Move Your Body, Feed Your Brain

Oct 7

3 min read

Two ladies happy and having fun whilst dancing

You probably (I hope!) know how important exercise is in keeping your body healthy; from strengthening muscles, to supporting cardiovascular health to boosting your immune system.

What many don’t realise however, is how important exercise is for your brain.

A wonderful illustration of this is the sea squirt, or tunicate. An extraordinary tadpole-like creature that begins life swimming around happily with its primitive brain, nerve cord, “eye” and a tail. It needs this little nervous system to navigate its environment and find somewhere suitable to settle. However, once it finds its forever home, the sea squirt attaches itself permanently to a surface and becomes a stationary filter feeder. As it no longer needs to swim around (i.e. move) it no longer needs its brain. So, it digests and reabsorbs the brain, tail and much of its nervous system.

Of course, we know that humans are a bit more complicated than a sea squirt. But we do need to move to keep our brains healthy.

Your brain is designed to move; when we exercise a protein known as brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is produced. BDNF plays an important role in the growth and survival of neurons and synaptic plasticity. In other words, it helps the brain grow, adapt, learn and has been lovingly referred to as “Miracle-Gro for the brain”.

When I lectured psychology, I loved sharing the Naperville School “Zero-hour PE” programme, to illustrate to students the importance of exercise, BDNF and learning. The programme was an intervention in an ordinary school in Illinois, USA. Students took part in vigorous aerobic exercise before academical classes started (like maths or science). Whilst they exercised, their heart rates were monitored to make sure they were exercising at a high intensity level.

After running the programme for eight years the school went from being nothing extraordinary, to ranking number one in the international TIMSS test in mathematics and science. A major achievement! This meant that students’ academic performance had vastly improved. Furthermore, disciplinary incidents fell by 67%. Exercise led to improved attention, learning and behaviour among students.

When my daughter was at primary school, there was an initiative called the Golden Mile. This involved encouraging the children to run a mile at a prescribed time in the school day.

Knowing about the Naperville study, I thought this was great, until I realised that some schools scheduled it at the end of the school day, just before home time. And children were allowed to walk it. It seemed the key learning was missing - the whole point of the exercise was to raise their heart rates, get the brain to release BDNF and improve learning. Aaargh!

For any students who might be reading this article: whenever you find yourself battling to concentrate or struggling with a challenging assignment - go for a quick run! Do some squats, push-ups, anything that involves movement! Wake up your brain with some exercise and then try the homework again.

You might be thinking that if exercise has a positive influence on attention and memory then surely it helps people with ADHD? Yes, the research says it does. Short term effects of rigorous movement show it can help regulate attention and manage emotional regulation, making it a valuable tool to help manage the ADHD brain.

Furthermore, research has found that regular physical activity can support mental health, improving outcomes for moderate depression and anxiety. For older adults there are associations between physical activity and better cognitive functioning, including areas such as executive function, memory and processing speed. Regular physical activity is a protective factor against dementia. Exercise can support mood, stress regulation, sleep, executive functioning, attention and overall brain health. Do you need any more convincing?

We need to move. We live increasingly sedentary lives. Many of us spend hours sitting at desks, sitting in cars, sitting in front of screens and then wondering why we feel sluggish, stressed and mentally exhausted. Our brains did not go through all of that evolution to end up being stationary!

Our brains evolved in bodies that moved and need to move. Imagine how much more your brain is capable of if you give it the miracle grow it needs to thrive. So put this article down. Get up. Move your body. And grow your brain.

Lauren Richards GMBPsS, MSc, EMCC, HGDipl, Cert Ed., BSocSc

Specialist AuDHD and Positive Psychology Coach

www.larkcoaching.co.uk

larkcoaching@gmail.com