Vary your exercise for better brain benefits

New research shows that different kinds of exercise affect the brain in different ways. Although exercise is important to reduce the risk of chronic disease, you can also use different forms of exercise to hone in on your desired brain-based outcomes.

Aerobic exercise protects memory

In mild Alzheimer's patients, those who are more physically active show less brain shrinkage than those who are less fit. Another study of older adults showed those with higher cardiorespiratory fitness had less deterioration of the brain's white matter, even after they controlled for factors such as age, sex and body mass index.

This is partly due to increased blood flow that brings more oxygen, growth factors, hormones, and nutrients to the brain, enabling it to grow stronger and more efficient.

Initial explorations into aerobic exercise's benefits focused on mice, who showed improved memory after regular running on a wheel.

This was attributed to increased neuron formation in the brain's hippocampus, which is involved in verbal memory and learning. Also noted was increased n brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), an anti-inflammatory brain chemical that promotes growth of new neurons.

Different workouts benefit different areas of the brain

Now we're seeing a flood of research that points to weight lifting, high-intensity interval training, and even yoga for positive effects on brain health and function.

Below are categories of exercise, the region of the brain they affect, and the associated functions.

Weight lifting: Prefrontal cortex, involved in complex thinking, multitasking, problem-solving, and reasoning.

Yoga: Frontal lobe, insula and amygdala, involved in integration of thoughts and emotions.

High-intensity interval training: Hypothalamus, involved in appetite regulation, addictions, and cravings.

Sports drills:

• Prefrontal cortex and basal ganglia, related to inhibition, attention, and task switching.
• Parietal lobe, related to visual-spatial processing. 
• Cerebellum, related to attention.

Aerobic exercise: Hippocampus involved in memory and learning.

Comparing different types of exercise

In a study comparing strength training with aerobic exercise, researchers looked at three groups of women: One group took part in brisk walking, one lifted weights, and the control group simply stretched.

The walking and weight lifting groups experienced positive effects on their spatial memory — the ability to remember one's sense of space and surroundings.

The aerobic-only group also saw improvements in verbal memory. The weight lifting-only group saw significant improvement in executive function, mental skills such as playing with ideas, meeting challenges, thinking before acting, resisting temptations, and staying focused. This group also performed better on tests of associative memory such as linking a face to a name.

Combine exercises or pick just one?

Another study looked into combining workouts for maximum brain benefits.

In dementia subjects, the group that participated in a combination of brisk walking and strength training had more improvement in executive function than either the groups that only walked briskly or only strength trained.

While these potential benefits are of value to all ages, this is of particular interest for aging populations who are at most risk for brain degeneration. It seems for older adults, walking is not enough. They also need to do some strength training.

Aerobic exercise alone powers production of BDNF but combining it with strength training may be the winning combination.

Why? Strength training releases insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1), known to positively impact communication between brain neurons, as well as promote growth of new neurons and blood vessels. Strength training also helps lower levels of homocysteine, an inflammatory factor that plays into dementia in older adults.

Exercise benefits children's developing brains

Varied exercise benefits children as well, improving attention, executive function, and capacity for math and reading tests.

Research has shown brisk walking can help kids with ADHD focus better on tests on short-term basis.

On the other hand, highly structured exercises such as sports drills that requires intense focus can hamper attention in children before tests. However, these kinds of focused coordination activities taken in small bits over time may help kids build attention span and actually do better on tests requiring concentration and avoiding distractions.

Pick exercise you enjoy to get your body moving

Current exercise recommendations for adults are a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity plus two or more days of muscle-strengthening exercises each week. For youth ages 6 to 17, 60 minutes of physical activity per day is recommended, including aerobic, strengthening, and bone-strengthening exercises.

What is the best kind of exercise to do? With the big picture in mind, consider varying your exercise regimen regularly to benefit the whole brain. In moments of lower motivation, pick an exercise you enjoy so you'll actually do it.

Contact my office for more help with what kind of exercise your brain needs most.

