Chase Sagum

If you’re like me, you constantly struggle to find motivation for working out. The book ‘Spark‘ by John J. Ratey will help motivate you. It links the relationship between working out and your brain. You’ll learn things in this book that will forever change your outlook on and motivation for working out. See my notes below:

• The point of exercise is to build and condition the brain
• Exercise increases levels of serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine – important neurotransmitters that traffic in thoughts and emotions
• Serotonin: lack of it is associated with depression
• Toxic levels of stress erode the connections between the billions of nerve cells in the brain
• Chronic depression shrinks certain areas of the brain
• Exercise unleashes a cascade of neurochemicals and growth factors that can reverse this process, physically bolstering the brain’s infrastructure
• The neurons in the brain connect to one another through “leaves” on treelike branches, and exercise causes those branches to grow and bloom with new buds, thus enhancing brain function at a fundamental level
• In October 2008 researchers from Duke University made the New York Times with a study showing that exercise is better than sertraline (Zoloft) at treating depression.
• Aerobic activity has a dramatic effect on adaptation, regulating systems that might be out of balance and optimizing those that are not
• The brain is made up of one hundred billion neurons
• Serotonin: often called the policeman of the brain because it helps keep brain activity under control. It influences mood, impulsivity, anger, and aggressiveness
• Norepinephrine: often amplifies signals that influence attention, perception, motivation, and arousal.
• Exercise balances neurotransmitters
• BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor)
• Neurotrophins such as BDNF build and maintain cell circuitry – the infrastructure itself
• A memory, scientists believe, is a collection of information fragments dispersed throughout the brain
• Patterns of thinking and movement that are automatic get stored in the basal ganglia, cerebellum, and brain stem
• Delegating fundamental knowledge and skills to these subconscious areas frees up the rest of the brain to continue adapting
• Neurogenesis: a process of the neurons dividing and propagating
• Neurogenesis is clearly involved in our interactions with our environment, both emotionally and cognitively
• Neurons are born as blank-slate stem cells, and they go through a development process in which they need to find something to do in order to survive. Most of them don’t. It takes about twenty-eight days for a fledgling cell to plug into a network.
• If we don’t use the newborn neurons, we lose them.
• Exercise spawns neurons, and the stimulation of environmental enrichment helps those cells survive.
• BDNF gathers in reverse pools near the synapses and is unleashed when we get our blood pumping.
• BDNF is produced within the brain and promotes stem cell division
• BDNF seems to be important for long-term memories
• The body was designed to be pushed, and in pushing our bodies we push our brains too
• Exercise:
  • 1: optimizes your mind-set to improve alertness, attention, and motivation
  • 2: it prepares and encourages nerve cells to bind to one another, which is the cellular basis for logging in new information
  • 3: it spurs the development of new nerve cells from stem cells in the hippocampus
• Blood flow shifts back almost immediately after you finish exercising, and this is the perfect time to focus on a project that demands sharp thinking and complex analysis
• The more we build these networks and enrich our stores of memory and experience, the easier it is to learn, because what we already know serves as a foundation for forming increasingly complex thoughts.
• Your regimen has to include skill acquisition AND aerobic exercise
• This is why learning how to play the piano makes it easier for kids to learn math. The prefrontal cortex will co-opt the mental power of the physical skills and apply it to other situations
• Chronic stress results from the brain getting locked into the same pattern, typically one marked by pessimism, fear, and retreat.
• Stress seems to have an effect on the brain similar to that of vaccines on the immune system. In limited doses, it causes brain cells to overcompensate and thus gird themselves against future demands. Neuroscientists call this phenomenon stress inoculation.
• Stress sparks brain growth**
• Norepinephrine arouses attention, then dopamine sharpens and focuses it.
• The brain: consumer of glucose, using about 20% of the available fuel even though it only accounts for about 3% of our body weight. It has no capacity to store fuel.
• Chronic stress: the HPA axis of the brain is guzzling all the fuel to keep the system on alert, thus; the thinking parts of the brain are being robbed of energy.
• Cortisol can erode neurons
• Being alone is not good for the brain
• In the brain, the mild stress of exercise fortifies the infrastructure of our nerve cells by activating genes to produce certain proteins that protect the cells against damage and disease.
• Both stress and inactivity: play big roles in the development of arthritis, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, and other autoimmune disorders.
• Anxiety: cognitive misinterpretation of the situation
• Patients with anxiety disorders have a learning deficit.
• BDNF might be an essential ingredient in combating anxiety, probably because it helps wire in positive memories that create a detour around the fear
• Teaching the brain that we can survive is crucial to overcoming the anxiety
• By making a decision to act in the face of anxiety, we literally shift the flow of information in the brain, forging new pathways
• Exercise immediately elevates levels of norepinephrine
• Exercise also boosts dopamine
• Chronic exercise increases dopamine storage in the brain and also triggers the production of enzymes that create dopamine receptors in the reward center of the brain.
• Omega3 supplements are proven to have antidepressant effects
• The combination of challenging the brain and the body has a greater positive impact than aerobic exercise alone.
• The cerebellum: just 10% of the brain’s volume but contains half of our neurons
• Walking as few as three days a week for six months increased the volume of the prefrontal cortex in older adults.
• Addiction = an out-of-control reward system
• Marijuana, exercise, and chocolate all activate the same neurotransmitters in the brain
• People are more impulsive when they feel lousy
• The more fit you are, the more resilient you are
• Exercise rebuilds the alcoholic brain by increasing neurogenesis
• Self-efficacy = confidence in our ability to change ourselves
• When we look at addiction as a neurological malfunction rather than as a moral failure, it suddenly takes on the form of something that can be fixed.
• From an evolutionary perspective, exercise tricks the brain into trying to maintain itself for survival despite the hormonal cues that it is aging.
• Omega-3 fatty acids: for mental acuity and strengthening our bones
• Having diabetes gives you a 65% higher risk of developing dementia, and high cholesterol increases the risk 43%
• Starting at about age 40, we lose on average 5% of our overall brain volume per decade, up until about age 70.
• The most common form of dementia is Parkinson’s disease
• The most consistent risk factor for cancer is lack of activity
• Physically active = 50% lower chance of developing colon cancer
• If you’re overweight, you’re inflicting damage to your brain.
• Omega-3s = lower blood pressure, cholesterol, and neuronal inflammation. And they elevate the immune response of BDNF levels.
• Vitamin B: improves memory and processing speed
• Activities that involve bouncing or jumping help to strengthen your bones
• Anything that keeps you in contact with other people helps you live better and longer.