Posts Tagged ‘martial arts training in san diego’
Exercise Can Actually Make You Smarter
Monday, March 26th, 2012Your brain can shrink up to 15 percent as you get older, and this size decrease is associated with dementia, poor memory and other mental health issues like depression. But this shrinkage isn’t inevitable. People with “healthy” brains are less likely to experience this loss in brain size, even if they’re older. What’s one of the most important steps you can “take” to keep your brain healthy? Exercise!
Want to Get Smarter? Do This Often…
If you value your brainpower, you’ll want to make certain that exercise is a regular part of your life.
Staying active with a variety of activities is best, as each type of exercise may offer unique benefits for your brain health and may even help your brain to grow as you get older, rather than shrink.
For instance, a review of more than 100 studies, published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, revealed that both aerobic and resistance training are important for maintaining cognitive and brain health in old age.
The lead researcher, Michelle Voss, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Iowa, noted multiple benefits of each.
As reported in the Los Angeles Times:
“Aerobic exercise improves ability to coordinate multiple things, long-term planning and your ability to stay on task for extended periods. Resistance training, which is much less studied than the aerobic side of things, “improves your ability to focus amid distracters.”
… Voss explained that MRIs of people in their 60s showed increases in gray and white matter after just six months of exercise. This happens in the prefrontal and temporal lobes, sites that usually diminish with age. With exercise, Voss says, they grow.
Voss also explained that the hippocampus area of the brain, key for memory formation, shrinks 1% to 2% per year in those older than 60, but when people in this age group begin fitness regimens, it grows by 1% to 2% instead. Beyond growing one’s brain, exercise improves the ability of different parts of the brain to work together, Voss says.”
Do You Want to Avoid Alzheimer’s Disease?
According to one of the studies referenced above, moderate exercise can reverse normal brain shrinkage by 2 percent, effectively reversing age-related hippocampus degeneration by one to two years.2 Also according to the study, the people in the control group who didn’t exercise saw an average of 1.4 percent decrease in hippocampus size.
Now listen up … when these researchers say the hippocampus region of the brain increases in size as a response to exercise, they are talking about a powerful tool to fight the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. The hippocampus, which is considered the memory center of your brain, is the first region of your brain to suffer shrinkage and impairment at the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, leading to memory problems and disorientation.
According to the research team:
“We demonstrate that loss of hippocampal volume in late adulthood is not inevitable and can be reversed with moderate-intensity exercise.”
Other contributing factors to brain disease caused by the normal aging process may also include a decrease in blood flow to your brain, and the accumulation of environmental toxins in your brain. Exercise can help ameliorate both of these conditions by increasing blood flow to your brain, thereby increasing oxygen supply to your brain and encouraging a more vigorous release and removal of accumulated toxins through better blood circulation. Increased blood flow may also promote delivery of more of the nutrients necessary to keep your brain cells healthy in the first place.
This is Your Brain “on Exercise”
Exercise encourages your brain to work at optimum capacity by causing nerve cells to multiply, strengthening their interconnections and protecting them from damage. Animal tests have illustrated that during exercise their nerve cells release proteins known as neurotrophic factors. One in particular, called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), triggers numerous other chemicals that promote neural health, and has a direct benefit on brain functions, including learning. Further, exercise provides protective effects to your brain through:
- The production of nerve-protecting compounds
- Greater blood flow to your brain
- Improved development and survival of neurons
- Decreased risk of cardiovascular diseases
A 2010 study on primates published in the journal Neuroscience also revealed that regular exercise not only improved blood flow to the brain, but also helped the monkeys learn new tasks twice as quickly as non-exercising monkeys — a benefit the researchers believe would hold true for people as well.
Exercise Important for Kids’ Brains Too
Many people don’t think about their brain function until they start to lose it, i.e. when they begin to feel the hands of time start ticking away. But that is not to say that only those who are in their golden years can benefit. An extensive review of 14 studies, ranging in size from as few as 50 participants to as many as 12,000, demonstrated that the more physically active schoolchildren are, the better they do academically.
