I think my odds of winning would be pretty good, too. Getting more exercise is one of the most common New Year’s resolutions, especially after the food-fueled holidays.
But there are more benefits to exercising than just losing weight. For example, exercise can be a crucial part of maintaining a healthy brain.
In fact, in her year-end wrap up of health and fitness news, New York Times columnist Gretchen Reynolds wrote: Certainly the most encouraging exercise research this year focused on the links between regular exercise and improvements in our thinking and the structure of our brains.
But if improving the structure of your brain isn’t enough, here’s another thing to consider.
Maintaining a healthy brain might actually help you keep making progress on some of your tougher New Year’s resolutions.
Kelly McGonigal, PhD explains why:
I was listening to NPR and a guest said, “If you want to improve the strength of your body, you exercise your body. If you want to improve the strength and health of your brain, you should exercise your brain.”
It turns out that you should flip that around: if you want to increase the health and strength of your brain, you should exercise your body.
There is probably more evidence for this than for almost any other recommendation that I make – the idea that physical exercise, particularly exercise that elevates the heart rate – cardio respiratory fitness – increases the density of the prefrontal cortex as well as the function of the prefrontal cortex.
It is not very clear why physical exercise seems to target the prefrontal cortex so much, but researchers think it has something to do with the fact that the prefrontal cortex uses more energy than other parts of the brain.
When you engage in physical exercise, it is teaching the brain and the body how to use energy more efficiently.
You see brain-derived neurotrophic factor, vascular endothelial growth factor, and all these sorts of other factors that help the brain figure out how to better use energy.
If you want to make your prefrontal cortex bigger and stronger, you really should prioritize physical health and physical activity.
So what’s so important about strengthening the prefrontal cortex along with your abs and thighs?
Well, Kelly is best known for her research on willpower. According to Kelly, the prefrontal cortex is where willpower – the ability to resist temptation and power through tough situations – comes from. That means that if you strengthen your prefrontal cortex, you’ll be better equipped to tackle more of your tough goals next year.
So, increased physical activity could be a self-sustaining New Year’s resolution. If exercise isn’t on your list of resolutions for 2016, maybe Kelly’s insights will convince you to kick off the New Year with a workout.
And, I’ll let you in on a secret – we’ll be sharing even more about willpower soon.
But first I want to hear from you. What have you learned that could help patients (or yourself) exercise greater willpower? Please share your comments below.
Have a safe and happy New Year!
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What’s up friends, how is the whole thing, and what you want to say on the topic of this post, in my view its really
remarkable designed for me.
As a long time runner I noticed that as long as I am in training life is easier to manage and I am not tempted by desserts. I am also more disciplined in other areas of my life. This article explains a scientific reason this is so.
For most of my patients and my self ( addicts) the will power has been contradictory than it seems, accepting I don t have any! So in surrender to the fact that the _ disease, drug, compulsion, etc) is stronger than my self, and sharing this powerlessness with others, give me the needed strengh to keep my self out of the behavior, always asking for help, and if I can do this long enough little by little that “urge”‘ disminish and that powerlessness start to become will power.
So it all start with the willingness to do something and the humility to ask for help. In this topic Ruth, about exercise, I found much more difficult to quit if I am doing it with somebody else!!!
i do 5 hours a week of living fit ,power walk and group yoga with marvelous teacher at least a week and boy does it feel good !
thank you
Active physical daily active with meditation and mindfulness are all essential parts of maintaining a healthy mind and a healthy body! Thanks for the tips! 🙂
I love just moving and I find that anything that crosses over makes me energised such as the cross crawl, the triangle yoga asna and walking with enthusiasm is great.
Generally after a workout, I never feel like i wished I hadn’t done that!
Dance!! put on music that prompts you foot to tap and get up and dance. Dance alone, dance with a partner, dance with children bounce up and down standing in line to the music playing at a store. It is hard to remain miserable when one can just dance. No training or special equipment needed.
In the article you state: “the idea that physical exercise, particularly exercise that elevates the heart rate – cardio respiratory fitness – increases the density of the prefrontal cortex as well as the function of the prefrontal cortex.” is important for brain health. So, its important to note that aerobic exercise or faster “hot” yoga for example should be part of the mix of activity which may include restorative, gentle yoga and or yin for example, each important for different reasons based on different intentions for health and well being.
It sounds like a balance of activity is important. Thanks for the thoughts.
