In summer, one of the important elements of your wardrobe is a swimsuit. To look spectacular on the beach, many girls try to buy the most beautiful swimsuit and choose accessories that would impress those present on the beach.
However, a seemingly spectacular appearance on the beach is not always so in reality.
Today we will tell you how not to dress for the beach, what swimsuits you should not take into account when choosing a beach wardrobe, and how not to dress for the beach so as not to look ridiculous.
Beach fashion - the worst swimsuit looks
And so, we bring to your attention the worst images of beach fashion that should not be repeated. Remember the worst images in swimsuits, photos of which we presented in our post, and never do that.
How not to dress for the beach: swimsuit is not your size
Many girls, wanting to emphasize the beauty of the bust and graceful buttocks or hide figure flaws? wearing a swimsuit that doesn’t fit.
But we hasten to disappoint you: a small swimsuit or a swimsuit that is too big for you looks very ugly on the body.
The real beauty of the stars:
In addition, a swimsuit that is not the right size will restrict your movements. You may even find yourself in an uncomfortable situation if, for example, a swimsuit that is too small falls down.
The worst beach fashion looks: ill-fitting swimsuit
The “Worst Beach Fashion Looks” rating includes an ill-fitting swimsuit. A swimsuit, like any other thing, should suit your body type, so don’t chase the latest beach fashion, it’s better to choose a swimsuit that will look perfect on your figure. By choosing a beautiful and suitable swimsuit, you will not be a fashion misunderstanding.
Beach fashion does not tolerate sexy images
It is only in Hollywood films that wearing a sexy swimsuit is considered trendy and mega beautiful.
But in fact, by choosing a swimsuit that is too sexy, you can attract unwanted attention and condemnation from others, and swimming and relaxing in such a swimsuit is not very comfortable.
Choose another place to find the man of your life. A revealing swimsuit will only attract attention to you as a person of easy virtue.
Worst swimsuit outings: swimsuit in the city
There are risky people who can wear a swimsuit not only to the beach. Let us note that we cannot even imagine a worse fashionable exit.
Under no circumstances should a swimsuit be worn for walking, if only because the material from which it is made is not intended for this.
If you want to look sexy and show off your baby bump, choose a crop top rather than a swimsuit, for example.
How not to dress for the beach: a fashionable diva in a swimsuit and jewelry
Another huge beach fashion mistake is going to the beach in a swimsuit and lots of accessories.
There are places to wear accessories and jewelry even outside the beach. But on the beach in a swimsuit and a bunch of jewelry you can look ridiculous and even strange.
Beach fashion - the worst ways: the "Tropicana" look
After watching enough films, many girls choose the “Tropicana” image for themselves and appear on the beach.
This swimsuit look, decorated with flowers and other details in the style of island beauties, is unlikely to make you fashionable on the beach.
On the contrary, you can only make others laugh. This outfit is only possible at a beach party, where it would be appropriate to dress like this.
Worst Beach Fashion Looks: Swimsuits and Louboutins
Dear girls ,
Do not combine heels and a swimsuit. It's tasteless. High heels will be appropriate if you are planning to attend a beach party on a yacht. In other cases, it is not at all beautiful, because when going to the beach you need to dress and put on comfortable shoes.
Comfortable clogs, mules, and comfortable sandals are quite suitable for going to the beach, the choice of which is now very large.
Worst Beach Fashion Look: Lingerie as a Swimsuit
It happens that women wear beautiful clothes as a swimsuit underwear, believing that it is absolutely invisible and quite beautiful.
No - this is a huge mistake. The underwear is made from completely different fabrics, so using it as a swimsuit is unacceptable.
In addition, underwear takes much longer to dry than a swimsuit, and if the underwear is light-colored, you are also showing off your private parts to the entire beach, because wet light-colored underwear will become transparent. This worst image of beach fashion is unaesthetic and harmful to the perception of you as a person, and it may not have the best effect on your health.
How not to dress for the beach: tight men's swimming trunks
Swimwear for men can also be a dud. We are talking about tight-fitting thong swimsuits and swimsuits with leopard print.
Such men's swimsuits are very unfortunate, one might even say terrible. Not the best the best option swimsuit for men, because in such a thing a man looks somehow “wrong”. For men, the best swimsuit option is swimsuit shorts. They lie beautifully on the figure without restricting movement.
We hope that seeing the worst images of beach fashion will help you choose the right swimsuit so that you look good even on the beach.
Reading time 6 minutes
Have you ever thought about the question of how physical activity affects the brain, how to improve brain activity? An active lifestyle affects memory and brain performance. People who lead an active lifestyle have higher intellectual development. Why this happens, and what is the connection between sports and brain activity, we will understand in this article.
The effect of sport and physical activity on the brain
“Exercise affects the brain first and only then the body. They control mood, levels of energy and alertness, and overall feeling of well-being.”
Dr. John Rathay
- During physical activity, blood flows to the brain, which carries nutrients and oxygen.
