Exercise and the brain

I have always been a frequent exerciser my entire life. I can still remember the first time my dad made me get on the treadmill. I was complaining about the 7 minute run he was about to make me do, and he said, "You will increase by a minute each week until you reach 20 minutes." My mouth probably fell open because I thought it unfathomable that I would ever be able to run for 20 minutes straight. Now I exercise daily - and have had a few occurrences of exercising too much. I have found a love of exercising because it alleviates my stress and makes me feel good, as well as keeping my body in good shape. Recently I have learned a little more about the actual effects that exercise has on the brain and why it happens. Before, I sought exercise as a good escape, because here I would get the "runner's high." That feeling of euphoria made me want to go back for more, whereas a lot of people can't seem to discipline themselves to exercise regularly. All I knew is it made me feel better about myself, so obviously I wanted to keep doing it. Now I see more important aspects of working out that make it essential to keep physical activity in my daily routine to keep my brain young and healthy. Here are a few things about exercise you maybe didn't know before:

• Physical exercise increases blood flow to the brain because it improves the ability of your heart to pump blood throughout the body. Pumping more blood results in more supplies of oxygen, glucose, and nutrients to the brain, which enhances overall functioning of the brain.
• Exercising encourages the growth of new brain cells by boosting levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). BDNF is a chemical that is involved in neurogenesis - the growth of new brain cells.

So while exercising, you are making new brain cells that make you smarter! Not only are you doing something good for your body, your brain is growing and functioning is increasing. 

Research on laboratory rats has shown that exercise generates new brain cells in the temporal lobes, involved in memory, and the prefrontal cortex, involved in planning and judgment (executive functioning). 

As long as you keep up the physical activity, you will continue to stimulate these new cells which will keep them from dying off. If you don't continue to exercise, they will only survive about four weeks, so keep exercising! 

• Physical activity boosts memory by reducing stress. Stress causes your adrenal glands to produce excessive amounts of cortisol, the hormone associated with stress, which kills cells in the hippocampus, therefore impairing memory capacity. Increasing exercise will reduce cortisol levels which will result in better memory. Not only is this extremely helpful to you in life (school, work, etc.), but higher levels of cortisol have also been found in people with Alzheimer's disease, so exercising has other long-term benefits. Exercising also increases frontal lobe activation, which is especially important for older people because cognitive impairment starts. Physical activity keeps the brain engaged, which will keep it young. Increasing activation in the frontal lobe and prefrontal cortex helps you stay on task with goal-oriented endeavors (planning, scheduling, and inhibiting impulses). You will find that you are more focused and can stick to your plans better, whether that be with studying, keeping on a diet, sleep schedules, you name it. If you're finding difficulty inhibiting impulses, exercising can help activate the part of the brain dealing with executive functioning, so that will most likely increase your outlook on life and make your self-esteem go up. 

Recently I've had a difficult time with scheduling and keeping to my schedule, as well as giving into impulses of eating desserts. I was working out excessively to make me feel better and burn the calories I was consuming. Also, the major part of this was my sleeping schedule. I was depriving myself of sleep from my job and working out and that reduces activation in the prefrontal cortex, so I had a very difficult time inhibiting my impulses and sticking to a schedule. This in turn made me feel worse about myself because I felt like I was losing control, when I'm usually good about staying focused. I caught up with my sleep and let my body recuperate, which helped me immensely. Now I hardly have a problem sticking to my plans. I'm more productive and I'm working out a healthy amount. If you're experiencing trouble with executive functioning, you might want to look at your sleeping pattern and make adjustments if necessary. Sleeping effects brain functioning more than you may realize. Getting adequate sleep each night will keep your brain attentive during the day so you can be productive and learn and remember the best. Also, writing down your goals for the day, week, and the future will help you monitor your progress. 

