Can Regular Exercise Help Your Brain Stay Younger?
We all know that exercise is good for us. But besides being beneficial to our bodies, it might also boost our brains. According to a study published in the Journal of Sport and Health Science, physical activity can help keep our minds younger. Researchers found that adults who exercised regularly for a year showed brains that appeared nearly a year younger than those who didn’t change their habits.
Study Methodology: To find out whether exercise changes the structure of the brain, the team of researchers from the AdventHealth Research Institute and the University of Pittsburgh conducted a year-long clinical trial to examine the effects of standard exercise and whether it could slow or even reverse “brain age”—aka how old your brain looks on an MRI scan as compared to your actual age.
The researchers recruited 130 healthy adults between the ages of 26 and 58 for the clinical trial. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups: a moderate-to-vigorous intensity aerobic exercise group or a control group that did not change their activity levels.
Excerpted from Martha Stewart