- Moderate physical activity stimulates the functioning of nerve cells in the brain and also promotes faster development of neural processes.
In the process of scientific research, it was discovered that sport promotes the development of dendrites not only in those areas of the brain that are responsible for motor activity, but also in the areas that are responsible for learning, thinking and memory. It is the growth and development of nerve cells and their endings that are responsible for human intellectual abilities. - Physical activity prolongs youth. There are scientific studies that confirm that regular physical activity promotes the synthesis of new stem cells, which renew and rejuvenate not only brain tissue, but the body as a whole. The same thing happens with nerve cells that are restored during physical activity.
- With age, blood vessels lose their elasticity. And the first to suffer is the aorta, which supplies the brain with blood. As a result, the oxygen supply to the brain deteriorates, which leads to deterioration of mental abilities. According to research from the German Federal Association of Cardiology, people aged 55-75 who exercised performed better on cognitive tests than untrained people. Exercise keeps blood vessels healthy and elastic, which helps maintain brain function for many years.
- Activating the growth and development of new neurons in the hippocampus helps improve memory. The hippocampus is the area of the brain that is responsible for memory. Therefore, people who lead an active lifestyle are easier to learn and remember. new information. After all, during physical activity, the heart rate increases, which means more blood enters the brain. Research shows that cognitive ability levels increase by 15% immediately after training. The minimum training time required to improve brain function is 30 minutes three times a week.
- Exercise improves the brain's ability to concentrate. Since while performing exercises, a person not only concentrates on a specific task, but also controls the technique of the exercise and counts the repetitions. Or when performing breathing exercises, concentrate on inhalation and exhalation.
- Physical training teaches a person to set goals and achieve them. This directly helps a person deal with stress. After all, the cause of any stress is the fear that the number of problems that have piled up is so great that a person thinks that he will never cope with them. Research from the Colorado Health Institute has shown that people who lead an active lifestyle are more resilient to stress and less anxious.
- Physical activity helps fight depression. This is due to the release of serotonin and dopamine during exercise. Additionally, exercise helps a person gain a sense of control over their life.
- How does physical activity affect attention? Doctors often recommend that children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder play sports. This is an alternative to drug treatment. The reason is that sport helps the brain develop functions such as consistency, the ability to prioritize, and endurance.
- An interesting fact is that anaerobic training leads to an increase in the size of the hypothalamus and cerebral cortex. They are responsible for memory and learning ability. Strength training does not have such an effect, since its effect is aimed at increasing the heart rate and concentrating attention on a specific exercise.
- A study by Lorenza Colzato and Justine Pannekok, “The Effects of Exercise on Divergent Thinking,” showed that a person experiences a creative boost immediately after exercise. And this effect lasts for several more hours. It has been proven that physically active people offer more interesting ideas at work or school than those who lead a sedentary lifestyle. This effect is explained by the fact that training promotes the production of serotonin, which is called the “happiness hormone.” It is a brain neurotransmitter, a substance that transmits brain impulses between nerve cells. Serotonin becomes a hormone when it enters the blood. Physical activity promotes the production of serotonin, which is primarily responsible for self-confidence and a surge of strength.
- Physical activity also affects your mood. People who exercise feel happier and emotionally stable. Their anxiety decreases and depression goes away. This is explained by the fact that in addition to serotonin, physical activity promotes more active production of dopamine - this is a substance that is responsible for the psycho-emotional state. Dopamine supports brain and heart function, controls weight, increases performance, and improves mood. Regular exercise is the key to maintaining dopamine at normal levels.
Why do many professional athletes seem not very smart?
We have already figured out how to improve brain activity and how physical activity affects the brain. But why do many athletes fail to shine with their intellectual abilities? Firstly, it all depends on what a person does besides sports, whether he is interested in something else. If a person devotes his entire life only to sports and grueling training, then it is clear that he simply cannot prove himself in other areas. Secondly, professional athletes are often forced to experience incredible effort and stress. This negatively affects the nervous system. Grueling workouts do not benefit the body.
If you read the biographies of modern athletes, you will see that they are interesting, versatile personalities. Many of them achieved success outside of sports.
When we talk about how physical activity affects the brain, we are not talking about professional sports and heavy loads, but about an active lifestyle. It is enough to walk for at least 30 minutes a day. fresh air to strengthen blood vessels and enrich the brain with oxygen.
What physical activity is best for the brain?
- Gymnastics helps improve blood circulation throughout the body and enhances brain nutrition.
- Walks in the open air. If you are tired and cannot solve a problem, go out into the fresh air. Even a short walk leads to insight and new thoughts.
- Swimming is one of the safest types of physical activity that has a beneficial effect on brain function. During swimming, not only all muscle groups work, but also breathing exercises are carried out, which enrich the brain with oxygen.
- Breathing exercises does not require you to devote special time to it. It can be done at work, at home, without distraction from your main activities. It supplies the brain with oxygen and improves memory.
