Chris and I just got back from a Health and Fitness conference in Denver and one of the sessions was on Neuroplasticity. I know it’s a big word but it comes with a really important message so I thought I’d take a few minutes to share what we learned.
Basically Neuroplastcity is our brain’s ability to change. Although the effort required to change our brain increases as we age, the old adage “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” is actually not true. We can change our brain at any age. This is super important to as we review the literature that reports an increase in dementia. In fact, a recent study shows that the risk of developing dementia at any time after the age of 55 among Americans is 42 percent, more than double the risk reported by older studies. That dementia risk translates into an estimated 450,000 cases this year, rising to a million cases a year by 2060. Although some of this increase can be attributed to Americans living longer, beyond that the increasing numbers have been linked to high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, unhealthy diets, lack of exercise and simply not using our brains.
Ok, so I know, not fun statistics and totally a downer, BUT here comes the good stuff. You see the more we can build up what is referred to Cognitive Reserve the better. Think of it as how much gas do you have in your car? If you’re going on a long trip and have a lot of gas in your gas tank, you are going to be much less likely to run out of gas than if your tank was half full starting out on your trip. We can build our Cognitive Reserve in many ways…
1) Learning something new…like a new language, an instrument or just doing wordle
2) Social Support…spending time with our friends, family or our BL community
3) Reading a stimulating novel
4) Education…the more we learn the more connections in our brains are formed, and of course,
5) Exercise
So we all probably already know that Exercise, in and of itself, is good for our brains. There are only a couple parts of our brains that have the ability to change and one of those is our hippocampus, our memory center. The more we exercise, the more oxygen to this memory center of our brain. Those of you who are nerdy about this stuff and like the details might be even interested to know that when we exercise we actually create more blood vessels (for my fellow nerds this is called angiogenesis): More blood vessels capable carrying more oxygen to our brains to increase that cognitive reserve. Studies show that up to 2 hours after exercising we see an increase in cognitive function. We are sharper and our moods are better.
But wait there’s more. Most of you who are reading this right now, as members of BL, already exercise. So it might sound like I’m preaching to the choir. But here’s the punch line…when exercise (a physical demand) is combined with thinking (a cognitive demand) there is a much stronger impact on improving our cognition (brain health) than exercise alone. They refer to it as Dual Tasking. For example, marching in place (physical demand) while counting backwards from 100 (cognitive demand). The idea is to move beyond just moving - to moving with thought…using our brain while moving. So while walking on a treadmill will increase oxygen to our brain, dancing in one of our Zumba or Turn up dance classes has a much stronger effect on increasing that cognitive reserve (filling that memory gas tank). They call dancing Choreographical Demand. You can find it in our Walk About classes too as patterns are created that you learn and follow. The more our brains are challenged while exercising the more of a positive impact that activity will have on our brain.
I have often been heard saying, “there’s always a reason to dance.” Well here’s another one!!!
Hope to see you in class!!
