growth factors. Our brains expect a big dose of nerve growth factor every day, and those hormones are critical to keeping our brains big and well connected. Sadly, most Americans are not giving their brains the daily dose of exercise that is needed to create and maintain those nerve growth factors for optimal brain health. For the next two months, I will work hard in physical therapy and at home to reclaim the strength and mobility of my arm. I am back to daily workouts again. Are you?
Most of us, whether or not we have multiple sclerosis, are doing dramatically less each day than our DNA expects us to. Our ancestors would have traveled 6 to 15 miles a day, walking, running, and carrying as they hunted and gathered their food. The activity would have been a mixture of short bursts of speed mixed with much longer periods of lower level activity. Because of jobs that leave us sitting most of the day, or a medical problem, we lose strength, our muscles slowly atrophy (shrink) and our joints become stiff. That lack of activity means that our brains do not get as many signals to create the hormones needed to keep our brains big and healthy. When we do less physical activity, not only do our muscles shrink, so do our brain and our spinal cord!
One of the most important things you can do to keep your brain bigger for longer is to keep moving your body. If you have multiple sclerosis or some other chronic autoimmune or serious health problem, ask for a referral to a physical therapist who can design a program for stretching and strengthening that will help you keep your body strong and flexible. Without some type of daily stretching and strengthening, you are at great risk for a steady decline in how far you can walk. If you are otherwise well, I encourage you to begin a program of daily stretching and moving your body. It will make all the difference in keeping your brain big!
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