- Yoga develops not only the flexibility of the body, but also the mind.
- Dancing is a special sport. Classes bring pleasure, lift your spirits, develop coordination and aesthetics of movements.
- Cycling is both a cardio exercise and an outdoor activity. Strengthens blood vessels, improves heart function.
- Any team sports (football, volleyball, tennis, badminton) are very useful.
How to choose the right type of physical activity and what rules need to be followed in order to physical exercise bring maximum benefit to your body.
- If you care about your intellect, then choose a sport that is not hazardous to injury.
- Classes should be held in such a mode that you do not feel exhausted. You should feel slightly tired, which after rest is replaced by a surge of strength.
- Don't indulge in frequent extreme sports. The adrenaline release causes brain activity, but it is aimed at survival. If you want to have a sound mind until old age, good memory– It’s better to engage in calm sports.
- Regularity of exercise is very important. It is important to develop a habit. Sport should be constantly present in your life. Become a way of your life.
- To develop a habit, you have to try different types sports and choose the one that brings you the most pleasure. It is much easier to get used to something pleasant and not give up on it than to try to force yourself.
You must understand that any, even minimal physical activity affects your brain, your body and improves your health.
An active lifestyle is an important component of a person’s life. It promotes self-development, keeping the body toned and in excellent physical shape.
The impact of physical activity on the human brain is difficult to overestimate. Strengthening blood vessels, producing the happiness hormones serotonin and dopamine, strengthening the nervous system due to faster growth and restoration of nerve cells, enlarging the hypothalamus and cerebral cortex - just 30 minutes 3 times a week. Find time for yourself and maintain your health, youth and sanity for life
Kirill Stasevich
Why do we do running, aerobics, swimming? To look better, reset excess weight so that the blood vessels and heart are in order... And hardly anyone goes to a fitness club to improve memory or attention. But it has long been known: physical exercise has a beneficial effect not only on the body, but also on the psyche. It would seem that everything is obvious: if a person does not abuse a sedentary lifestyle, he gets sick less, and this only benefits the brain. But the connection between physical exercise and mental function, as research has shown in recent years, may be closer and more immediate.
There is a lot of research here. For example, a review paper published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine a few months ago suggested that age-related decline in cognitive function in people over fifty years of age can be slowed down by systematic physical activity. Older adults who do aerobic exercise combined with resistance exercise perform better psychological tests, in which you need to quickly switch from one task to another, think tactically, concentrate and actively use working memory (this is the name of the department of memory that works with current information; for details about what working memory is and how it works, see “Science and life" no. Older people are attracted to such studies for obvious reasons: the brain naturally weakens with age, and therefore it becomes easier to assess the factors that inhibit this process. However, there are similar data for young people and even children. Thus, an article in the journal “Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise” (April 2017) states that in children aged 9 to 11 years, physical fitness and good working memory go hand in hand: if a child has developed muscles, then and he will perform well on memory tests and, importantly, demonstrate academic success. (All this, of course, is very different from the usual idea of a stupid school strongman and a smart but frail “nerd.”)
A 2016 article in the journal Neurology noted that the difference in biological brain age between those who regularly exercise and those who are not physically active can be as much as ten years. At the same time, what exactly a person does is important. Several years ago, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh (USA) compared how the state of the brain changed over the course of a year in older people who either went for a brisk walk three times a week (quite long - from 30 to 45 minutes) or did exercises stretching. It turned out that in those who walked, some areas of the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, responsible for planning and memory, increased in size. The increase was small, only 2-3%, but it was still enough to overcome the age-related “shrinking” of the brain. The walking participants also showed good results in tests of spatial memory. In those who did stretching for a year, the hippocampus continued to shrink, as usually happens in old age.
There is evidence that physical activity helps reduce cognitive impairment in schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease; in particular, in patients with schizophrenia, after several months of quite moderate exercise, the hippocampus increased by 12%. Finally, those who play sports know very well that exercise relieves stress and gives a feeling of mild euphoria.
But why is all this happening? Why does physical activity help relieve stress, improve memory, and enlarge certain areas of the brain? There are several explanations here. Let's start with emotions and stress.
It is believed that the feeling of euphoria that occurs after prolonged physical activity appears due to endocannabinoids - neurotransmitter molecules that are synthesized in the brain and act on neurons in various nerve centers. Endocannabinoids have many functions: they are involved in the regulation of appetite, influence memory, learning and emotions, and, in addition, serve as a kind of internal pain reliever, which the brain resorts to in a variety of cases. Exercise stimulates the release of neurotransmitters, which reduce anxiety and cause a slight feeling of joy.
