The Secret to a Better Memory

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Forgot where you put the keys? Forgot why you ran upstairs? Forgetting names, losing your train of thought mid sentence? You know what I’m talking about.

There is no question that as we age, we notice signs of memory decline (I’m talking late 40's, 50's and 60's… not 80's!).

For women, perimenopause and menopause are partly to blame, but did you know that being sedentary plays a big role?

The secret to a better memory? Moving more.

Exercise and movement provide greater blood flow to our brain, especially to the hippocampus, a region that’s crucial for memory.

Blood flow to the brain

Healthy blood flow is a necessity for our brain – and our body – as it transports oxygen and nutrients to every cell in our body, as well as flushes out toxins.

It’s important to understand that it’s not our neurons that age more quickly as we age, rather it’s the blood vessels that feed our neurons that start to age faster.

It’s critical to keep our blood vessels healthy if we want to keep our brain healthy, our mind sharp and our mental health strong for as long as possible.

Does this include preventing/minimizing Alzheimer’s Disease?

Absolutely. It is one of the reasons that exercise is close to (if not at) the top of the list when it comes to Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) prevention, or at the very least the postponing and/or minimizing of AD.

Richard Isaacson, a neurologist and Director of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic at Weill Cornell University, in an excellent podcast with Dr. Peter Attia, states that exercise should be at the TOP of the list for people, starting when we are younger, in our 30s, right through to our 90’s.

Isaacson (and others) say that although not one size fits all, aerobic exercise and resistance/strength training are key. Ideally, a minimum of 150 – 180 minutes/week, with 2/3 cardio and 1/3 strength. He goes on to say that HIIT (high intensity interval training) is the only type of exercise that can move the needle in terms of certain aspects of cognitive function in people with the APOE-4 variant.

I am digressing here, though, because right now, I just want you to move more. Our bodies were made to move, and yet we are leading more sedentary lives than ever before.

Movement is a gift, not a punishment

Most of us take movement for granted. We often only appreciate things when they are gone. Songs have been written about this!

So what exactly does movement give us with respect to our brain function, specifically our memory function?

  • As mentioned above, it can increase the size of our hippocampus, our memory centre.

    • One of the ways it does this is protecting our hippocampus from stress-related hormones, such as cortisol. One of the long term effects of consistently elevated cortisol levels is the shrinking of our hippocampus.

  • It stimulates the production of BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor)

    • BDNF has been referred to as the brain’s Miracle-Gro protein, as it encourages the growth of neurons. It influences both learning and memory, as well as body weight and energy.

  • Movement/exercise decreases the formation of beta-amyloid plaque, the clumps of protein found in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s.

  • It improves mood. Movement and exercise act as anti-depressants. Muscles pump out specific chemicals (myokines) into our blood stream that can cross the blood brain barrier, changing the structure of our brains in ways that make us more resilient to stress.

  • Lowers blood sugar levels, reducing the risk of diabetes (note that Alzheimer’s disease is often referred to as Type 3 Diabetes);

  • It improves the quality of our sleep, which we know has a direct impact on our memory function

I could go on and on. But in reality, it doesn't matter how many amazing benefits I share here. We all know that movement and exercise are good for us, but as per Darryl Edwards, founder of The Primal Play Method and a physical activity, health and play researcher, why are only 5% of people in the UK actually doing the 150 minutes of movement/exercise they need a week?

Exercise is not normal

Just ask Daniel Lieberman. He'll tell you that exercise is “not normal.”

Dr. Daniel Lieberman is a Paleo Archeologist and Professor of Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, and researches cultures around the globe to explain the science of how and why we move today. He states that one of the big problems is that many people actually do view exercise as punishment. And that this is part of normal human behaviour.

Lieberman has written a book titled Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding (here is an article that gives you a quick overview of the book).

He says that knowing 150 min of exercise a week has multiple benefits/gifts for us often isn’t enough to overcome our natural instincts - the instincts that constantly tell us NOT to exercise. These instincts, from hunter-gatherer times, are deep and powerful. That’s because they only expended energy when they had to - approximately 2.25 hours/day looking for food and shelter. The rest of the time (9-10 hours a day), they were sedentary (just like us), because their natural instinct, which we still carry today, was to conserve energy.

Net net - the concept of hunter-gatherers going out for a run “for exercise” would be completely ridiculous!

So for those of you who beat yourselves up over your lack of motivation to exercise, you can stop now. Your lack of motivation is normal :)

So being a couch potato is good? I'm so confused.

No, being a couch potato is not good. Our bodies have evolved to move. It is essential for our well-being. And given we are all naturally living longer, it's important to strive to live those extra years in good health.

Hence there is still the issue of how DO we motivate ourselves to exercise/move? Because just knowing that exercise and movement are good for our memory and so many other things obviously isn’t enough.

Things to get you off the couch

  • Do something you love – dance, yoga, walk, play sports, swim, tai chi, anything that makes you happy. I have a client who just signed up for rowing lessons – she has wanted to learn to row for the longest time, and finally just did it. Do you love animals? Check out a dog shelter to see if you can volunteer to walk a dog.

  • If being social is important to you, find someone to move with. It's much more pleasurable to have company. They can also be your accountability partner.

  • Know that more often than not you WILL have to overcome resistance, and that’s normal (Daniel Lieberman runs very early every morning. In one interview I listened to, he stated that he has never once been excited to jump out of bed and go for a run… and yet he does it, every morning, and has 25 marathons under his belt. His advice is to be compassionate and understand that those resisting voices inside our head are normal, even for “exercise addicts.”

  • Change your mindset - don’t feel you have to set aside 45-60 minute blocks of time to “do” exercise. Do little bits throughout the day:

    • Do pushups against the wall while waiting for your coffee to brew

    • Do a balancing exercise while you are brushing your teeth, morning and evening

  • Sit “more actively” - get up from your desk and do 20 squats every half hour; or just get up from your desk! Go get a cup of tea, walk up and down the stairs a couple of times. As per Leiberman, these frequent interruptions turn on our muscles and other aspects of our metabolism just enough to lower levels of blood sugar and fat, as well as counteract the other negative effects of being sedentary.

  • And if you are keen and looking for simple ways to get your heart rate up, pick up a jump rope, incorporate walking up and down a hill or a set of stairs during your walks, do some jumping jacks.

  • Too tired for any of this? Remember, movement and exercise actually increase our energy levels.

  • Too busy…? Realize that 150 minutes/week translates to just 21 minutes/day. In the scheme of things, that’s not a lot, especially if you break it up during the course of the day.

    One final note that will take us back to where we started… how movement improves our memory.

    Researchers Arthur Kramer and Kirk Erickson conducted a one-year study of 120 people in their 70’s, splitting them into two groups – one group did moderate aerobic activity (a 40 minute walk around a track 3x/week) and the other group did stretching and toning only.

    After a year, the aerobic exercise group demonstrated an increase in volume of their left and right hippocampus, relative to the stretching and toning group, which showed a decrease in hippocampal volume. The aerobic group also showed improved memory function, as well as increased amounts of BDNF in the blood.

    This study proved that the atrophy of our hippocampus is NOT inevitable later in life. Daniel Lieberman would even argue that physical activity becomes more important, not less important, as we age, in part because being sedentary deprives us of all the anti-aging mechanisms that are activated by movement.

“You only get old when you stop walking; you don’t stop walking when you get old.”
Neuroscientist Shane O’Mara


Thanks for reading! Now get moving :)

Gillian x

PS - if you need help navigating anything to do with nutrition, sleep, cognitive health, stress management or ways to incorporate more movement into your life, reach out for a free 30 minute Discovery call. We can determine together if I can help.