Your brain can change thanks to neuroplasticity

Although we start life with roughly 100 billion neurons, we start to lose neurons the moment we are born due to the effects of stress, toxins, inflammation, aging, trauma, disease, and other factors.

So why can some people’s brains stay sharp and vital into old age?

The answer is not in the number of neurons, but in neuroplasticity, the ability of your brain to learn and adapt to change by creating additional links to neighboring neurons.

While strength in numbers is good, strength in connectivity is better when it comes to the brain.

Each neuron can send out thousands of connections to other neurons. As we age, even though we lose many neurons and the ones we retain become slower, neuroplasticity means cells become better over time at making more connections.

The resulting network of connection gives us the ability to complete complex tasks and even be that senior with a sharper mind than a PhD student.

However, neuroplasticity depends on two main factors: stimulation and the right chemical environment.

For example, a stroke patient who has smoked for 20 years (toxins and low oxygen), never exercises (low oxygen), and eats sweets and fast food every day (blood sugar issues) is going to have a different potential for recovery than someone who has a healthy diet, exercises regularly, and avoids environmental toxins. Their levels of plasticity are very different.

One way to gauge your brain's potential for plasticity: Ask if it's easier to learn new facts or skills than it was five years ago. If it's easier, your brain has developed greater plasticity. If it's harder, you have inefficient plasticity.

If you are in the second category, don't despair. Given the right tools and environment, your brain can improve its plasticity.

How to support your brain's plasticity

Our brains are incredibly adaptive, and given the right care — oxygen, fuel, and stimulation, they can stay healthy and sharp well into old age.

Anti-inflammatory diet. A diet that supports stable blood sugar and addresses inflammation and food sensitivities is the foundation to restoring and supporting your brain's plasticity and health.

Eat plenty of healthy fats. Our brains are composed largely of fats,and we need to eat plenty of healthy fats to support them. Focus on fats such as cold-water fish, olive oil, avocado oil, nuts, and coconut oil. Supplementing with omega 3 fatty acids is a great way to support brain health.

Exercise daily. A body that moves has a brain that gets oxygen. Exercise also increases BDNF (brain derived neurotrophic factor), an anti-inflammatory brain chemical that helps eliminate brain fog and improve brain function.

Stress reduction. Chronic stress causes a cascade of physiological effects that reduces oxygen and increases brain inflammation. Try these time-tested ways to reduce your daily stress level:

• Deep breathing
• Chi Gong
• Yoga
• Meditation
• Laughter
• Play
• Grounding

Prioritize sleep. Without adequate sleep, the brain and body experience increased inflammation and cannot function at their best. To improve sleep, adopt these daily habits:

• Get 8 to 10 hours of sleep daily.
• Go to bed at the same time every night.
• Keep your bedroom cool and dark.
• Prioritize naps when you can.
• Avoid screen light in the evening. Instead, read a book or play a board game.
• If you must use screens before bed, use blue-blocker glasses, and install the F.lux app on your device.
• Keep your TV and home office outside your bedroom.
• If you suffer from low blood sugar have a small, high-protein, low sugar snack just before bed to help avoid 3 a.m. insomnia.

Address food sensitivities. Food reactivity can cause systemic inflammation that leads to brain inflammation and degeneration. Ask your functional medicine practitioner for help in determining your sensitivities.

Address hormonal imbalances. When hormones become imbalanced you lose neurotransmitter activity and brain function. PMS, perimenopause, menopause, and low or high estrogen in women as well as low testosterone in men can compromise brain health and function. Simple lab testing can help determine your next steps.

Learn something new. Challenging the brain to take on a new task encourages it to form new neural connections. If you haven't done this in a few years, you may feel a bit dull or slow at it, don't give up! Keep at it and you'll be surprised at how soon those gears get greased and your brain starts firing faster. Suggestions: A new hobby, craft, language, or musical instrument.

While modern life can pose challenges to brain health and plasticity, it's never too late to adopt measures to support yours. Your brain is highly adaptable and very responsive to supportive measures.