Kelly is so on target. When I think back on how I made it through my toughest times, it was through exercise! It is a mood-changer charged with endorphins as well as feeding you *… brain-derived neurotrophic factor, vascular endothelial growth factor, and all these sorts of other factors that help the brain figure out how to better use energy. If you want to make your prefrontal cortex bigger and stronger, you really should prioritize physical health and physical activity.*
Just recently my body has changed, in that my muscle mass is not as firm and I’ve been wishing there was a smaller weight machine to work only legs at home…as free weighs serve me well for upper body strength and heart strength. Dance and light yoga are not enough. And running has become more physically challenging.
As a therapist who has also experienced clinical depression and is predisposed to SAD. I have learned that the sun and the activity of running has saved my life and promoted my mental and physical well being. As a runner of over 30 years, I plan to keep moving in whatever form my body allows as I mature. For an inspiring and well researched view on the benefits of physical activity and longevity, I would recommend a read of What Makes Olga Run by Bruce Grierson. Enjoy and may this new year offer each of health, happiness and peace and the resilience to carry on through the inevitable dark times that may arise. Jamie
Thank you for the wisdom, insights, and encouragement you offer and all have shared. As for helping people to start exercising in some way, we all know basics like it needs to be an activity the person enjoys, etc. But getting the conditions right isn’t enough. And knowing how important it is isn’t enough either, unfortunately. The one thing I’ve found to add that *can* help get over the hump of habit and unconscious resistance is to use visualization ahead of time. Visualizing in detail not just doing the activity, but moving into the activity at the specific time and place when I want to do it, and imaging having the sensation of happy anticipation for it. For example, I might want myself to go for a walk after work. So several times during the course of the work day I would take a moment to imagine in detail arriving home, unlocking the door (thinking, “I’m going to go for a walk!”), going inside, changing clothes, going out the door, and setting out, enjoying the feeling of walking. I have experienced that a detailed visualization of what will be happening before the start of the exercise, whatever is needed for preparation for the exercise, and starting the exercise itself, all with happy anticipation and pleasure, several times during the day or night before, is a way of having the decision be already made and there for a person, strong and clear, consistent throughout mind and body, at the time the person needs it.
WOW, FROM ONE VISUALIZER TO ANOTHER; WELL SAID AND MEANINGFULLY EXPRESSED!
Thank you, Ruth, for this article that inspires me to continue exercising daily throughout this New Year. I find yoga and a bit of weight training along with cardiovascular conditioning help me feel invigorated when I practice.
This makes so much sense in regards to my experience with my own Taekwondopractice. I have observed that my students as well as my other fellow Taekwondo practitioners in general have done well in school, despite busy schedules and other challenges.
It seems to me that the coordination with arms and legs moving harmoniously, really balances the brain and improves the brain, and the work with training towards belt tests required will-power. I think this is true for most martial arts and inner works like the chi kung, yoga, Nei gung and tai chi.
I Forgot to write I am responding from
Denmarj.
As a 78 year old yoga and meditation teacher, my passion is getting “people of a certain age” to move their bodies. In yoga I emphasize that balance work is not to prevent us from loosing our balance, but to educated our bodies to know what to do to prevent falling by making sure the response is in the muscle memory.
I have had people in their 90s START yoga. It is my reason for doing what I do and what makes me happy to have my feet hit the floor every morning.
I am delighted to be able to modify ANY yoga pose for ANY kind of body. My job is to fit the yoga to the student, not the student to the pose.
How lovely that the science regarding brain health is validating what we have suspected all along.
Lily
As a college track and life time senior running competitor/gym rat, I can concur with the will power issue. When not physically over taxed or over exercised, my self confidence is higher. When my self confidence is higher, my will power is is stronger. The prefrontal cortex, exercise, willpower and confidence, all seem to have a productive and usefu/productive dimension of contact with each other.
BTW, you published a beautiful, personally meaningful and original prayer last year! (Hope I still have a copy)
Robert Fortney
M.Div., M.Ed., NCC, LPC-S
Counseling Services of Lubbock
“Learn To Grow and Heal”
Dear Ruth & all who contribute so heart- & mind-fully, as always,
I appreciate this post. (Of course, if I have an hour… or half-hour or twenty minutes… available, I need to use it to exercise, rather than to read more about its benefits…same goes for meditation!)
And, will anyone join me in translating this knowledge into use, completing the mind-body loop: rather than “I hate exercising”,…going beyond with some workable form of “With this exercise, I joyously engage & enhance my organism in a fuller, more loving & able life”… Or whatever works (i.e., build in the exercise & meditation, & the results speak for themselves…especially if we listen?)
I’d love to know what people tried & how that worked for you, thanks.
