 Hi, my name is Tracy Takahama Espinosa and this is a video on physical activity and how it influences learning and optimal performance So the big question is what is physical activity? Do I have to like go out to the gym which like by the way didn't exist 30 years ago or Does weeding watering my garden count as physical activity pretty much everything counts as physical activity? And being sedentary is actually new to humanity. We've never had this problem before but we look for the first time in humanity We are seeing problems here with obesity because of sedentary behavior There are wonderful studies now by the division of nutrition physical activity and obesity for the center of disease control and prevention That make clear recommendations You can take a quick little quiz there to sort of determine your own physical activity level and to see what is your optimal weight And what are types of things that could fit into your lifestyle that would help you get enough physical activity So when asked and when rated by the center for disease control They said okay is you know doing light gardening well What's the equivalent of that doing downhill skiing or doing a bunch of calisthenics and push-ups or playing? Racquetball they basically measuring the energy that's expelled doing those different activities and they recommend You know an average adult needs two hours and 30 minutes or about 150 minutes of moderate Intensity aerobic exercise like brisk walking every week, but they should combine this with some muscle strengthening Maybe two days a week right or they could do only an hour and 15 minutes of vigorous intense activity So they've given you a lot of either or tiered basically to try to see what fits your lifestyle But the whole idea is that everybody should have some level of physical activity One of the reasons we're studying how the physical body impacts the mind is related to things like neurotransmitters and physical exercise We know that exercise increases things like norepinephrine Serotonin acetyl cloning and GABA receptors in the brain So this is kind of interesting because all of these things lend themselves to synaptic activity and neuroplasticity So when we ask the question then how does physical activity improve cognitive functioning it through the release of these chemicals? But on top of that there's evidence that brain-derived neurotrophic factor BDNF Which is related to nerve growth and to neurogenesis which is important for long-term memory is expelled also during physical activity so Bottom line answer release of certain chemicals But most especially BDNF which is released during physical exercise, which is shown to improve cognitive function So now let's watch Dr. Thompson's video related to neuro connections and physical exercise in the National Institute of Health Take on the vision of physical exercise in its role in cognitive functions Exercise is interesting in terms of effects on the brain because it works in about four or five different ways One of the most obvious ways is blood flow and so if you get your heart working your brain's gonna be filled with Oxygen-rich blood and nutrients. That's the main way that we thought it helps The other way that's sort of interesting is it's been thought that exercise produces new neurons And so exercise induces the production of growth factors one one's called BDNF And it actually stimulates the production of new brain cells now when I was in school 20 years ago We were told you can't get any new brain cells. So when you're born, that's your lot You know, you don't make any more but more recently we found that Exercise is a really good way of stimulating brain cell production and some of these are functional And so just this notion that something that you can do can generate new brain cells is a really great Thing to think about so we were wondering why exercise helps the brain and what one theory is it just reduces stress So maybe it's not that your blood is coming to the brain Maybe you're less stressed and then you know and that that was something that imaging allowed us to test And so we scanned a whole lot of people with high cortisol levels So if you're stressed if you're you're angry about something or even if you're stuck in traffic Your cortisol levels can be very high One of the things we found is that the people with high cortisol levels lost brain tissue fast Well, that's a serious problem So as soon as you know that true you can look at ways of reducing your cortisol and so that's a very easy thing to do I mean we can get less stressed by exercising walking taking breaks So imaging established a physical connection between something in your blood that we cortisol That's a sign of stress an actual physical changes in the brain That's very useful to know and take care of your brain and there's a lot of ways We know that you can take care of your brain. You can eat a good diet. You can exercise You can reduce stress You can make sure you're well educated and these things just build up a sort of mental bank account for the future And so even though it seems like You know work is hard how many are building a store of brain connections that you'll need for the rest of your life So these are practical messages that we've learned from imaging a lot of people So remember we talked about the different ways that you could have physical exercise Well, here's the big question. What would be the best exercise then should you do aerobic exercise or should you do? Prolonged exercise short-term to prolonged or a aerobic exercise, which is still being researched I'll study show some gain when you do some kinds of exercises But the big question is our kids for example in American high schools Are they getting enough physical exercise if they just go out, you know once a week for a jog or is it better that they would have Exercise every single day or is it even better if they have less frequent exercise, but they have more intense exercise All of that is still up for debate Well, we do know which is kind of interesting is that higher fit children have larger brain volumes But actually they also have larger bodies So if they're having larger bodies your brain and your body are proportionate So it could very well be based on that but Chadda Keiman and colleagues would like to Push this idea that higher fit children also show superior brain functioning not just size So physical activity is important for cognition and for learning as a whole Another big area of continued research related to physical activity and brain activity has to do with cell biology Immunology and in the role of exercise in increasing the body's ability to fight off Disease we know it goes in both directions right when you're ill you can't learn and when you exercise well Then your immune system can be boosted and then we get back to this general saying you know sound mind sound body We also know that there's a lot of very interesting research going on are related to cognitive decline People are growing older And living a lot longer than they used to and we've not paid enough attention to what they need to keep their minds going We know the good physical exercise is a good protective factor We know that a certain level of exercise serves to stave off the natural cognitive decline of dementia Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases and the mechanisms by which this occurs are still being studied though There's no doubt. It's a protective factor in aging against cognitive decline. Okay So exercise is great throughout the lifespan. So we come back always to this big idea of risk and protective factors What are the risk and protective factors that we have in our life for doing enough physical activity? I hope you come with a lot of great questions about physical activity and exactly what that means in your own life What are the risk and protective factors that you might be faced with and how does this influence your mind's ability to learn by taking Care of your body looking forward to talking to you soon