HEALTHY MIND, HEALTHY BODY - THE IMPORTANCE OF BRAIN HEALTH
“Not mind or body but mind and body”
Joseph Pilates, Your Health
Brain health is a subject close to my heart. Since Mum’s dementia diagnosis I have become acutely aware of how important it is to keep our brain healthy, as well as our body. Brain health should be important to all of us throughout our lives, not just in later life. So how can we try to optimise our brain health and can Pilates play a role? Here are my thoughts…
WHAT IS BRAIN HEALTH?
When we think about brain health there are 3 main elements to consider:
Cognition - Our ability to think, learn and remember things
Motor Skills - How the brain controls our muscles and movement
Emotion - How we feel, the way we respond to events around us
All 3 areas are super important when it comes to brain health.
Optimising brain health is a combination of risk minimisation - reducing factors that can have a negative impact on brain health - and enhancing protective factors - doing more of things that can help the brain grow, create new connections and recover from injury/damage.
There are lots of different factors that can impact upon brain health during different stages of our life. Some factors we can control, others we have less control over. I have focussed this article on the things we can control.
MINIMISING RISK
Some of the known risk factors for a decline in brain health include increasing age, high levels of stress, inactivity / sedentary lifestyle, poor sleep, poor diet, medical conditions or injury to the brain.
Some of these we cannot control but many of these we can work to improve, such as stress, inactivity, sleep and diet.
Stress: Stress has been shown to negatively impact upon the brain’s ability to process information, affecting cognition, attention and memory. There is evidence to suggest that chronic (long term) stress can actually result in physical changes to the brain. High levels of repeated stress can also trigger inflammation, which in turn can adversely impact upon certain aspects of brain health.
Inactivity: Sedentary lifestyle has been associated with poorer brain health and increased risk of cognitive decline and/or dementia.
Sleep: There is a wealth of information linking sleep and brain function. Certain stages of sleep are needed for regeneration of neurons (the nerve cells that send messages all over your body), whereas other stages are important for forming memories and generating new synaptic connections (the places where neurons connect and communicate with each other).
Diet: High blood pressure, high LDL cholesterol (the “bad” type), high blood sugar, tobacco, and excess alcohol consumption have all been associated with increased risk of cognitive decline or dementia.
ENHANCING PROTECTIVE FACTORS
Protective factors are things that can help promote neuroplasticity - the brain’s ability to create new connections - and keep our brain functioning well. Exercise is just one example.
“Exercise pumps blood to the brain which should make you think more clearly. It increases the size of the hippocampus - the part of the brain responsible for memory. It also increases the connections between the nerve cells in the brain. This improves your memory and helps protect your brain against injury and disease.”
HealthDirect.gov.au, 2018
Some of steps you can take to help optimise brain health include:
Getting mental stimulation - Learn something new, read, do puzzles. Try to include some manual dexterity activities such as crafting or drawing. Mentally stimulating activities help stimulate new connections between nerve cells and may even help the brain generate new cells
Engaging in physical activity - Exercise offers many benefits that can directly and indirectly help protect brain health. In animal studies, regular exercise was shown to increase the number of small blood vessels that bring oxygenated blood to the brain. Physical activity can also provide mental stimulation as you learn new skills and practice coordination. Indirect benefits of physical activity on brain health can include helping to lower blood pressure, reduce cholesterol, helping blood-sugar balance and lowering stress.
Managing stress - Today’s lifestyles tend to be fast paced and high in stress. Like any muscle, our brain needs time to rest and recover. Mindfulness and meditation have been shown in studies to impact the levels of key neurotransmitters that affect mood and sleep, reduce stress & anxiety, improve grey matter and thicken the frontal cortex (the part of the brain responsible for awareness, concentration and decision making). Additionally, creating strong social ties can aid emotional wellbeing and has also been associated with a lower risk of dementia.
Managing sleep - There is so much research linking sleep and brain health. Sleep helps to restore the brain and clears out waste byproducts that have accumulated during the day. Studies indicate we should be aiming for at least 7 hours per night. For some of us this can be challenging to achieve. There are lots of ways you can help improve sleep. Some time ago I created a handout to help clients find their optimum sleep environment. If you would like a copy do get in touch and I will be happy to share it.
