Brain changing benefits of exercise

 

   What if I told you there was something that you can do rightnow that would have an immediate,positive benefit for your brain

including your mood and your focus.

And what if I told you that same thing could actually last a long time and protect your brain from different conditions like depression, Alzheimer's disease or dementia. Would you do it?

Yes ; I am talking about the powerful effects of physical activity.Simply moving your body has immediate, long-lasting and protective benefits for your brain And that can last for the rest of your life. So what I want to do is tell you a story about how I used my deep understanding of neuroscience to essentially do an experiment on myself in which I discovered the science underlyinh that is the thing in our head right now, lets consider a real  human brain. And it's going to illustrate two key areas that we are going to talk about today.The first is the prefrontal cortex, right behind your forehead critical for things like decision-making, focus, attention and your personality.The second key area is located in the temporal lobe, shown right here. You have two temporal lobes in your brain, the right and the left and deep in the temporal lobe is a key structure critical for your ability to form and retain new long-term memories for facts and events. And that structure is called the hippocampus. So I've always been fascinated with the hippocampus. How could it be that an event that lasts just a moment say your first kiss, or the moment your first child was born, can form a memory that has changed your brain,that lasts an entire lifetime?
That's what I want to understand. I wanted to start and record the activity of individual brain cells in the hippocampus as subjects were forming new memories. And essentially try and decode how those brief bursts of electrical activity, which is how neurons communicate with each other how those brief bursts either allowed us to form a new memory, or did not But a few years ago, I did something very unusual in science. As a full professor of neural science,I decided to completely switch my research program Because I encountered something that was so amazing with the potential to change so many lives
that I had to study it. I discovered and I experienced the brain-changing effects of exercise.
And I did it in a completely inadvertent way. I was actually at the height of all the memory work that I was doing , data was pouring in , I was becoming known in my field for all of this memory work.And it should have been going great. It was, scientifically. But when I stuck my head out of my lab door,I noticed something. I had no social life.I spent too much time listening to those brain cells in a dark room, by myself.I didn't move my body at all.
I had gained 25 pounds.And actually, it took me many years to realize it,

I was actually miserable. And I shouldn't be miserable ,And I went on a river-rafting trip -- by myself, because I had no social life.And I came back thinking, "Oh, my God, I was the weakest person on that trip And I came back with a mission.

I said, "I'm never going to feel like this .