從沙發(fā)上起來!通過鍛煉來提振大腦永遠不會太遲

從沙發(fā)上起來!通過鍛煉來提振大腦永遠不會太遲

Why is everyone telling us to exercise while we're stuck at home? Because if there is a single thing you could do to improve your health, it would be to get up and get moving.

為什么大家都叫我們呆在家里時鍛煉呢?因為如果你能做一件事來改善你的健康，那就是站起來行動起來。

Breaking a sweat has been shown to improve nearly every organ in the body, fight nearly every disease doctors diagnose and improve nearly every health condition that you might live with on a daily basis.

研究表明，流汗可以改善身體的幾乎每一個器官，對抗醫(yī)生診斷的幾乎每一種疾病，改善日常生活中可能出現(xiàn)的幾乎每一種健康狀況。

Your brain loves it, too. Increasing your heart rate pumps more oxygen-rich blood to the brain, stimulating the release of hormones that boost the production of new brain cells and enhance connectivity between parts of the brain.

你的大腦也喜歡運動。心率加快會向大腦輸送更多富含氧氣的血液，刺激荷爾蒙的釋放，從而促進新腦細胞的產(chǎn)生，增強大腦各部分之間的連接。

A new study finds , it only took six months of aerobic exercise, four days a week, to improve thinking and verbal skills in a group of older adults.

一項新的研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，在一組老年人中，只需要6個月的有氧運動，每周四天，就可以提高思維和語言能力。

"Even if you start an exercise program later in life, the benefit to your brain may be immense," said study author Marc Poulin, an exercise physiology and nutrition professor at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada.

該研究的作者、加拿大阿爾伯塔省卡爾加里大學運動生理學和營養(yǎng)學教授馬克•波林說:“即使你在晚年才開始一項鍛煉計劃，對大腦的益處可能也是巨大的。”

"Our study showed that six months' worth of vigorous exercise may pump blood to regions of the brain that specifically improve your verbal skills as well as memory and mental sharpness," Poulin said.

波林說:“我們的研究表明，六個月的充滿活力的運動可以將血液輸送到大腦的某些區(qū)域，這些區(qū)域可以提高你的語言能力、記憶力和思維敏銳度。”

The study, published Wednesday in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, followed 206 adults with an average age of 66 and no prior cognitive issues.

這項研究周三發(fā)表在《神經(jīng)病學》雜志上，這是美國神經(jīng)病學學會的醫(yī)學雜志，對206名成年人進行了跟蹤調(diào)查，他們的平均年齡為66歲，之前沒有認知問題。

Under supervision, they increased their aerobic exercise from 20 to 40 minutes three times a week and exercised on their own one day a week. An ultrasound measured blood flow to the brain at the start of the study, and a cognitive baseline was established on thinking and memory tests.

在監(jiān)督下，他們每周三次將有氧運動時間從20分鐘增加到40分鐘，每周自己鍛煉一天。在研究開始時，超聲波測量了流向大腦的血液流量，并根據(jù)思維和記憶測試建立了認知基線。

Six months later, the participants were retested. Blood flow had increased, and tests of executive function, which includes mental flexibility and self-correction, had improved by nearly 6%. Verbal fluency, which tests how quickly you can retrieve information, increased by 2.4%, the study found.

六個月后，參與者再次接受測試。血液流動增加，包括思維靈活性和自我糾正在內(nèi)的執(zhí)行功能測試提高了近6%。研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，測試檢索信息速度的語言流利度增加了2.4%。

"This change in verbal fluency is what you'd expect to see in someone five years younger," Poulin said.

波林說:“語言流利度的這種變化是你在比你小五歲的孩子身上看到的。”

Because the study did not compare the people doing the exercise to a control group of similar people who were not exercising, the study cannot know for sure if exercise was the reason for the improvement in cognition.

因為這項研究沒有將做運動的人與不運動的類似人群的對照組進行比較，所以這項研究無法確定運動是否是認知能力提高的原因。

Still, to find an increase in memory and thinking skills at a time in life when they would be "expected to be decreasing due to normal aging, to have these types of increases is exciting," Poulin said.

盡管如此，波林說，在生活中“由于正常的衰老，記憶和思維能力預計會下降”的時候，發(fā)現(xiàn)記憶和思維能力的提高是令人興奮的。

Even more exciting: disproving that old saw that you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Maybe they just didn't exercise the pooch enough!

更令人興奮的是:推翻了“老狗學不了新把戲”的說法。也許它們只是沒有得到足夠鍛煉的狗!