One test program not too far from our Chicago-area office at Naperville Central High School in Illinois illustrated this point in a powerful way two years ago. Students participated in a dynamic morning exercise program at the beginning of the day, and had access to exercise bikes and balls throughout the day in their classrooms. The results were astounding. Those who participated nearly doubled their reading scores, and their math scores increased 20-fold!
Research has also shown that after 30 minutes on the treadmill, students solve problems up to 10 percent more effectively. So it’s important that you encourage your child to stay active after school and on weekends in order to reap the wonderful brain-boosting benefits that exercise has to offer. Even better, be a positive role model and stay active together as a family.
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The Seven Laws of Leanness
Friday, March 9th, 2012Why do some people seem naturally thin—able to torch cheeseburgers instantly and never gain a pound? And why do some of us—okay, most of us—sweat and diet and sweat and diet some more, and never lose enough to get the body we want?
Because those “naturally thin” people actually live by a series of laws that keep them from ever gaining weight. And if you know their secrets, you can indulge and enjoy and never gain another pound as long as you live.
As the editor-in-chief of Men’s Health, I’ve spent the past two decades interviewing leading experts, poring over groundbreaking studies, and grilling top athletes, trainers, and celebrities for their health and fitness advice. And I’ve learned that what separates the fit from the fat, the slim from the sloppy, the toned from the torpid, is a set of rules. And what’s amazing is that none of them involves spending hours on a treadmill, eating nothing but grapefruit and tree bark, or having part of the small intestine replaced with fiberfill. Follow these simple rules and weight loss will be automatic.
LAW #1: Lean People Don’t Diet
What? Of course lean people diet! They’re just magically better at denying themselves than the rest of us are, right?
No. In reality, studies show that the number one predictor of future weight gain is being on a diet right now. Part of the reason is that restricting calories reduces strength, bone density, and muscle mass—and muscle is your body’s number-one calorie burner. So by dieting, you’re actually setting yourself up to gain more weight than ever. And a recent study in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine showed that tracking your diet in a food journal can actually boost your stress levels, which in turn increases your level of a hormone called cortisol, and cortisol is linked to—you guessed it—weight gain.
FAT-FIGHTING FIBER: Get 25 grams of fiber a day—the amount in about 3 servings of fruits and vegetables—and you can boost fat burn up to 30 percent.
LAW #2: Lean People Don’t Go Fat-Free
A European study tracked nearly 90,000 people for several years and discovered that participants who tried to eat “low fat” had the same risk of being overweight as those who ate whatever they wanted.
Fat doesn’t make you fat, period. Indeed, you need fat in your diet to help you process certain nutrients, like vitamins A, D, and E, for example. And many “fat-free” foods are loaded with sugar, and therefore have even more calories than their full-fat cousins. Even the American Heart Association says that fat-free labels lead to higher consumption of unhealthy sweets. Fat keeps you full and satisfied. Fat-free will send you running back to the fridge in an hour, hungry for more.
LAW #3: Lean People Sit Down to Eat
In fact, the more you sit down and enjoy your food, the leaner you’re going to be. Punishing yourself only makes you fat!
Greek researchers recently reported that eating more slowly and savoring your meal can boost levels of two hormones that make you feel fuller. And researchers at Cornell University found that when people sat down at the table with already full plates of food, they consumed up to 35 percent less than they did when eating family-style—that is, by passing serving dishes around the table.
LAW #4: Lean People Know What They’re Going to Eat Next
Planning your responses to hunger may help you shed pounds faster, say Dutch researchers. They posed their subjects questions like “If you’re hungry at 4 p.m., then . . . what?” Those who had an answer (“I’ll snack on some almonds”) were more successful at losing weight than those who didn’t have an answer.
LAW #5: Lean People Eat Protein
In a recent European study, people who ate moderately high levels of protein were twice as likely to lose weight and keep it off as those who didn’t eat much protein.
A New England Journal of Medicine study looked at a variety of eating plans and discovered that eating a diet high in protein and low in refined starches (like white bread) was the most effective for weight loss. Protein works on two levels: First, you burn more calories to digest it. Second, because your body has to work harder to digest a Big Mac than, say, a Ho Ho, you stay fuller longer.