But there are other anti-stress mechanisms that are activated when playing sports. It is known that stress and depression cause atrophy of neurons and synapses: connections between nerve cells weaken and break, and new ones are not formed. The nerve cell becomes “non-contact” and unnecessary, the overall diversity of nerve circuits decreases, and the decrease in the number of nerve circuits in turn affects cognitive abilities and the ability to find a way out difficult situations. Two years ago, researchers from the University of Georgia (USA) showed that in rats that lead an active lifestyle, neurons successfully resist the stress effect, maintaining the ability to form more and more new cellular contacts. And this happens thanks to the neuropeptide galanin, the level of which increases noticeably after exercise and increases precisely in the areas of the brain responsible for fighting stress. The anti-stress effect of “fitness” provided by galanin was also manifested in the behavior of rats: the animals, despite the unpleasant circumstances that were arranged for them in the experiment, were active and curious - in other words, they were not very worried about the troubles and did not drown in stress.
If we talk about cognitive functions and the increase in certain areas of the brain, then one explanation suggests itself: exercise makes the heart beat faster, therefore, the blood supply to the brain improves and it begins to work better. This hypothesis is supported by the results of researchers from the University of Texas at Dallas (USA): in 2013, they published a paper in the journal “Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience” in which they stated that physical exercise stimulates blood flow to the posterior cingulate cortex and hippocampus. In both cases, metabolism increased and neuron activity increased. Participants in the experiment who regularly exercised in the gym performed better on memory tests, and the changes occurred in exactly the following order: first, blood flow improved, then cognitive performance.
But blood isn't everything. Cells in our body do not grow by themselves; they need molecular signals - special proteins that act on cellular receptors, pushing the cells to certain actions. Proteins that stimulate the growth and development of neurons are called neurotrophins, and the most active among them is BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor, neurotrophic, or neurotropic, brain factor). BDNF includes genes that control the growth of nerve cells and the formation of new synapses, and therefore nerve circuits, and it is especially active in the hippocampus and cortex, that is, in areas responsible for learning and memory. It has been observed that in both animals and humans, the level of BDNF increases sharply with physical exercise, and that with a jump in BDNF, hippocampal growth and improvement in cognitive functions occur. Experiments on mice have shown that the level of the signaling protein remains high for several days after “fitness”. In 2013, an article was published in the journal Cell Metabolism, the authors of which described the chain of signals from muscles to the brain. Researchers were able to identify a protein released from working muscles, which, acting through several intermediaries, gives a signal to special brain cells to synthesize this same BDNF. That is, the muscles themselves give the brain a stimulating signal.
Interestingly, according to one hypothesis, the human brain evolved as people became physically more resilient. It is known that more hardy animals have larger brains than less hardy animals (of course, if we compare animals of approximately the same size). On the other hand, there are experiments on the reproduction of rodent “athletes”. Individuals who ran tirelessly in the squirrel wheel were repeatedly crossed with each other, and as a result, curious molecular features appeared in the offspring - their levels of various growth factors, including BDNF, increased. In 2012, an article appeared in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society Biology B describing the following scenario. When our ancestors began to hunt, the luckiest were those who could run long and hard, chasing wounded prey. Obviously, the hardiest individuals received an evolutionary advantage: they ate better, brought prey to the group, were popular with the opposite sex, etc. Their genes passed from generation to generation, including the gene that provides high levels of BDNF. The protein initially worked in the muscles, helping the nerves in them grow (following the strengthening of muscle tissue, its innervation should also increase). However, then the excess BDNF reached the brain, and it sharply began to grow. Of course, there were other important evolutionary factors that made humans “brainy,” but the muscle-brain connection through BDNF may well have played a role.
Over time, new variants began to appear in the gene encoding BDNF, and now the effect of the neurotropic factor will most likely depend on the form in which the BDNF gene was acquired by an individual. This gene has a special variant that can be found in approximately 30% of people - in its carriers, some areas of the brain are smaller than in others, and the person himself is more predisposed to neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases. Researchers from the University of Milan found that if there is such a special BDNF gene in the genome, then exercise does not work against stress and anxiety. (Given the role of the protein BDNF in the brain, it is not surprising that it also influences the stress response.) However, exercise affects the activity of a number of genes in the brain, many of which are not directly related to synapses and the transmission of neural impulses. So we'll have to wait until researchers get a full picture of how muscles act on the brain, although you can start exercising right now.
Dictionary
Synapse- a connection between two neurons or between a neuron and some other cell, where the transmission of a nerve impulse occurs using neurotransmitter substances of different nature.
Hippocampus- the area of the brain responsible for short-term memory and its transformation into long-term memory. In addition, the hippocampus provides spatial orientation and is involved in the formation of emotions.
Prefrontal cortex- a section of the cerebral cortex, which is the anterior part of the frontal lobes. The prefrontal cortex is extremely closely connected with most brain structures, and its main function is to control thinking in general and regulate behavior in accordance with internal motives and plans.
A direct relationship has been identified between physical activity and mental health. Physical exercise can have a targeted effect on the human brain, activating its individual areas. Combinations of training help improve memory and concentration.