Contact my office for more information on how to improve yours

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You can reverse memory loss before it’s too late

People treat memory loss and Alzheimer’s as if they are unlucky genetic fates with no prevention or cure. But the truth is they start years before symptoms are diagnosable and you can do something about it. Your diet, lifestyle, physical activity, other factors all influence your brain health.

A 2014 study showed that 9 out of 10 patients were able to reverse their memory loss and experience significantly improved memory by implementing a program of dietary changes, regular exercise, specific supplementation, better sleep, and brain stimulation.

Results were so remarkable that some were able to return to jobs they left due to their worsening memory. In fact, the only patient who did not improve was one with late-stage Alzheimer’s — the brain is far too degenerated at that point to recover.

This study was the first of its kind to show memory loss can be reversed and the improvement sustained. But it takes work.

The researchers who conducted the study drew their inspiration from similar studies that showed diet and lifestyle changes improved the health in patients with diseases such as heart disease, cancer, and HIV.

Changes the study subjects implemented included:

• Eliminating all simple carbohydrates, such as breads, white rice, pasta, sugars, etc.
• Removing gluten and processed foods from the diet
• Eating more produce and wild fish
• Doing yoga and other stress-reducing activities
• Increasing sleep from 4-5 hours to 7-8 hours a night
• Supplementing with methyl B12, vitamin D3, fish oil, CoQ10, curcumin, resveratrol, ashwagandha, and coconut oil
• Exercising a minimum of 30 minutes 4-6 times a week
• Cutting out snacking
• Using hormone therapy if necessary

The biggest challenge in the study was that the subjects complained about making so many drastic changes. However, except for the one with advanced Alzheimer’s, they all improved their health and reversed their memory loss.

Things that cause memory loss

Reduced consumption of starchy carbohydrates and sugars was an instrumental part of the study. Sugars and processed carbohydrates are so damaging to the brain that some researchers call Alzheimer’s type 3 diabetes.

Exercise is also vital when it comes to brain health. Regular exercise prevents and helps reverse memory loss.

Adequate sleep helps with memory because brain waves produced during sleep transfer memories from the hippocampus, an area of short term memory, to the prefrontal cortex, an area of long term memory. Insufficient and poor-quality sleep promote memory loss.

Gluten and other inflammatory can cause memory loss by inflaming the brain. In fact, in individuals with gluten sensitivity, neurological tissue is the tissue most often damaged by gluten intolerance. For some just going gluten free can significantly reverse memory loss.

Ask my office how we can use functional neurology and functional medicine to help you reverse your memory loss and improve your overall brain function.

Is a “leaky brain” causing your brain problems?

You may have heard how important it is to heal a leaky gut, but it's just as important to address permeable blood-brain barrier, or a "leaky brain." Linked to a variety of chronic health issues, leaky brain is a surprisingly common problem that can be addressed with proper anti-inflammatory dietary and lifestyle modifications.

The protective barrier you never knew you had

The blood-brain barrier is a protective layer in the circulatory system of your brain, serving to filter and block harmful substances while allowing beneficial nutrients to pass into the brain and cellular debris to pass out.

However, certain circumstances can break down the blood-brain barrier and cause it to become hyper-permeable, or "leaky."

When unwanted substances enter the brain, they can cause brain inflammation linked to conditions such as:

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Brain fog
• Headaches and migraines
• Cognitive impairment
• Alzheimer’s
• Parkinson's disease
• ADHD

Schizophrenia and other psychological disorders

What causes a leaky brain?

More and more functional medicine patients are becoming familiar with leaky gut. If you have leaky gut, chances are you have leaky brain too as similar mechanisms cause it.

Leaky gut and leaky brain frequently occur together as their root causes are similar:

• Chronic stress
• Systemic inflammation
• Poor diet and antioxidant status
• Head trauma
• Elevated glucose and diabetes
• Elevated homocysteine from B vitamin deficiency
• Environmental toxins
• Heavy metals
• Autoimmune disease
• Oxidative stress
• Food additives
• Sleep issues
• Chronic infections
• Excess alcohol consumption

If you have any of the symptoms of leaky brain and this list of causes rings some bells, then it's worth looking into how to support the health of your blood-brain barrier.

