TO KEEP YOUR MIND SHARP - DO PHYSICAL EXERCISE

This article looks at why physical exercise, and not mental games, might be the best way to keep your mind sharp.

- The brain training industry is getting quite huge these days with the idea being that you can improve your memory, attention and powers of reasoning through the right mental exercises

- Software companies are forever releasing different games to increase cognitive abilities and brain training programs but 1 study showed that there's no evidence to support the widely held belief that the regular use of computerised brain training improves general cognitive functioning in healthy participants

- Children that exercise regularly displayed substantial improvements in executive function, were better at attentional inhibition (the ability to block our irrelevant information to concentrate at the task at hand), have heightened abilities to toggle between cognitive tasks

- Above all, the children who had attended the most exercise sessions showed the greatest improvements in their cognitive scores

- These benefits also seem to benefit adults too

1 study focusing on adults already experiencing a mild degree cognitive impairment found that resistance and aerobic training improved their spatial memory and verbal memory

- Another study found that weight training can decrease brain shrinkage, a process that occurs naturally with age.

- Exercise triggers the production of a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF, which helps support the growth of existing brain cells and the development of new one's

- With age, BDNF levels fall and this decline is 1 reason why brain function deteriorates in the elderly

- Certain types of exercise, namely aerobic, are thought to counteract these age-related drops in BDNF and can restore young levels of BDNF in an aged brain

- Another study showed that, although far from conclusive, that small dosages of exercise could lead to cognitive improvements such as a 20 - 25min brisk walk several times per week, an exercise dosage achievable by all of us.