• Like I mentioned earlier, exercise enhanced my mood. This is because exercising allows for the amino acid L-tryptophan to enter the brain. The neurotransmitter serotonin is derived from L-tryptophan, which helps to balance your mood. Serotonin contributes to feelings of well-being and happiness, so increasing serotonin will make you feel happier. To give some perspective, low serotonin levels are found in people who are depressed, so increasing physical activity if you're experiencing feelings of depression can help a lot. I've also had experience with this and it helped me more than I can probably imagine. Working out was really the only enjoyable part of my day because it made me feel happier.
• People who exercise more tend to get into less trouble because they are more happy and less impulsive. When you feel good about yourself, you're more likely to continue doing good things for yourself. This also goes along with exercising and eating better. Most people find that when they exercise they eat better, and when they're not, they tend to eat worse. Since you're doing good for your body and brain, you're more likely to continue doing good things. Also, if you find it difficult to stay with a diet without working out, it might help to start because of the increased activation in the prefrontal cortex. Following through on your dieting plans will be easier than if you don't exercise. 
• Going back to my earlier point about getting adequate sleep every night, exercising helps you sleep. Exercising normalizes the production of melatonin in your brain and improves your sleeping patterns. Getting a good amount of sleep is essential for your brain to work as efficiently as possible, so they work together in this sense. Doing one will get the other, and you need both, so you're killing two birds with one stone. 

I hope this gives some interesting insight into how the brain benefits from exercise. I have been reading Change Your Brain Change Your Body by Daniel G. Amen, M.D., and this is where I received most of the information from. It's a great book and I recommend it to anyone. Here's the link if you would like to take a closer look at the book. Enjoy :)                    

We have a choice

While choice theory isn't looking at the brain from a neurological aspect, it is still a psychological factor that all of us need to be aware of. In all parts of our life we seek power; power over our lives and others lives around us. We tend to look at what the world is doing to us instead of looking at ourselves and how we are letting things happen to us. Yes, there are definitely outside factors that give some people more opportunities than others, but if we constantly wait for the world to change for us, we are going to remain in the same spot throughout life, blaming our problems on others instead of taking the responsibility ourselves.
This book I'm reading couldn't have come at a better time for me (Choice Theory by William Glasser, M.D.). It's easy to be sad or feel down because of something that happened to us, but it's our own choice to how we react to it. If we continue to feel depressed about something that happened that we cannot control, it is by our own choice that we have remained to feel that way. No one else is making us feel sad for longer than we have to. People continue to dwell on the hard things and blame their sorrows on the ones who did the "bad" things to us, but we allow ourselves to continue being in that position.

We all have personal freedom and too many times we try to control other people or we get upset when we aren't able to. Why should we expect that we can have control of someone else when they don't want to be controlled themselves? There are two wrongs in that situation. The first wrong is the person wanting to control another person. The second and almost worse wrong is that person allowing them to do it (considering they let them). No one but yourself allows for things to affect us the way they do. If something bad happens, we have the personal freedom to say that we are not going to let it dictate our lives, that we can think for ourselves and accept others the way they are.

Relationships in general are difficult to maintain because we try to control the other person, even if it's in a small way. This creates a problem because everyone is free to be their own person, not living under the power of anyone else. It is easy to let someone else try to make us into something else, but it shows true strength when we decide that everyone is their own person and we can't change them. And why would you want to? Everyone is unique and that's what makes them special. You can't expect to change anyone, and you shouldn't. Expect only to change yourself, because that is ultimately your choice, and yours alone. If you blame all your problems on something or somebody else, you're only displacing the problem which won't. Change comes from personal choice, with which we have to stand strong and take responsibility over that and let everyone take responsibility for theirs too.

I'm taking responsibility of my life and my actions. I see that it is ultimately my decision how I feel and I allow how things affect me. Before I saw it as things being done to me, but people aren't going to change, so I have to change how I react to circumstances if I want to remain psychologically healthy and strong on my fight through life. The one thing I have control over is myself, so I'm going to use that power to create a better environment for myself. There's no use trying to force others to be different than what they are. If we start to accept people for what they are, relationships will be easier to maintain. I'm starting to see power in my own eyes, so I'm going to embrace it and make the best for myself. That's my choice and I'm sticking to it. 