LAW #6: Lean People Move Around
I don’t mean climbing Kilimanjaro, breaking the tape at the Boston Marathon, or spending 24 hours at 24 Hour Fitness. I mean going for a short bike ride (20 minutes burns 200 calories), taking a leisurely walk (145 calories every 51 minutes), wrestling with your kids (another 100 calories smoked in 22 minutes), or fishing (there’s 150 calories gone in an hour—even more if you actually catch something).
Simply put, fit people stay fit by having fun. Scientists have a name for how you burn calories just enjoying yourself. It’s called NEAT: non-exercise activity thermogenesis. Sounds complicated, like something only policy wonks at a global warming summit are qualified to discuss. But it’s pretty simple: Pick a few activities that you enjoy, from tossing a stick for your dog to bowling with your best friend, and just do them more often. The average person makes 200 decisions every day that affect his or her weight. If you choose the fun option more often than not, you’ll see results.
LAW #7: Lean People Watch Less TV
Instead of calling it the boob tube, maybe we should call it the man-boob tube. About 18 percent of people who watch less than two hours of TV a day have a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more—the cutoff line for obesity, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But of those who watch more than four hours of TV a day, nearly 30 percent have a BMI that high, according to a study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Look, I like TV. But all things in moderation: In a study at the University of Vermont, overweight participants who cut their daily TV time in half (from an average of 5 hours to 2.5 hours) burned an extra 119 calories a day. And a recent study of people who successfully lost weight found that 63 percent of them watched less than 10 hours of TV a week. Want more? A study in the journal Annals of Behavioral Medicine reported that lean people have an average of 2.6 television sets in their homes. Overweight people have an average of 3.4. Finally, researchers in Australia recently discovered that every hour in front of the television trims 22 minutes from your life. Yikes!
Breaking any of these seven laws occasionally is fine. Just don’t make a habit of it.
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Dragon Cup Championship 2012
Thursday, February 16th, 2012
Kids Get Smarter from Doing This One Thing
Monday, January 30th, 2012According to a recent systematic review of literature by the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, participation in physical activity is positively related to academic performance in children. The researchers used 14 different studies which included children ranging in numbers from as little as 50 to as many as 12000.
According to the authors:
“Physical activity and sports are generally promoted for their positive effect on children’s physical health; regular participation in physical activity in childhood is associated with a decreased cardiovascular risk in youth and adulthood. There is also a growing body of literature suggesting that physical activity has beneficial effects on several mental health outcomes, including health-related quality of life and better mood states.
In addition… there is a strong belief that regular participation in physical activity is linked to enhancement of brain function and cognition, thereby positively influencing academic performance.
There are several hypothesized mechanisms for why exercise is beneficial for cognition, including:
- Increased blood and oxygen flow to the brain
- Increased levels of norepinephrine and endorphins resulting in a reduction of stress and an improvement of mood
- Increased growth factors that help to create new nerve cells and support synaptic plasticity
The increasing pressures to improve academic scores often lead to additional instructional time for subjects such as mathematics and language at the cost of time for being physically active. Given the suggested relationship and the ongoing discussions on the replacement of physical education lessons by academic subjects, we aimed to review the evidence on the longitudinal relationship between these two variables…
To summarize, the literature provides inconclusive evidence on the positive longitudinal relationship between physical activity and academic performance. However, there is a strong general belief that this relationship is present, and research in this area is ongoing.”
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The Simple Habit That College Grads Do to Improve Their Health
Monday, October 10th, 2011The CDC’s Summary Health Statistics, 2009 is out, and it comes with some intriguing figures on the overall picture of who’s healthy — and who’s not — among adults in the United States. When it comes to how education figures in to health, it turns out that the more educated you are, the healthier you may be.
The survey, which includes data from over 27,700 U.S. adults, found that people with a college education were more physically active, and were less likely to have heart disease, hypertension, diabetes and other chronic health problems such as back pain, kidney and liver disease or migraine headaches.
The two are undoubtedly linked, as exercise is directly related to a lowered risk of many of the chronic conditions on that list. It certainly does not take a college education to exercise, or realize that you should, so no matter how much schooling you have this is one simple health habit to take note of.
by Dr. Mercola
Read the original post here.
