We all know that our bodies need exercise and healthy food. But did you know your brain needs it, too?
Recently I had the chance to chat with neuroscience researcher, Mark Underwood. Mark is President and co-founder of Quincy Bioscience out of Wisconsin, where they study the brain and ways to improve memory and cognitive function.
We know our bodies need fuel. Did you know that your brain actually needs fuel, too? Mark says the brain uses about 20-30% of our daily calories, which is fascinating since the brain makes up only about a 2-3% of our body weight.
“Exercise is very important for the human brain to be functional, and if you truly satisfy the brain’s cravings you’ll actually find yourself in an opportunity to lose weight,” Mark tells me.
We know that our body uses sugar for energy. Well, our brain does, too. When the brain gets tired, it craves that energy source— sugar. Our instincts tells us to eat something that will give our brain what it needs, and that often has us grabbing sugary or fatty foods that will quickly feed that craving.
“What you need to do is provide your brain with a healthy source of sugar before it runs out, you’ll actually keep the brain from having the cravings,” Mark says. “So, by satisfying the brain’s actual ned sand strategizing on that, you’ll find your brain well-nourished, your diet much more balanced, and certainly better calories going into the body which ultimately is going to lead to a healthier body. If you can keep the right things in your body, the brain will send out a little more subtle messages that tell your body it needs to eat right.”
Mark tells me that by doing this, you can actually train your brain to crave healthier foods. When you have those sugar cravings, go for something sweet— like an apple or strawberries. These foods are not only a great source of sugar and nutritional content, but they also have fiber, which helps to regulate the delivery of that sugar into the blood stream.
“This is the exact opposite of sugar that’s found in soda, which is just like main-lining sugar,” says Mark. “It’s too much too fast and your brain and body can’t deal with it.”
Your body needs other nutrients beside sugar, but the more that you can do to keep your brain properly fueled, the better you’ll do to provide proper nutrition for your whole body. When you couple proper nutrition with regular exercise, your brain can actually— get this— GROW. That’s right. No more of that, “Can’t teach an old dog new tricks” nonsense.
When you exercise, you’re actually tearing down muscle, and the muscle fibers strengthen and grow as they heal, building more muscle mass. When your body is sending messages to your muscles to rebuild, it’s sending those same messages to your hippocampus in your brain. The hippocampus is where you access short-term memory. Marks says that if your hippocampus isn’t working properly, you might introduce yourself to friends as if you were just meeting them for the first time.
“Research shows that through exercise, you can actually measure in people that they’re hippocampus will start to grow. You didn’t technically exercise the brain while you were jogging. But the benefit of rebuilding yourself sends all those biological messages through the brain and encourages its repair as well. You brain is always sort of striking and always repairing itself. So, you want to stay ahead of the game, building it up more than you’re tearing it down,” Mark says. “Because your brain is going to get smaller with age, but exercise is rebuilding it, and will slow down that shrinkage.”
Research has shown a link between exercise and cognitive function, particularly in the prevention of age-onset Alzheimer’s. Focusing on your diet, and getting regular exercise, can go a long way toward repairing and even improving memory recall functions.
To find out more about Mark’s research, you can visit his website.
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