Sunday 29 April 2012


It’s great with a healthy heart but what about the brain?

The human has approximately 60,000 thoughts per day and many of them - around 95 per cent - are the same thoughts we had yesterday and the day before.

You don’t have to stop yourself thinking in a negative way, but simply notice certain thoughts. The more you are aware of your thoughts, and the extent to which you are influenced by them, the more you can take responsibility and shift the negative thoughts into something positive.

About 20% of Australians are affected by depression; it is like diabetes or asthma, an illness. We use the term depression in normal conversation to describe distress or unhappiness due to something unpleasant that has happened to us. This depression is perfectly normal, it is usually for a short period of time, and usually resolves rapidly, without the need for any specific treatment.

Compared to depressive illness, which is a much more severe and prolonged condition with persistent sadness, negativity, and difficulty coping.

From research we now know that the gray area in the brain is the centre for our attention, emotions, memory and consciousness. Related research also showed that depressed patients had measurable changes in the amygdala and the hippocampus, crucial in stress response. The amygdala is the central for emotional life, but through research they have also now found that the memory centre is also involved in stress and depression. In research in 1996 they found that depressed patients hippocampus was 15% smaller than a control group, which may explain why depressed patients sometime complain about learning and memory trouble.

This might also explain why Alzheimer’s patient suffers from mood deterioration, since the disease starts with erosion of the hippocampus.

Depression doesn’t t only affect the brain but also the body, shutting down the drive to sleep, eat, have sex and generally not feeling like looking after our self.

In the early 1990 scientists found that brain-derived neurotrophic factors

(BDNF) protects neurons against cortisol (the stress hormone) in areas that control mood, including the hippocampus. While very high levels of cortisol can decrease BDNF, antidepressants and especially exercise can increase BDNF. It is the boost of BDNF that encourages neurons to connect to one another and grow, making it vital for neuroplasticity and neruogenesis.

The great thing with exercise is that it gets us moving, which stimulates the brain stem and gives us more energy, passion, interest, and motivation.

Exercise doesn’t selectively influence anything, it adjusts the chemistry of the entire brain to restore normal signals and make you think clearer and remember good things.

Exercise will not solve all the problems around depression but it definitely helps the mood, even if it is just when we have had a bad day.

Yours in Health & Fitness,
Birgitta


1 comment:

  1. Firstly we need to yoga for stop negative thoughts from our minds. Yoga is very relaxing which helped for relax our mind. Yoga is best and most important moment for all.

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