Defense mechanisms and memory

One thing that has interested me lately is the idea of memory; working memory and long-term memory. The main point that is pretty clear is association of new experiences with prior knowledge or prior experience yields stronger memory storage and for later retrieval. Rehearsal memory (repetition) also works, but bring in a new idea that corresponds with something already in your long-term memory is more likely to stick, and for longer periods of time.

Now dealing with memory and traumatic events, some people develop defense mechanisms and repress the memories they had associated with them. Everyone deals with situations such as these differently, and it takes a while for us to stop thinking about that event in our life, but over time it becomes easier for us to "forget" about it. Now just because we repress a memory doesn't mean we're going to ever absolutely forget about it. At first, it may be difficult to remember details about it when we try to think about it, but if we give ourselves a little time a lot of the information we forgot seems to reveal itself once more. Spontaneous recovery is also something that could happen where all a sudden something reminds you of the traumatic event and it comes back in your memory like it was just yesterday that you were thinking of it.

The spooky thing is that we think we have gotten past, or forgotten these events, but what I'm thinking is that the more traumatic the event, the stronger the connections will be in the brain to remembering it, so that it actually makes it more difficult for us to ever run away from our memory. Yes, it may not be in consciousness every day like it would have been right after the event, but it is still there, just below the surface waiting to spring to life once more. The brain is an intricate system with trillions of neurons, which allows for billions of connections and 10^50 unique associations. Now, also considering connectionist theory, knowledge is just not just stored in one node, it is spread out throughout multiple connections throughout the brain, which to me makes it seem like it would be impossible to forget something so important in ones life. The harder we try to forget, we also reinforce the idea of that event more than what we want to, possibly making the connection even stronger. There does come a point when it starts to appear as if it's forgotten, but personally, I know that something can spring on you when you least expect it.

Another thing I am considering, but not quite sure of, is that maybe as time passes, the mental block we had in our brain starts to diminish slightly, so even though we haven't thought of a traumatic event in years, it might become easier to remember spontaneously because we're not so worried about repressing it. There comes a time when we move on and stop consciously repressing the memory, but that doesn't mean that it's forgotten or will be forgotten forever. Even though you are not increasing the connection every day, it still probably has a strong connection because it was such an influential part of your life in some way and it is distributed throughout your brain, not in one node that can be ride of right away and for good.

I haven't thought about this certain event in a few years and it came to me like I had been thinking about it often throughout this entire time. It's amazing how associations can have such an impact on memory. Now, the deciding factor is to either repress that memory again or realize that it is a part of your history and makes up who you are and will make you stronger as a person. It's hard, but I vote for the second one in this given circumstance for me. For a time I did believe that I had forgotten, and there was a time that the memories seemed hazy to me, but man was I in for a rude awakening. Everything in our life cannot be erased, it is embedded in us in some way, and embracing it is better than trying to pretend like it never existed. Yes, it might be permanently in your brain, but you can choose how you want it to effect you. We are in control of our emotions and how they affect our lives, so running away from our past is not going to help us any in the future. We are who we are, and even repression and denial cannot change our past, but our attitude about our past can help change our future.

(Some of these ideas were sparked from an article I read: http://libproxy.umflint.edu:2060/pqdweb?index=0&did=1179162911&SrchMode=2&sid=6&Fmt=6&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1318476212&clientId=16043)

Lying: good or bad?

All throughout life we are told that lying is bad. Parents drive into us to tell the truth. Strangely, against our preconceived notions about lying being bad, lying actually makes the brain work harder and makes more connections in the brain than truth does. From research done with scanning the prefrontal cortex, there is more white matter (connective tissue that carry electrical signals to other groups of neurons over long distances) in the people who lie versus those who tell the truth. Basically, the thought process is this - people who lie are making more connections among previously unconnected things. Lying requires the brain to make more connections because people come up with intricate stories so that they won't get caught, whereas telling the truth is much easier on the brain since you aren't making anything up. With this reasoning, it almost seems like lying would be a good thing because making connections to things where you normally wouldn't is influential in being creative. There are other factors that go into creativity, but that is a major part of the process because creativity is about making connections where people don't see it initially. Being creative requires thinking outside of the box and being open to all different contributions, which is interesting. I wonder if people who lie a lot are more creative than other people just because they can think of multiple scenarios and come up with crazy schemes. In this sense, is lying bad? It is socially constructed and inforced that lying is bad, but when you look at it from this point of view, it has some good qualities as well.