Dear Ruth, I’d like to amend my reply & include an apology! I skipped a step. Sound psychotherapy technique & experience show: everything we do is actually based on love…the best of whatever was available to us at the time, however partial. It’s up to us to recognize that, feel, thank, & integrate it…from that more whole perspective=healing into more of a whole. So, now I feel & appreciate the energy of your passion when you say “I hate exercise”, imagining some other, perhaps stronger aspect (intellectual, emotional?) possibly feeling slighted or left out..not participating/included in or feeling a valued part of the whole. Yet now we (with your gracious permission) can speak to it, including, updating. Thanks for your wonderful service in providing these provocative, beneficial posts & quality forums. Happy New Year to all!
Hi Dr. Ruth,
Thank you for this great article! I have practiced holistic principles for the past seventeen years! With the inevitable daily stress of life beating at my door constantly… Body, Mind and Spiritual concepts (progress not perfection) is the Solution!
In Love & Service,
Lisa Koodray
FreeholdFamilyMassage.com
Yoga4Sobriety.com
As ever, we are now confirming what we have knows intuitively for a long time, and that is the mind-body connection and influence. This article, however, highlights the prefrontal cortex and I am interested in finding out more about how exercise impacts this.
Thanks for stimulating our grey cells with interesting information Ruth.
May you enjoy your best year yet.
Thank you for this wonderful article, Ruth – I’m extremely happy I read it & know it will help power me along in 2016.
I also greatly appreciated Sir Thomas Lucas’s very informative contribution in the comments section:
the fascinating parallels between sub-atomic theory and the mystical traditions of Eastern energy medicine. So much so that I started to explore and practice the short breathing, meditation and movement exercises of Chinese Chi-Kung.
– and will do a search on his priceless info.
Happy New Year to you Ruth & your team, as well as all those who follow the work of NICABM.
I was champion swimmer in high school and that seemed to give me High I.Q and ability to remember things in college. Over the years working to survive became priority instead of exercise so now I have trouble remembering who I sent Christmas cards to etc. I must get back to swimming etc this year.
I am wondering if prefrontal is where old information is stored, which interferes with new information getting into brain and running things instead. I sometimes do psych K with mantra in order to override the old conditioning in brain. I wonder if I need to do more to disconnect old stuff so I can remember new things.
Happy New Year, Dear Ruth and all at NICABM! “Long, long ago in a country far away …” I was working on the tech hardware for what ultimately became the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland where I became aware of the fascinating parallels between sub-atomic theory and the mystical traditions of Eastern energy medicine. So much so that I started to explore and practice the short breathing, meditation and movement exercises of Chinese Chi-Kung. That was five decades ago, but twelve years later, following a family tragedy, this new knowledge completely transformed my health and my entrepreneurial spirit. I therefore wholeheartedly urge anyone who is interested in managing their willpower via the link(s) between the mind and the body to ignore the skepticism of many doctors and medical researchers, and seriously investigate this “path less travelled” for themselves – and benefit!
Thank you for this post. I’m fascinated by the concept of parallels between sub-atomic theory and Eastern energy medicine. Can you suggest any reading that will allow me to explore this more? With thanks.
One book that should prove helpful to you is THE SCIENCE OF SELF REALIZATION By
A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami. AND self realization comes by practicing and practicing and
finally grace AND you will know yourself as a SPARK of THE SUPREME.
HhAPPY NEW YEAR to all the people near and far away. I have been studying oriental phylosophy and medicine and it has saved me in many ways. The underlying principle is that we are part of the universe, an exact microcosm of such. The whole human being has to be considered when we talk about healing.
Thank you, dear Ruth and all at NICABM for your great work.
The most important thing about developing will power is the scientific knowledge that what you are doing is going to be beneficial to your emotional,physical, cognitive and spiritual health.
For me, the benefits of exercise is one of the least controversial ideas within the medical filed of knowledge – there seems to be unanimity that exercise is beneficial.
I would be careful not to underrate the benefits of cognitive exercise, as well. I believe in exercising the brain by exposing myself to challenges around new knowledge, new movements and new experiences. I feel one needs to remain mentally curious and expose oneself to a range of novel experiences to maintain the fully functioning brain in your senior years!
Very true, Grace. Both are necessary and complementary… It may seem a bit nonsensical, counterintuitive and counterproductive to privilege one over the other. Body and mind work better and in harmony when trained together as they are meant to.
Wishing you all the most joyful, peaceful, harmonious and prosperous year ever.
Namaste! 🙂
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