Improving your diet - Diets that include plenty of fruits, vegetables, fish, nuts and unsaturated oils have been associated with a lower risk of cognitive decline and dementia. For example, omega-3-fatty acids - found in some fish, leafy greens, nuts may have a particular role to play in protecting brain health.
PILATES AND BRAIN HEALTH
“A body free from nervous fatigue and tension is the ideal shelter provided by nature for housing a well balanced mind, fully capable of successfully meeting all the complex problems of modern lifestyle”
Joseph Pilates, Return to Life Through Contrology
Joseph Pilates got it! Throughout “Your Health” and “Return to Life…” he talked about the importance of the brain as well as the body in the pursuit for full bodily wellness. So it will come as no shock when I say that Pilates can play a great role in helping us maintain and optimise brain health.
To explore this further, let’s look back at the elements of brain health and protective factors for brain health that I listed earlier in this article and see how Pilates fits in.
Elements of brain health: At the start of this article I talked about 3 main elements of brain health; cognition, motor and emotional. Pilates can have a positive impact in all 3 areas.
Cognition - In a Pilates session we are constantly challenging the brain as we learn new skills and focus the mind on each and every exercise. We count (hello Hundred!), remember and learn all the time during a session. One of the 6 “Pilates Principles” is that of Concentration. A study on the effect of Pilates training on alpha rhythms in the brain suggested that the concentration involved in Pilates can improve participants information processing function and may improve the function of control.
Motor Skills - Every Pilates exercise will challenge our motor skills. Anyone who has been in a class with me will know that any given exercise involves the whole body, not just the moving parts. This challenges our brain to keep the full body under conscious control throughout each exercise. Some exercises particularly challenge our coordination, further working both cognitive and motor skills
Emotional - Attending classes and sessions provides social interaction, even when joining a session online. A Pilates session encourages you to quiet and focus the mind as you focus on the exercise and not on multiple to do lists, emails you need to respond to etc. Pilates has been shown to help reduce stress and anxiety. The reasons for this are many and perhaps the subject for another blog post, but in brief include breath work, movement, mindfulness, connection, focus, sense of achievement, small muscle activation, pain management, tension release and self confidence.
In a Pilates class we are mentally stimulated. It is a physical workout that helps keep your cardiovascular system healthy, which in turn keeps the brain healthy. Regular Pilates practice can help manage stress levels, promote positivity and improve feelings of wellbeing. We foster social connections, with our class mates and our teacher. Studies have suggested that Pilates can improve sleep quality. So lots of great ways Pilates can help us include more protective factors for brain health into our life.
PUTTING IT TO THE TEST
In the studio recently we have been paying lots of attention to this particular area in our Pilates practice. We have been focussing on exercises that challenge our information processing and our motor skills. Not only have these exercises provided my clients with a mental challenge, they have really challenged their physical skills and body awareness. We have had a lot of fun with these exercises and everyone has really embraced the challenge!
Further reading and references:
12 Ways to Keep Your Brain Young. Harvard Health. Available here
Optimising Brain Health Across the Life Course. World Health Organisation. Available here
Change Your Mind - Meditation Benefits for the Brain. Ask the Scientists. Available here
The Neuroprotective aspects of sleep. Eugene & Messiah 2015. MEDTube Sci Available here
Brain Foods - The Effects of Nutrients on Brain Function. Gomez-Pinilla 2008. Nat Rev Neurosci. Available here
Effect of Pilates Training on Alpha Rhythm. Bian et al., 2013. Comput Maths Methods Med. Available here
The effect of Pilates exercises on sleep quality and fatigue among female students dormitory residents. Amzajerdi et al., 2023. BMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation. Available here
Effect of Pilates on sleep quality and quality of life of sedentary population. Leopoldina et al., 2013. J Bodyw Mov Ther. Available here
The Neuroprotective Aspects of Sleep. Eugene & Musial 2015. MEDTubeSci . Available here