How Exercise Can Improve Your Focus

Having a hard time paying attention or even remembering what you wanted to pay attention too in the first place?

Get some exercise

When it comes to our brain’s ability to focus on what matters aerobic exercise is one best ways to improve our attention.

Exercise turns “on” neurogenesis.

Neurogenesis is the making of new brain cells or neurons. Not that long ago it was thought that adults could not make new brain cells. Now we know that exercise produces new neurons.

What does exercise do for our brain?

People who exercise have larger brain volume in the parts of the brain that control thinking and memory. The prefrontal cortex and medial temporal cortex can increase in volume in 6 months. All it takes is regular moderate exercise according to research from Dr. Scott McGinnis, a neurologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an instructor in neurology at Harvard Medical School.

Studies at the University of British Columbia show that regular aerobic exercise improves the size of our hippocampus. The hippocampus is the part of our brain responsible for verbal memory and learning. All it takes is two aerobic training sessions per week, even in older adults.

Dr. Liu-Ambrose, Director of the Aging, Mobility, and Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at the UBC says,

“Regular physical activity is very important not just for physical function but ultimately for brain health, including for brain structure and cognitive performance,”

Centre For Brain Health

Like our heart and lungs, our brains receive more oxygen when we exercise. This improves the growth of new blood vessels in our brains allowing for improved blood flow. Research shows that the increased blood and oxygen flowing to our brains improves the function of our prefrontal cortex, the CEO of the brain. The prefrontal cortex is responsible for reasoning and decision making.

What about strength training?

Strength training is good for our muscles, but it also trains our nervous system, including our brains.

When we start a resistance training program the first few weeks at the gym trains our nervous system even before we see improvements in muscle strength.

Your brain signals movement down your spinal cord through two neural highways. The corticospinal tract (CST) and reticulospinal tract (RST). The RST controls posture and is strengthened through resistance training.

A muscle contracts after receiving an electrical signal from the motor cortex in the brain. When the signal travels down the spinal tract it will jump to motor neurons that cause the muscle to fire. This happens regardless of how heavy the weight or how many reps you perform.

However starting with a lighter weight, and more repetitions will initially have greater benefits for your nervous system. After a few months of training to get all the benefits you may want to start lifting heavier weights. Even if you don’t gain muscle mass you gain in efficiency.

Training with higher weight, versus more repetitions, will cause more force production with fewer motor units activated.

Meaning you can do more work with less effort!

Training with heavier weights produces greater strength benefits and neural adaptations. This happens even if you don’t notice an increase in muscle size.

It is a two way street

Not only does exercise improve the health of your brain and your nervous system, but your muscles send signals back to your brain. Especially the muscles of your legs. Exercising your legs sends signals to your brain which is critical for producing new neurons.

Dr. Raffaella Adami from the Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy says,

“It is no accident that we are meant to be active: to walk, run, crouch to sit, and use our leg muscles to lift things. Neurological health is not a one-way street with the brain telling the muscles ‘lift,’ ‘walk,’ and so on.”

Science Daily

Dr. Adami’s research shows that when we are inactive due to sickness, injury, or inactivity our production of neural stem cells is reduced by 70%.

The less we exercise the fewer new nerve cells we produce. Making it more difficult to adapt to challenges and handle stress.

Mental and physical fitness are intricately linked, what we do to our bodies we do to our brains. The changes in our brains are influenced more by lifestyle than by ageing. You can keep your brain healthy like your body.

Staying active keeps our brain in good health allowing for better attention, memory, learning, decision making and reasoning.

Change your mind, change your health,

Shayla