How Exercise Protects Your Brain’s Health

What you might not realize is that with every step you take, every mile you pedal or every lap you swim, you’re enhancing your cognitive fitness. Yes. That’s right. Moving your body can help your brain work better.

The science of exercise and brain health

In a recent study, 454 older adults underwent yearly physical exams and cognitive tests for 20 years and agreed to donate their brains for research when they died. The participants were given accelerometers, which tracked their movement and physical activity around the clock.

Those who moved more scored better on memory and thinking tests. And increases in physical activity were associated with a 31% lower risk of dementia, the researchers reported. The association between physical activity and brain function remained consistent even after the study’s authors accounted for the participants’ brain pathology and whether or not they had dementia.

In another study, 160 sedentary older people with mild cognitive impairment were assigned to take part in several options. They could do aerobic exercise (three times a week for 45 minutes per session), eat a heart-healthy Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet, combine aerobic exercise with the DASH diet or receive health education.

During the six-month study, those who followed the DASH diet alone didn’t improve on assessments of executive function (which is responsible for tasks like planning, problem-solving and multitasking). And the health-education group’s brain function worsened, according to the study.

Those who exercised showed improvements in thinking and memory, and those who combined exercise and the DASH diet improved even more, the researchers reported.

How your brain benefits from exercise

Exercise may provide physical benefits to your brain itself, too. Exercising can increase the thickness of your cerebral cortex and improve the integrity of your white matter (the nerve fibers that connect areas of the brain’s nerve-cell-rich gray matter). Exercise also promotes neuroplasticity, which is your brain’s ability to form new neural connections — in other words, your ability to learn throughout your life.

One of the key places these changes take place is in the hippocampus, which is a very important area of the brain for memory. In studies of the brain, they find that people who get recommended amounts of exercise see some improvement in their hippocampus, which helps improve learning and memory.

How much exercise do you need for your brain health?

Aerobic exercises are the ones to focus on here. That’s activities like running, jogging, biking, swimming or even dancing. Exercises that get your heart rate up are the best for your brain.

For most people, the goal of physical exercise should be to engage in vigorous physical activity three days per week for 15 minutes. Or, if high-intensity workouts don’t work for you because of health concerns or other reasons, you can aim for 30 minutes of moderate activity five days per week to get similar brain-boosting effects.

Every little bit of extra activity you can get can be beneficial. In one recent study, researchers concluded that even among people who didn’t meet the activity guidelines, each hour of light-intensity physical activity and achieving 7,500 steps or more daily was associated with higher total brain volume. This was “equivalent to approximately 1.4 to 2.2 years less brain aging.

Talk with a healthcare provider if you need some tips to get started on an exercise program that will most benefit your body and brain.