Contents:
- Medical Video: 10 Exercises That'll Make You Smarter In a Week
- What is meant by cognitive function?
- Cognitive function can decrease with age
- Benefits of exercise to prevent cognitive decline
Medical Video: 10 Exercises That'll Make You Smarter In a Week
Many people exercise with the aim of maintaining or losing weight. Indeed, exercise makes the body active so that it can burn a lot of fat, and eventually the weight goes down. However, it turns out not only that the benefits of exercise. Diligent exercise early can also prevent you from decreasing cognitive function. This makes you avoid senility (dementia) in old age. Curious how did this happen? Read on this article.
What is meant by cognitive function?
You may often hear the word "cognitive". However, do you understand what is cognitive? Cognitive is related to one's thinking ability, how someone understands something, makes decisions, and acts. Therefore, all the actions you take are of course very dependent on the cognitive processes of the brain.
Cognitive function is the brain skill needed to carry out various activities from the simplest to the most complicated. Cognitive is related to the brain mechanism in learning, remembering, solving problems, and paying attention to something.
So, everything you do in this world requires cognitive function, involving all parts of the brain. Decreasing cognitive function can make it difficult for you to think, work, understand something, communicate, even make decisions.
Cognitive function can decrease with age
Just imagine, all the activities you do involve cognitive function, even when you just sit and think. This involves many neurons (nerve cells) in the brain. When your body is aging, the cells in the body also age. So, it's no wonder that cognitive function has decreased slightly.
Cognitive decline may be clearly seen from the slowing down of activities that require cognitive function. For example, it takes longer when writing, remembering, processing information, or making decisions. People who have decreased cognitive ability may also have difficulty concentrating.
Benefits of exercise to prevent cognitive decline
Actually, cognitive decline can be prevented. Like muscle, if you are trained continuously, the muscles are stronger and the function does not decrease, so does the brain. The brain that is constantly being trained or used can prevent it from decreasing function. So, you can prevent this cognitive decline by sharpening creativity, finding out new things, trying new experiences, establishing relationships with many people, or being involved in games that train the brain.
In addition, regular exercise early can also prevent cognitive decline. Reporting from Medical News Today, research conducted on rodents shows that the benefits of exercise since young people include delaying cognitive decline and preventing age-related cognitive damage by creating cognitive reserves.
What is cognitive reserve? Cognitive reserve refers to the brain's ability to prevent aging or damage. This large cognitive reserve can prevent you from neurodegenerative damage, which may be caused by Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, or even stroke.
Research conducted by Dr. Martin Wojtowicz from the University of Toronto, Canada observed the activity of brain nerve cells that are associated with physical activity early in the life of mice. The result, rats that often use running wheels for six weeks from the age of one month have greater activity of brain nerve cells which will have an impact on the memory and learning ability of mice in their adult age, compared to rats that do not use running wheels.
Therefore, people who like physical activity from a young age will reap the benefits of exercise for brain health. However, it is not too late for those of you who have reached adulthood or continue to maintain cognitive function by means of exercise. Because the benefits of exercise will never stop or decrease at any age.
