Neuroscience Says Doing This for Just 1 Hour a Week Can Make Your Brain 5 Years Younger
Research shows keeping your brain sharp as you age is easier than you probably imagine.
You know your actual age, but do you know your “brain age”?
Everyone loses some mental sharpness as the years go by, but not everyone’s brain ages at the same pace. Just as some 60-year-olds are running marathons while others are huffing and puffing up the stairs, neuroscientists say there can be a big gap between the age on your driver’s license and how old your brain appears according to an MRI scan and other tests.
And happily for entrepreneurs and anyone else looking to keep their brain going strong, while you can’t turn back the years, you can reverse the effects of those years on your brain. All you need is a pair of sneakers and about an hour a week.
Keeping your brain young is easier than you might imagine
To figure this out, a team of Canadian doctors recruited more than 200 healthy older adults and set them a simple task — do an hour or two of reasonably demanding aerobic exercise a week. Researchers tested their subjects’ mental performance before, during, and after six months of this new health routine.
The results, published in the journal Neurology, show that this totally achievable amount of exercise had significant effects on their brains as well as their bodies. Those who stuck with the program improved 5.7 percent on tests of executive function (the ability to direct attention, plan, and execute our intentions) and 2.4 percent better at tests of verbal fluency, involving retrieving the right word at the right time (something that, at least for me, seems to get harder as the years go by).
Before you decide that doesn’t sound like a lot and click away, note that study author Marc Poulin pointed out, “This change in verbal fluency is what you’d expect to see in someone five years younger.”
I don’t know about you, but trimming a half decade off my mental age in exchange for an hour of exercise a week doesn’t sound like a bad deal to me.
The doctors think that exercise cuts five years of accumulated cobwebs by significantly increasing blood flow to the brain. This isn’t a huge surprise. There’s a large body of science showing just how amazing exercise can be for our brains as well as our bodies (more details here and here, if you want a deeper dive). This latest study just shows the benefits extend to anti-aging effects.
What beats five years younger? 30 years younger
It’s impressive that just an hour of brisk walking or cycling a week, for instance, could have you thinking as quickly and clearly as you did five years ago. But do you know what’s more impressive than a five-year reduction in brain age? A 30-year reduction in brain age.
Other science suggests even that is possible. Another recent study by a pair of psychologists found that signing older adults up for three months’ worth of adult education classes increased their performance on tests of memory and attention so much it was like their brains were 30 years younger.
Put these two recent studies together, and what do you have? Conclusive evidence that you are more in the driver seat when it comes to your brain’s age than you probably imagine.
Obviously no one can hold back time entirely (and these studies were all done on reasonably healthy people without any particular problem or diagnosis). But simple interventions like signing up for that evening Spanish or painting class or arranging to meet a friend for a spin around the park two evenings a week seems to shave something between five years and multiple decades off your brain age.
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