Brain training: the workouts to boost mental fitness

It adds to the growing amount of evidence that exercise is as good for the brain as the body. “We now know [that] not only does the brain rejuvenate itself by growing new cells but that exercise appears to be among the best ways to promote this neurogenesis,” says James Goodwin, a visiting professor at Loughborough University and the author of Supercharge Your Brain, which was published this month by Bantam Press. “Exercise generates proteins called irisin and cathepsin B in the muscles and, through blood flow to the brain, these proteins reach the neurons and stimulate production of a chemical called BDNF [brain-derived neurotrophic factor] that maintains existing brain cells, stimulates the growth of new ones and helps to create connections between them.”

Goodwin says that we should all be exercising not just to look and feel good but because it is the best thing we can do for our cognitive health. But what are the rules for boosting mental fitness at the gym?

Work out hard for 40 minutes
It’s not just what form of exercise you do but how you do it that matters. So what’s the best way to bolster your brain cells? A hard workout. “If you want to max out on BDNF production it will take 40 minutes of continuous exercise performed at 80 per cent of your highest effort,” Goodwin says.

Scientists use MET (metabolic equivalent of task) values as a guide to the intensity of exercise and Goodwin says that any activity of MET 5, meaning you’re exerting five times the energy you would if sitting still, or higher is beneficial. Cycling at a moderate pace has a MET value of 6 to 8.5, skipping is 12.3, jogging is 6 to 7 and faster running at about 6 minutes per mile can be as high as 16.

Emerging evidence suggests that there may be subtle sex differences in the brain fitness responses to varying intensities of exercise. In one paper published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour last year, sports scientists at the University of Basel found that in females of all ages the positive brain effect of vigorous exercise “disappears if the intensity is increased too quickly”, meaning that women should perform low to medium intensity activities for longer duration to increase their cognitive fitness in the long term. In men, working up to and then maintaining a high intensity level of workout brought the most significant improvements in cognitive performance. In general though, scientists say that the more effort you put into a workout the better. “Exercise until you are red-faced for 40 minutes a day is the message for your brain,” Goodwin says.

Yoga brings brain health benefits on a par with cardiovascular activity

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Yoga will make you brain more efficient
Is regular yoga a substitute for brain health if you’re not into running or cycling? Mats Hallgren, an assistant professor in the department of global public health at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and the lead author of a review published in the journal Complementary Therapies in Medicine next month, says that, practised regularly for about 45 to 60 minutes at least three times a week, yoga brings brain health benefits on a par with cardiovascular activity.

“So far research suggests that the magnitude of the benefits of yoga and aerobic exercise on cognition are approximately equal,” Hallgren says. “Which is good news because not everyone can, or wants to, perform moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise.”

Like other forms of exercise, yoga works by increasing blood flow to the brain so that there is more glucose — the “fuel” that enables the brain to function efficiently — circulating throughout but it offers additional benefits, including better balance, co-ordination and flexibility.

“Regular practice of yoga may also change the brain’s structure and ‘plasticity’ by increasing the number of neurons in key areas of the brain associated with learning, memory and executive functioning, including prefrontal context, hippocampus and amygdala,” Hallgren says. “Over time yoga may help the brain to generate new cells within these regions and also improve the communication between the different brain areas. Yoga is also shown to be associated with hormonal changes such as reduced plasma cortisol and ACTH [adrenocorticotropic hormone], hormones linked to stress and indirectly to cognitive functioning. The net result is that the brain works more effectively, and this can be assessed using cognitive tests.”

Exercise before breakfast for a brain boost
As a founding member of the Global Council on Brain Health, an independent collaboration of scientists and health experts, Goodwin says that he has sifted through hundreds of published papers on activity and cognitive maintenance in recent years. The 71-year-old has “completely changed his lifestyle” to put proven brain-boosting strategies into practice. He now eats his last meal before 8pm each day and gets up at 8am the next morning to drink a large mug of black coffee and head out for a three-mile run.

“I don’t eat anything until 10am, after I get back and have showered,” Goodwin says. “It means I force my brain to flick the metabolic switch from relying on glucose to relying on ketones, and all of the evidence shows that if we exercise on empty like this on a repeated basis it is immensely helpful for preventing brain ageing.”

Dance, t’ai chi and team sports provide an added brain boost
Regular exercise will help your brain to produce new cells but Goodwin says that you then need to engage in activities that cement them in place and enable them to make new connections. “If these new cells are just left to their own devices then they will go into pre-programmed cell death and most will die within two to three weeks. It requires cognitive-stimulating activities to maintain them, and that means anything that involves the sustained effort of learning a physical skill.”

Mind games and crosswords are not enough. “Dancing and t’ai chi are excellent examples of activities that will cement your brain cells,” Goodwin says.

Sports and activities that challenge co-ordination and require more complex movement patterns along with interaction between participants were shown in the University of Basel research to provide an added edge for the brain. “To co-ordinate during a sport seems to be even more important than the total volume of sporting activity,” says Dr Sebastian Ludyga, an exercise scientist and a lead author of the paper. Any team sport works, as do tennis, squash and golf.

Run yourself smarter
Any form of aerobic exercise — including stair-climbing, cycling and running — has the power to improve specific thinking power in young as well as older adults, according to a study published in the journal Neurology.

Participants were randomly assigned to aerobic exercise or stretching four times a week. After six months the aerobic exercise boosted a specific set of thinking skills called executive function, which is related to attention, focus and achieving goals, significantly more than the stretching routine. “We found that all participants who exercised aerobically not only showed improvements in executive function but also increased the thickness in an area of the outer layer of their brain,” said the study’s author, Yaakov Stern, a researcher at Columbia University in New York and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. “Our research confirms that exercise can be beneficial to adults of any age.”

Running may hold particular benefits. A 2020 study by the University of California San Diego suggests that running on a treadmill may increase brain plasticity — the brain’s ability to change and adapt — and enhance motor skill acquisition. “There is plenty of evidence that running is beneficial,” Goodwin says. “Even if many studies are conducted on animals, there are undoubted benefits for humans.”

Add short, hard bursts of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) style sprints into your run and the return could be greater. German researchers showed how runners who incorporated two three-minute bouts of high-intensity running into a 40-minute run produced much higher levels of BDNF and performed 20 per cent better in post-run cognitive skill tests than those who ran at a more leisurely pace.

Lifting weights strengthens memory
If resistance training is more your thing, then emerging research suggests that weights can help to strengthen your brain power and memory. A team of Australian researchers working with men and women aged 55 to 86, all of whom had mild cognitive impairment, asked half of them to do stretching exercises twice a week and the others to do weight training (lifting 80 per cent of the maximum amount they could) twice a week for six months. While the weight training group scored significantly higher in cognitive tests at the end of the study than at the beginning and retained their improved level after 12 months, the stretching group showed a drop in test scores.

Even for people at high risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, lifting weights is beneficial. At the University of Sydney such a group were asked to follow either a computerised brain training programme, just strength training or a combined computer and strength training plan for six months followed by their usual activity for 12 months. Weight training produced the best overall improvements in cognitive performance, something the researchers linked to its ability to protect against degeneration in specific sub-regions of the hippocampus, which plays a big role in learning and memory.

“Strength training can protect some hippocampal sub-regions from degeneration or shrinkage for up to 12 months after the training has stopped,” said Dr Kathryn Broadhouse, who led the research at the University of Sydney.