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Exercise Health Article

Videos (6)

	Mental Gymnastics: How Does Stress Hurt Your Athletic Performance? play video read transcript
	Positioning Yourself for Perfect Form play video read transcript
	Exercise for Bone Health play video read transcript
	Workstation Gluteus & Thigh Exercises play video read transcript
	Strengthening the Lower Trapezius Muscle: Thera-Band Exercise & Chair Push Ups play video read transcript
	Staying Young: The Role of Physical Activity in Aging play video read transcript

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Definition

Exercise is physical activity that is undertaken in order to improve one's health. Physicians, physical therapists, and researchers have found that exercise plays an important role in the maintenance of brain, nerve, and muscle function in the human body. New research suggests that exercise may delay mental deterioration with age and disease, and perhaps even promote neurogenesis (nerve cell growth).

Description

Health care professionals recommend regular exercise because it increases energy, contributes to overall health, improves sleep, increases life expectancy, and enhances lifestyle. In terms of specific medical disorders, exercise has been shown to prevent or delay the onset of coronary artery disease, bone loss and osteoporosis, some types of cancer, and stroke.

Generally, exercise is categorized into the following four types:

Aerobic exercise focuses on strengthening the heart, lungs, and circulatory system. Its major goal is to increase the heart rate and breathing rate. Examples of aerobic exercise include jogging, bicycling, swimming, and racket sports.
Strength training focuses on strengthening muscles and joints. It also improves balance and increases metabolism. Weightlifting is the most common form of strength training.
Balance exercises are used to improve stability. They stimulate the vestibular system, which includes muscles, joints, sensory organs, the inner ear, and the brain.
Stretching exercises improve flexibility, which helps prevent injury during other forms of exercises and may decrease chronic pain. Stretching exercises include yoga, tai chi, and basic stretches.

All four types of exercises have been found to be important to maintaining brain, nerve, and muscle health.

Exercise and the brain

Exercise is particularly beneficial to the health of the brain. It has long been known that exercise causes the endocrine system to release serotonin and dopamine, hormones in the brain that produce feelings of euphoria and peacefulness. These hormones often allow people who exercise to think more clearly and perform mental tasks more easily. Exercise has also been successfully used as a treatment for depression, used in lieu of prescription antidepressants.

A 2003 study on mice suggests that new brain cells can grow as a result of exercise. This neurogenesis, previously thought not to occur in adult mammals, is concentrated in the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for learning and spatial memory. In addition, the study found that the mice subjected to an exercise regimen had stronger synapses than the mice that were sedentary. Other research shows that nerve growth factors, called neurotropins, are stimulated by exercise. Finally, exercise increases blood flow to the brain, as well as collateral circulation, enhancing mental function and nerve cell stimulation.

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