For some people, the prospect of getting older can be scary. You might hear worrisome stories about the decline of physical and mental health, and then find yourself wondering if you have no choice but to accept that fate as well. 

With all the anxieties of aging in mind, what you shouldn’t forget is you are responsible for how your body handles growing older. You can set yourself up for success by taking important steps towards a healthy lifestyle. Exercising plays a key role in brain health as you age. 

The Relationship Between Exercise and the Brain

A Gateway to Good Health

There are a ton of different suggestions out there that claim to promote a healthy lifestyle, and while some of these claims must hold merit, the importance of sustaining your brain health through exercise is one of the most crucial steps you can take. In order to promote brain health as you age, an active lifestyle should be implemented into your routine. This will do wonders to keep the brain fully functional in everyday life. 

Optimal brain function requires an increase in blood flow, which exercise induces, and that helps nutrients get delivered to the brain. Without these vital nutrients, the brain would not be able to fully carry out all of its necessary jobs on a daily basis, causing brain functionality to decrease and the chance of cognitive decline to grow. Putting in the effort to exercise regularly is the best step to take to diminish the possibility of this happening. 

Exercises to Promote Healthy Brains

• Aerobic activities (walking, swimming, biking)
• Balance training
• Dance cardio 
• Jumping jacks
• Circuit workouts 

Maintaining Memory 

A Concern of Dementia

Exercise is directly linked to thinking skills and the production of growth factors in the body. The amount of new blood vessels that can form in the brain is dependent on the stimulation received from physical activity, so more exercise means a healthier brain. Even the sections of the brain that have to do with thinking and memory retention grow bigger in the brains of people who have more active lifestyles, displaying a noticeable difference from someone who doesn’t incorporate exercise into their schedule.  

As we age, our bodies tend to slow down and health issues are more likely to occur. The brain is a particular worrisome area to develop problems with since executive function and memory are affected. The likelihood of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease increase in aging brains, and the physical condition of the organ often determines the intensity of them. Though they may be terrifying to think about, there are steps that can be taken to prevent or slow down the development of these health concerns.     

The earlier you incorporate exercise into your regular schedule, the better, but that should not discourage older individuals to put off working out on the belief that it is too late for them to start. There is evidence that neuron growth in the hippocampus can exceed the amount that is typically produced, which can even revert some changes developed through aging in older people. The only way to facilitate these advantageous changes is to increase blood flow through exercise, implementing it into a routine that will promote good health.

Beyond Exercise

Mental Health 

A healthy brain offers a lot of benefits to the overall functionality of an individual, and the effort you put in to achieve it can be a positive influence on the state of your mental health as well. Certain conditions, such as depression and anxiety, can prevent brains from functioning properly and cause harm to daily life. This will further impact the health of the brain as symptoms continue over time, reducing your ability to sufficiently look after yourself, which can follow you into late adulthood. 

Aerobic exercises, while being crucial to maintaining brain health over time, also reduce the severity of anxiety and depression. The increase in blood circulation caused by exercise is a direct influence on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, which determines how your body reacts to stress. The communication between the HPA axis, limbic system, hippocampus, and amygdala all play a part in how your brain handles stress, and if any of those areas are out of line, then it can be an issue for mental health. 

There are even more ways to improve mental health that go beyond exercise. Social interaction and productiveness are both highly contributing factors of good mental health. Allowing yourself to engage with other people makes you less lonely and more sociable, aiding in interpersonal relationship development. If you are experiencing a low point in your mental health and can’t seem to find the motivation for physical activities, try engaging with friends and loved ones to improve your disposition and put you back into a good state of mind.  

An easy step that you can take to sustain good mental health is getting enough sleep. It may sound too good to be true, but since sleep contributes heavily to your mood, it makes sense that a lack of it can result in negative thoughts and decreased productivity. If you already struggle with problems pertaining to your mental health, then an insufficient amount of sleep will only be more detrimental to your mood. You will also lack energy if you do not get enough rest, making the effort required by exercise nearly impossible due to physical exhaustion.    

Having the imperative to start and finish a task also helps boost your mood, as that act shows that you have the capability to be self-fulfilling, even if you do not typically feel that way. It is important to do activities that make you feel good so that you can feel content with how things are, warding off the challenges invoked by depression and anxiety.  

Benefits of Routines

Integrating exercise into a daily routine is one of the best things that you can do for yourself, but there are even more benefits to activities done on a regular basis than those that require you to work out. Routines promote wellness through a defined structure, providing the organization that is critical for upholding a healthy, fulfilling lifestyle. 

The positive effects routines have on mental health are also indisputable. If you’re looking for a simple way to improve your mental health, then start designing easy-to-follow routines! Having a routine that you can follow throughout the day will guide you to efficient behavior, which will lessen the severity of the work that needs to be completed. Once you get into the habit of routines, completing daily assignments becomes a straightforward operation and less of a puzzle that needs to be pieced together.  

Without the use of routines, people can become disorganized and overwhelmed by the amount of stress inducing factors that appear in their lives. Tasks may seem impossible to complete and you will spend a lot of time playing catchup, yet never seeming to be able to get back on track. Properly utilizing routines help you break out of that cycle and make effective use of your time. 

It is difficult to implement workouts without having some sort of schedule developed beforehand, so relying entirely on the existence of exercise as a solution for a decline in personal well being might be too ignorant of an approach. If you want to improve your cognitive health, you must put in the effort to sustain your quality of life in general, and achieving that requires care from multiple facets. To make the most out of being physically active, you should successfully integrate it into a regular pastime so that it becomes natural and does not feel like an obstacle that needs to be overcome. 

Routines can eventually become fun, even if they seem daunting at first. Having established routines will increase your quality of life, enabling you to function optimally, get more sleep, and have enough energy to carry you throughout the day.      

Conclusion

There are many factors that contribute to the health of your brain and, as you age, it is vital that exercise be incorporated into your schedule in order to best promote its longevity. Exercise is directly beneficial to brain health since it offers stimulation that increases blood flow and induces the growth of blood vessels inside of the brain. 

Alongside exercise, you should be hard at work with taking care of your mental health and establishing routines that are beneficial to your daily life. Both of these factors contribute to your ability to work out and will have lingering effects as you age.

Exercise as a regular part of daily life is a great course of action if you are concerned about the future state of your cognitive abilities, but even if you put off routine workouts while you are young, you can still take crucial steps to reduce the impacts of age on your brain when you are older. All that matters is that you start somewhere!