One thing that is interesting is that fMRI's could possibly be used as a means of a lie detector test in the future. According to an article, there might be areas involved in truth telling and areas involved in deception that can be seen on from fMRI. From Dr. Scott Faro's, director of the Functional Brain Imaging Center at Temple State University School of Medicine in Philadelphia, research, four areas of the brain are activated during truth telling compared to seven areas being activated during lying. However, they did not try asking the people in the study to try deceiving the test, so they are not sure if that will have an affect on the scan, but it is still an interesting starting point for possible lie-detecting technology to come.

Freud's egos

In Freud's view on psychoanalytic theory of personality, our personality is composed of three elements : the id, ego, and superego. Most everyone is familiar with this concept, but the id is the impulse in us. The id doesn't necessarily think about consequences, just about its desires and getting them. The ego is the part of us that deals with reality, and balances between the impulses and the superego (conscience; right and wrong/moral standards). There are many examples where we battle between our desires, but we scale back because our "reality" kicks in to let us make rational decisions. To me, I find it interesting that at some times we can know what we should do, but instead we do something different. Why is that?

And then when does the turning point come in our mind where we finally decide to listen to ourselves instead of act on our desires? Is it a sign of weakness that we follow our desire first before learning that we should have listened to ourselves in the first place and avoided the situation? The mind is mysterious, especially when emotions become involved. It's like emotions have a mind of their own and they start to take over us even when we know it's not for the best. Why do we let ourselves get wrapped into someone or something and find it so hard to let go?

It's like our id is trying to deceive our ego by using defense mechanisms to "trick" it into letting it do what it wants. And we can only fool ourselves for so long until we can come to terms with the reality of the matter that the ego was telling you all along. It's like having the devil and angel on your shoulder, both telling you opposite things to do and you don't know which one to follow. But there seems to be a turning point where reality takes over the desire and you see the situation for what it truly is. It doesn't make it any easier, but in your head you seem to know when it's finally right to make the good decision. But why can't we make this decision sooner to save ourselves from more hurt? I'm sure this is nothing we can do about it because sometimes our emotions do take the lead and silence the ego for a little while, trying to not come to the realization that you don't want. The id tries so hard to prove it wrong, but usually it just goes right back to where you knew you would end up from the beginning. It's hard to go through the process, but there are times when you just can't seem to go with the right thing to do until you've experienced it. Experience gives us reassurance in the future though so that hopefully we won't make the same mistakes again. A lot of the time we end up falling into the same situations as we did before... but if we really want to change it, we can. It just take the will power of the mind to do it.

The musician in us

Music is something that almost everyone is involved in in some way. There is hardly anyone who doesn't listen to music on a daily basis because it is all around us and it we listen to it to reflect our mood, to pump us up or slow down, to express our feelings, etc. What is interesting is I found an article about musical therapy (which I had not realized was actually something out there). Musical therapy is being used with patients that have Alzheimer's, which does not reverse the disease, but it helps to ease the patients. Alzheimer's patients have been found to respond to music when they respond to nothing else, according to Suzanne Hanser, head of musical therapy at Berklee College of Music in Boston. Music not only helps to ease the patients but it is a way we build memories. As many of you can probably relate, I know there are dozens of songs that remind me of a specific memory, as well as some songs that I cannot listen to because of those memories.