Can you make yourself, your parents and your children smarter?
Since 2008, scientists have published research that shows that cognitive ability—the ability to learn, solve new problems and problems, and understand the deeper essence of things—can be developed through training and education.
Science journalist Dan Hurley's book Get Smart offers practical brain development solutions for people of all ages and abilities, illustrated with real-life stories.
The effect of exercise on brain development
Not a single cliché in the world can boast such an etymology as the phrase “In healthy body healthy mind." This fragment from the work of the ancient Roman poet Juvenal has been widely known for two thousand years. Its essence lies in the fact that two parts of a person - spirit and body - go hand in hand with each other; if there is no one, there will be no other.
But is this literally true? Can exercise really make you smarter—so much so that doctors should prescribe exercise for a person at risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, a middle-aged professional who wants to regain his former acumen, or a child who is having trouble learning?
In modern society, there are two rather contradictory stereotypes on this matter. On the one hand, we today tend to associate fitness with intelligence. We like our company leaders and our politicians to be neat and tidy; Chris Christie, the governor of my beautiful state of New Jersey, was so tired of telling people the reasons for his obesity that in early 2013 he went under the surgeon's knife and had a gastric bypass.
On the other hand, none of us expects a hockey player or a weightlifter to win any intellectual competition. Brawn and brains don't always go together. The hunky Arnold Schwarzenegger has achieved his greatest success in Hollywood by portraying not-so-bright thugs.
Yet experiments conducted between the 1960s and 1970s clearly confirmed that physical exercise has a positive effect on a person’s mental performance. A classic 1975 study, for example, found that older adults who played tennis or badminton tended to perform significantly better on simple cognitive tests than their non-athlete peers.
In the 1980s, there was a ton of research, mostly on older people, but the results remained mostly speculative until two of today's most respected cognitive psychologists began to study the effects of swimming in depth.
The actual experiment was carried out by Harold Hawkins, a psychologist whom I quoted in Chapter 1 and who currently directs the program at the US Navy's Advanced Research Projects Agency. He is studying the effectiveness of cognitive training in hopes of improving the intellectual abilities of American military personnel.
Among the dozen research teams he is currently funding are our old friends Jaeggi and Buschkühl. Before joining the Agency, Hawkins worked at the University of Oregon on a grant from the National Institute on Aging, when he conducted his experiment.
“I was talking to Harold one day and he said to me, ‘Art, I collected this data about a year ago and haven’t done anything with it yet. Would you like to take a look?”
Arthur Kramer, a psychology professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, became director of the university's Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology in 2010. However, twenty years earlier, he was an emerging and very promising cognitive neuroscientist who had never before studied the role of exercise in brain development. It was then that that fateful conversation for Art took place with Harold Hawkins, which he recalls.
The materials Kramer Hawkins provided were amazing. He began by reviewing previous research in this area, which led him to an important conclusion: the thinking skills of older people decline most noticeably if they have to divide their attention. To finally test this observation, the scientist designed and conducted an interesting study - he compared the cognitive skills of 14 people aged 20 to 35 with the skills of the same number of people aged 65 to 74.
Participants, seated with headphones in front of computer screens, were asked to press a specific key with the middle finger of their right hand if they saw one letter on the screen, and another key with the index finger of the same hand if they saw a second letter. In addition, when they heard a certain sound, they had to click on the third key with the middle finger of their left hand, and when hearing a different sound, they had to click on the fourth key with the index finger of the same hand. Hawkins first tested the speed and accuracy of their responses to auditory cues only, then to visual cues only, and finally to both cues together.
So, when reactions to auditory and visual signals were tested separately, the speed and accuracy of older subjects were only slightly worse than those of younger participants in the experiment, but when the test was carried out simultaneously for both types of signals, the performance of older subjects was significantly lower. Their ability to distribute attention was incomparably worse than that of young people, and this was explained mainly by the effect of aging.
Deciding to see if these age-related declines could be slowed down through exercise of cardio-vascular system, Hawkins designed and conducted the second experiment. It involved 40 men and women aged 63 to 82 years, none of whom had previously exercised regularly. Half of the subjects agreed to participate in a ten-week program, doing 45 minutes a day in different aquatic species sports at the YMCA in Eugene; the other half was asked to continue to lead the same, non-sports lifestyle.
At the end of the experiment, it turned out that in not a single individual test for reaction to visual and sound signals did the “athletes” show better results than representatives of the second group; But they invariably passed the combined visual-auditory tests much more successfully. In just ten weeks, their ability to multitask improved dramatically.
“It was just a miracle! Hawkins found a clear positive effect of exercise on cognitive function, recalled Kramer, who analyzed and reported on these studies; they were published in 1992 in the journal Psychology and Aging. “But I didn’t feel satisfied then.” I wanted to know if these results could be replicated and if other studies would allow the same conclusions to be drawn.”
