The human brain is a remarkably complex and important part of each person’s body, personality and experience of the world, and keeping it safe and healthy is an essential component of overall good health from birth into old-age. Unfortunately, statistics show that brain health seems to be getting harder and harder to come by. According to the World Health Organization, over 35 million people are affected by dementia and other degenerative brain illnesses worldwide. That number is expected to double by 2030 and triple by 2050. With so many people suffering — and poised to suffer — brain illness and memory loss, what can you do to help yours stay a little more stalwart and frisky?
Well, it turns out that walking is one of the best practices and exercises for aging brains. From its ability to help stave off Alzheimer’s and dementia to its assistance in fighting brain fatigue, walking helps brains age better and function better. Whether you’re just beginning to consider the merits of walking as exercise or you’re an old-hat who’s already run through six pedometers on your quest for better fitness, here are seven more reasons to walk, and each one of them benefits your brain.
It Staves off Alzheimer’s Disease
According to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, walking as few as five miles each week can help ward off the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s is a slow but progressive brain disease that impairs memory, reasoning, language and motor skills. While as many as half of all people in their 80s in the United States develop Alzheimer’s, it is not a natural part of aging, which is why incorporating walking into your daily routine may prove to be so helpful in keeping it at bay.
It Improves Cooperation Between Brain Regions
Everyone knows that a regular walk can help build up your heart and leg muscles, but did you know it also improves connectivity between regions of the brain? Much of what occurs in a normally functioning human brain is a matter of fast cooperation and communication between regions. As people age, that communication and cooperation can lessen. Walking is one way to boost connectivity between brain regions, which helps yield a better working brain overall.
It Increases Brain Size
Three brisk walks for roughly 40 minutes each week can actually increase the size of your brain’s hippocampus — the part of the brain that’s both responsible for memory and the site of atrophying in Alzheimer’s. Because the brain normally experiences shrinkage with age, researchers wanted to find out if walking could delay, decrease or reverse atrophy. Well, it does. A year of walking was found to increase the size of the hippocampus by 2 percent, or to put in another way: A year of walking can take two years off the age of your brain.
It Eases Brain Fatigue
An overtaxed brain is a common occurrence in modern life. Because humans are not machines, there are limits to how much stimulation, work, noise and stress we can endure before our brains are unable to focus any longer. While brain fatigue can be hard to avoid altogether, scientists in Scotland found that a simple stroll through the woods (or a city park) could decrease stress and return the brain to pre-fatigue levels of concentration.
It Releases Endorphins
Endorphins are chemicals that fight stress, and when you walk — or do any other exercise for that matter — your brain recognizes it as stress, it releases endorphins and other chemicals as a protective response. In addition to lessening stress hormones and functioning protectively, endorphins also minimize and block the aches and pains of walking, while simultaneously giving you a rush of positive feelings.
It Repairs Memory Neurons
In addition to the feel-good presence of endorphins, when you walk your body also releases a protein called Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) that not only protects the memory neurons in your brain, it also repairs them. What BDNF does is basically act as a reset switch for lagging neurons. BDNF is why, after a walk, you often seem and feel so clear-headed — because you are.
It Lowers Your Dementia Risk
Researchers in Italy found a direct correlation between the effort people expended while walking and a lowered risk of developing dementia. While the reasons for this boost in protection aren’t clearly understood, the researchers posit it may be due to increased blood flow to the brain during a walk.
Walking: It does a brain and a body good. Whether or not you have a family history of dementia or other brain diseases, growing older increasingly puts everyone at risk for brain woes. Do yourself, your brain and your loved ones a favor, and start incorporating walking into your daily routine.