How to support a healthy blood-brain barrier

While the number of leaky brain causes and symptoms may seem daunting, the good news is the brain is very receptive to simple healing protocols. There are a number of things you can do to help heal a leaky blood-brain barrier:

Heal your leaky gut. Leaky brain and leaky gut happen for the same reasons. A focused healing protocol for leaky gut often resolves symptoms of leaky brain.

The gut and brain are intimately connected via the "gut-brain axis," a two-way communication pathway along the vagus nerve, which leads from the base of the brain to all the major organs.

When either the brain or gut is out of order, it can affect the function of the other. Therefore, it's important to support your digestive health.

You can help support your gut health through the following:

• Eat plentiful and varied vegetables (and just a bit of fruit) to give healthy bacteria in your gut the fiber they need.
• Supplement with a high-quality probiotic.
• Consume fermented foods such as kimchee, kombucha, and water kefir to support a healthy gut environment.

Avoid gluten. Gluten is highly inflammatory and one of the worst foods for the brain (and the gut):

• It elevates zonulin, the protein your body produces to increase barrier permeability.
• Many studies confirm that gluten leads to the neuroinflammation behind many psychiatric problems.
• Gluten sensitivity can also result in negative changes to white matter in the brain associated with neurologic disorders such as multiple sclerosis.

If you aren't convinced, try following a gluten-free diet for 30 days and see how you feel. Caution: Gluten is hidden in many foods, so make sure you understand everything on food labels.

Avoid reactive foods. The inflammation from food sensitivities can cause leaky blood-brain barrier. To find out if you react to certain foods, ask our office about food sensitivity testing or an elimination-reintroduction diet.

Sleep. Deep sleep is one of the most important factors for brain health. Sleep deprivation is linked with impaired blood-brain barrier function and permeability.

To maximize your sleep, incorporate the following daily habits:

• Get at least 7-8 hours of sleep per night.
• Avoid blue screens in the hour before bed.
• Use blue-blocker glasses later in the evening.
• If you must use a screen at night, install the F.lux app.
• If you suffer from blood sugar instability, have a small high-protein snack just before bed.

Manage stress. Chronic stress is one of the greatest enemies to your brain health. Stress degrades the blood-brain barrier and can cause brain inflammation.

To help manage your stress load:

• Take an honest look at your stress factors, such as a toxic friendship, a negative job, worrying too much, a bad marriage, or over-commitment as a volunteer. Decide what you can eliminate or reduce and take immediate steps.
• Support the adrenal glands with adaptogens such as panax ginseng, Siberian ginseng, ashwagandha, holy basil leaf extract, rhodiola, and boerhaavia (punarnava).
• Adopt a daily stress-reduction practice such as yoga, meditation, qi gong, deep breathing, laughter, and play.

Avoid alcohol. Alcohol can weaken and degrade the blood-brain barrier.

Caffeine. Studies show that caffeine can be protective against dementia, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease by keeping the blood-brain barrier intact.

Because caffeine can disrupt sleep function it's important to moderate caffeine consumption and make sure to consume it early in the day.

Note: Some people can't tolerate coffee because it can contain toxic byproducts made by mold called mycotoxins, so take note of how you feel after drinking it.

Avoid environmental mold. Environmental mold and the mycotoxins it produces can reduce the integrity of the blood-brain barrier and cause neurologic damage.

Toxic mold is not always easy to identify, so If you live, work, or study in a building where you suspect mold toxicity, consult with a mold expert to determine if your space is safe.

To help mitigate the effects of mold exposure:

• Move out of the house or find a new job location
• Use a HEPA-grade air purifier
• Support your liver detox pathways

Ask my office about more functional neurology strategies to support your blood-brain barrier health.