Active muscles are good for your brain -- not just for strength and tone
"Brainy What-Why-How"
Your weekly nibble of science-backed goodness to help you move better and feel unstoppable.
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What (the TL:DR)
Regular movement (anything that makes your muscles contract -- it does NOT have to be a hard workout)
is the closet thing to the fountain of youth we've got.
Why (the geeky neurology)
When we think of muscles, we usually think of "strengthening" and "definition".
And of course, muscle strength and volume are important.
But muscles also activate neurons that help our brain function!
As we get older, we lose these neurons from the muscle, from ageing as well as from disease or injury.
In a recent study, researcher Hyunjoon Kong said, “It’s our individual organs talking to each other: The brain tells the nerves to stimulate the muscle, and the muscle releases back molecules beneficial for brain function." **
How (apply it to your life)
Piles of research shows that we actually benefit --
that is, our physical health, mental heath, and cognitive performance --
if we do short, low-impact bouts of movement (like walking!) regularly throughout the day,
rather than pounding out a hard workout in the morning and then sitting on our butts for the rest of the day.*
This is one reason for having over 35 "Coffee Break Workouts" that are just ~3-5 minutes in the Move With Adell library**Your first 7 days are Free to trial it out🤗** Becoming a MWA member is a great way to give yourself inspiration & motivation to keep showing up for yourself, and to support me so I can keep giving you free content here, on instagram, and youtube.
Thank you for reading! Hit reply if you have any questions!
And please share with a friend or colleague who might find this valuable.
Keep moving,
Adell xoxo
If that's all you're able to do though, then that is GREAT and still 100000x better than doing no movement at all!
Neuronal innervation regulates the secretion of neurotrophic myokines and exosomes from skeletal muscle(https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2313590121)