In other words, although Hawkins “launched the ball” of physical exercise, it was Kramer who picked it up and ran with it further. In 1999, he, nine colleagues from the Beckman Institute and another researcher from Bar-Ilan University in Israel, published a report on another study in the journal Nature, the most famous and respected periodical in all fields of science.
Its essence was as follows. 124 previously sedentary older adults aged 60 and 75 (randomly assigned to two groups) were asked to engage in either gentle aerobic exercise—walking—or anaerobic exercise, stretching, and toning.
“As we age,” the researchers wrote, carefully following the rules of British spelling in an article for a respectable British journal, “neural areas and cognitive processes deteriorate unevenly. The greatest and most disproportionate negative changes with age are observed in executive control processes, as well as in the prefrontal and frontal regions of the brain.”
It's this type of age-related decline in executive control that explains why a 1992 study found that multitasking suffers most with aging. This is because effective functioning in this mode requires not only the kind of simple attention and concentration that a cat uses when tracking a mouse, or a dog who notices a cat, but also the rapid, consciously controlled shifts in focus that humans excel at. This happens, for example, when we simultaneously look at the clock, watch a cartoon on TV and prepare for exams.
So, the efficiency of performing tasks that did not require a change of focus in both groups that were engaged in walking and toning for six months was almost the same, but when the subjects needed to switch from task to task, the “walkers” showed significantly better results than those who did the toning. This was especially surprising given the fact that members of the first group walked for just three hours a week, which increased their average maximum oxygen consumption by only 5.1 percent.
As you would expect, thanks to the excellent reputation of the journal that published the report and the unambiguous results of the study, all the world’s most popular media reported on the study, from the BBC (the report was called “Exercise improves brain function”) to the New York Times (“Good exercise for the older mind”). Subsequently, Arthur Kramer published a dozen studies on the effects of physical exercise on human cognitive abilities, including two involving children.
Thus, in 2010, a report was published on a study using MRI scans of the brains of nine- and ten-year-old children. It showed that boys and girls with greater aerobic capacity had better memory and a larger hippocampus, the seahorse-shaped part of the brain's limbic system that plays a key role in both short- and long-term memory.
Kramer's second study, published in 2012, demonstrated that more athletic children had higher levels of cognitive control; They are able to concentrate longer on tests, and there is greater activity in the frontal lobes of their brain during testing.
One of the few randomized experiments on the effect of physical education on mental development The children were tested not by Kramer, but by researchers from Furman University in Greenville. They worked with African American students in grades two through eight. high school. The scientists randomly divided the children into two groups. One was due throughout 2009/2010 school year exercise 45 minutes a day.
At the end of this period, they were supposed to be compared with the second group, which did not participate in the sports program. Testing revealed that by May 2010, students from the first group showed significantly better results compared to members of the control group on 8 of 26 criteria for cognitive performance (as well as on 7 of 16 physical indicators).
It should be noted that if these findings are confirmed by other studies, this will have very serious consequences for our school system, which over the past several decades has significantly reduced the amount of time allocated to physical education in favor of core academic programs and test preparation. It will be ironic when it turns out that by limiting the time children spend in gyms and sports fields, education officials prevented them from developing the very cognitive abilities they so wanted to improve.
Meanwhile, the fact of the positive impact of physical exercise on the intelligence of graying representatives of the baby boomer generation can already be considered indisputable.
“There have been at least four meta-analyses based on formally published studies in the last ten years,” Kramer told me. “And they all came to the same conclusion: physical training has a significant effect on cognitive abilities. Today, a lot of research has been carried out in this area around the world. It is curious that all of them have nothing to do with brain gymnastics - in no way.
You don't learn anything. You just do walking, swimming, cycling, etc. Just three times a week. But it does result in improved cognitive performance across a wide range of aspects of memory, perception and decision-making. It’s amazing what huge results can be achieved with such a small lifestyle change.”
However, it should be recognized that not everyone shares Kramer’s belief in the effectiveness of gentle aerobic exercise compared to other sports. For example, a 2008 Cochrane review questioned whether the cognitive benefits associated with cardio training were due solely to improvements in cardiovascular health rather than increases in muscle strength and other effects of exercise.
The main supporter and promoter of strength training as a means of developing cognitive function, I would name Teresa Liu-Ambrose, a forty-year-old lover of sports running and dogs, a mother of three children with a very impressive list of academic achievements and titles. Teresa is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physiotherapy at the University of British Columbia, a Professor at the Canadian Center for Research in Physical Activity, Mobility and Cognitive Neuroscience, Director of Research at the Injury Prevention Clinic at Vancouver General Hospital, and Director of the university's Aging, Mobility and Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory.
“My first degree was in physical therapy,” Teresa told me. – For two years I dealt mainly with athletes, from national level to amateurs, and then I started working with older people and returned to study again. In 2004, I completed my doctorate on injury prevention and bone health in older adults and began working in physical therapy with seventy-five to eighty-five year old women. Pretty soon I noticed that this population group was suffering greatly from information overload. Something like, “I can’t come to class today because I have to fill out my taxes.” And this is in January!