Music is a powerful tool that can help us to communicate with others and build relationships. It can help us through difficult times because we can relate to the lyrics and we don't feel as alone because someone else has been in our shoes. Having a common interest in music can build relationships and make bonds stronger between people. One mother, Tamera Norris, wrote about her autistic son's experience with music. At age 16, Tamera's son William started in a musical therapy program and as well as learning how to play instruments, he learned how to interact with others in a non-threatening environment. He learned leadership, socially accepted concepts, how to express himself, and how to communicate with others. While William had always been socially out of the mix, music led him into a world where he felt safe and extended his social circle. The mother is extremely grateful for how music has helped him, and music for anyone can do that as well.

Personally,  my brother and I have not been super close from our teenage years and up, but we have found similar interests in music that have helped to bring us closer. It first started with Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. We were able to come together through our liking of them, not only talking with each other more about songs, but also spending time together going to concerts and sharing memories. CSNY will always remind me of my brother and it was a good way for us to come together when we didn't have much else to grasp on to.
Other than just building a relationship, music has served many purposes in my life. Music helps to express my feelings at a time when I feel like I don't know how. It lets me feel connected to someone else who has shared a similar experience to the one I did and it helps to know that I'm not the only one. Music helps to relieve my stress when I need to let go and be a little crazy. It gets me dancing and that in turn makes me happy. Having a little help from music can inspire me to do something or give me the energy I need to accomplish something.

Music is therapy for those who compose it and also for those who just listen because when you can relate to a song so well it almost feels like that song was written for you. Music is there when you need to grieve, when you need to be happy, on a sunny day, and on a cloudy day. I have never had music disappoint me because there is such variety that you can get whatever you need, and there is always more coming out.

It doesn't seem like music could make such a big influence on our lives but it is something we can turn to in times of need. Music helps soothe us and clear our head as well as inspire us to be creative. Different music can effect individuals differently, but music as a whole can be used as a way to keep us healthy. There have also been studies done about music and its effect on child birth, relaxing the baby and the mother. For more information on music therapy you can look at the extensive information on musictherapy.org which is the American Music Therapy Association's website.

Now wouldn't that just be amazing if they found a way to make the stages of Alzheimer's slow down through the process of memory through music? Since Alzheimer's is partly when neurons break connections with other neurons, such as in the hippocampus which causes memory-loss, if there was a way to strengthen these connections instead of allowing them to break apart it could possibly slow the process down. Now I don't know that much about Alzheimer's, but that would be truly fascinating if you could find a way to build the connections that are starting to break apart before it becomes too late. Maybe in the future we could will start to see progress in this field. And if music therapy can help with memory, it might be an even greater contribution than just soothing the patients. Who knows..

Interaction

To go along with my previous post, something else caught my attention while in class. Not only focusing your attention on a certain task or subject while help to increase ability to remember it, but also becoming more engaged with the material at hand will strengthen the memory. What I mean by this is writing down additional information that makes for a two-way street. You encode the information, retrieve it, and send it back out, in your own interpretation. Or, asking questions to show that you are taking in the information but you need a little clarification to solidify the information.

My English teachers always used to say to write in the margins of books. It didn't have to be something extremely deep, but it would engage you in the reading so that you could remember and understand easier. Even writing down something it reminds you of is good because you are associating new information with old information. Interacting with what you read or hear will help the message sink in so that you can remember it for later. Sensory memory is very brief and is prior to conscious awareness, but working memory requires repetition and mental awareness in order to become long-term memory. By interacting with the information, you are already repeating the encoding of the message which increases the chances of you remembering it later.

Where my teacher said today that people say cramming before a test is bad. Well, that is both true and false depending on the way you look at it. If you are looking to keep the information in storage to remember it later, cramming is not a good idea because it is only fresh on the mind. So cramming can be good right before a test because that information is easily accessible right away, but will be forgotten easily. Repetition of the information over a longer period of time is the key way to ensure that it is stored in your long-term memory. Using simple techniques such as being involved during class can lead to better memory right from the beginning, instead of hardly taking in what the teacher is saying, and only cramming the night before the test. The first might seem more tedious and time-consuming, but in the long run it will be more beneficial to you and your brain. Anyway for me, cramming will make me more anxious about the upcoming test and will decrease my chances of doing well in that respect, so I'm learning to become more "friendly" to open interaction with my studying.