I had quite a few truly amazing moments during that period. For example, at the beginning of the study, I had to pick up some people at their homes and take them to class myself because my students had difficulty using public transport. But by the end of the study, they were all doing great on their own. One woman worked as an accountant before retiring. So, already in the middle of our classes, she suddenly decided to go to work again and became a freelance consultant. From my point of view, positive dynamics were evident. So I took up the problem of the effect of physical exercise on the state of the brain.”
In 2010, Liu-Ambrose and her Vancouver colleagues published the results of a study that included 155 women aged 65 to 75 years. The study was randomized: the first group was prescribed to do weight training (this is a physical therapy technique) once a week, the second group - twice a week, the third, control group was supposed to do toning and balance training twice a week. As a result, both groups involved in strength training, improved their scores on a standard measure of cognitive control by more than 10 percent, while the aerobics group's scores dropped by half a percent.
A subsequent study, published in 2012, yielded even more impressive results. Liu-Ambrose and colleagues recruited 86 older women with mild memory complaints consistent with mild cognitive impairment and randomized them into three groups. The first did weight training for six months, the second did toning and balance training, and the third did aerobics.
By the end of the study, the aerobics group had significantly improved on measures of balance, mobility, and cardiovascular efficiency, but none of the measures of cognitive functioning had changed. But women who did resistance training performed significantly better on tests of attention, conflict resolution and memory. And when tested using MRI, only this group showed clear signs of activation of three areas of the cerebral cortex at once.
Liu-Ambrose said she was pleased that resistance training had a greater impact on a person's cognitive performance than aerobic exercise, primarily because many sedentary older adults simply cannot do aerobic exercise. “A significant proportion of these people are truly physically unable to do this,” the researcher told me. In addition, weight training extremely rarely leads to falls and injuries, which, as we know, often have the most negative consequences in old age.
“The key to our weight training is its progressive nature,” says Teresa. – And they must also be individual. We carefully evaluate each client's ability to lift a particular weight, and then apply the principle of overload.
This means that a person must be willing to challenge their muscles a little beyond their comfort level and still maintain proper form. And we monitor each lesson for the slightest improvements and, noticing them, increase the load by 10–20 percent. We believe this gradual progression is extremely important for the positive impact of resistance training on brain health.”
These words echo the opinions of many other researchers. The success of the weight training that Liu-Ambrose told me about depends on the same method that Jaeggy and Bushkühl used in their N-back exercises. In both cases, it is extremely important to determine as accurately as possible the initial abilities of each individual, and then, as they develop, increase the load or complexity of the tasks. These trainings are different in nature - one is physical, the other is cognitive - but their essence is to force a person to work at the limit of his capabilities all the time. Results are achieved by gradually increasing this limit.
The Lew-Ambrose training scheme includes only six basic exercises, including leg press, hamstring curls, high and low block rows. You can see it all with your own eyes in a very interesting, well-made video on YouTube by either searching the researcher's name or typing "Exercise Is Power" into Google.
However, despite Liu-Ambrose's firm belief in the benefits of weight training, she happily welcomes aerobics - if you see what it brings real results. She says, “Jogging, if done strictly according to Art Kramer's recommendations, consistently leads to positive changes.” And the main problem, according to Teresa, is to convince people to exercise.
“We have to approach five hundred people to find a hundred who will agree to participate in our experiments,” she laments. “And out of these hundred, only 80–85 people remain with us until the end of the study. And we have to work hard so that they don’t quit the program ahead of time. The human factor plays the greatest role here. It is the trainer-instructor who is called upon to establish the necessary relationships with the participants in the experiment, for which he must show a sincere interest in their lives.”
Another major problem, she said, is the lack of gyms equipped for weight training. “There are not many widely available places for this type of training. There are still some of these in Vancouver, but if you go outside the major city, there are very, very few of them.
Most local communities offer some kind of wellness program for older people, but mostly these are lighter options: balance training or gentle aerobics. And even if weightlifting elements are included in the program, they are missing the most important element of progression. We as a society undoubtedly need to do more to offer older people programs that actually help them.”
As things stand now, the steady decline in physical fitness around the world, coupled with ever-increasing levels of obesity, is literally dumbing down humanity.
This, however, does not apply to members of the US Supreme Court, who have their own gym just for their own, safely hidden behind the famous white marble columns. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who turned 80 on March 15, 2013, began working with a personal trainer in 1999 after recovering from colon cancer. Her workout program lasts one hour and includes warm-up, stretching, strength training and balance training.
“When I started training, I was like an Auschwitz survivor,” Ginsburg recalled in an interview with the Washington Post. “Now I do up to 20 push-ups.” Of his trusty trainer, Bryant Johnson, Judge says, “I consider myself healthy because of our meetings twice a week. This is very important to me." So, the point is clear. I confidently incorporated exercise into my training regimen.
Good afternoon Still looking for motivation to exercise. Me too). I found a lot of useful, scientifically proven and proven information about how sports affects the brain. I think after reading the article and watching the suggested videos, you will definitely go in for sports for at least a month.
Many people have the equally widespread and erroneous belief that good physical fitness and a person's passion for sports and physical activity negatively affect his thinking abilities. Basically, this opinion is formed due to the widespread cliche of the “stupid jock”, a clear example of which in the mass media is the same Kuzya from the television series “Univer”.
In the real world, divorced from the television screen, everything looks completely different. Numerous studies by scientists around the world prove and confirm the fact that physical activity, on the contrary, only improves brain function - including those aspects that are associated with long-term memory.
Fun experiment
The origins of scientific research in this vein were one outstanding fact that quite accidentally caught the eye of scientists. One school in Illinois inexplicably had significantly higher average student achievement and health scores than other schools in the United States. Since this happened back in the seventies, scientists did not immediately understand why this phenomenon arose.
In fact, everything turned out to be quite simple. Students had physical training lessons every day, before the start of the main classes. Thus, the children had time to wake up and warm up early in the morning. In addition to high average performance, the school at the time of the research had an extremely low percentage of overweight students - only 3% of the total number of students, which was an extremely good indicator for the United States even at that time.
Later, scientists were able to scientifically substantiate the data obtained and prove that it was daily physical education lessons that gave such an interesting, unexpected and powerful result.
Why does sport have a positive effect on the brain?
Why does sport provide exclusively positive influence on the human brain? Physical training, like any other activity of the human body, provokes various electrochemical processes in it. It is thanks to them that physical activity strengthens not only muscle and cartilage tissue, but also improves the thinking and cognitive abilities of the human brain.
Strengthening neural connections
The first reason why human physical activity has a beneficial effect on the brain is the strengthening of neural connections in brain tissue. How does it work?
To do this, you will have to understand the operation of neural connections, thanks to which data is transmitted through the nervous system. Neurons are connected to each other not physically, but chemically - and the connection between them is carried out through special hormones that play the role of neurotransmitters - dopamine (dopamine), serotonin and norepinephrine.
And dopamine is one of the most powerful mediators of motivation. Our desire to do something, complete some tasks, and even just take on them is largely tied to dopamine. So, if you need motivation to do something to achieve your goal, go in for sports.
Physical activity of the body increases the rate of production of these hormones, due to which the mechanism of our brain significantly accelerates. At the same time, the brain works more productively.
In addition, physical activity allows you to more rationally use the reserve of proteins accumulated in the body, but not yet absorbed. Not only muscle mass increases, but also the “bodies” of nerve cells. A neuron is an elongated tree-like structure with a large number of processes, each of which can be used to create new neural connections. A special group of proteins called BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor) is used by the brain to increase the branching of neurons - making the brain more productive in the long term.
Preparing for training
As a result of the production of the hormones serotonin (the hormone of joy), dopamine (the hormone of pleasure) and norepinephrine (the hormone of concentration), a person involved in sports is constantly in high spirits. It is not for nothing that many psychologists advise using physical activity as a means of combating anxious thoughts, depressive moods and other states of consciousness that adversely affect brain function.
Thus, sport allows you to put your head in order, saving you from unnecessary negative thoughts. Physical activity helps you focus on specific task– learning – and achieve considerable success in it.
Improved neurogenesis
It should also be noted that statements about the irreplaceability of nerve cells are misinformation. Like other tissues of the human body, nerve cells can reproduce themselves by simple division. However, there is one important subtlety: not all nerve cells that appear in our body are included in the work of the nervous system; and if such a “disabled” cell exists in this state for a long enough time (two to three weeks), then it dies irreversibly.
Physical activity allows you to more effectively integrate new nerve cells into nervous system, thereby increasing the number of neural connections and improving the cognitive functions of the brain. This was revealed in a simple experiment on two control groups of laboratory rats: the group that had the opportunity to increase their physical activity with the help of various toys (like a running wheel) had a significantly more developed nervous system than a group of relatives deprived of such benefits.
Necessary afterword
Thus, we can confidently say that sport is not only a healthy, beautiful, strong and resilient body, but also a brain that works better than normal.
In the long term, sport makes the nervous system more complex, thereby increasing the number of neural connections and providing the brain with the necessary amount of neurotransmitter substances. A simple warm-up or jog before you need to memorize notes will give you a higher level of concentration and add positive emotions necessary for better assimilation of information.
Of course, sport means simple physical activity during which your body does not suffer direct or indirect damage. Of course, if you decide to take up boxing for this purpose, the effect will be somewhat different - mainly due to frequent blows aimed at the head.
What do you think about the experiments conducted? I don’t think so, I went to do squats. I will be glad to see your comments and suggestions, as well as your motivations for playing sports.
