How You Can Easily Exercise Without ANY Equipment, or Even Working
Out
February 08, 2013
Story at-a-glance
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You can “change” your brain through thought itself, and
emerging research is showing that mental effort can actually
result in physical changes to your mind and body
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People who simply imagined doing strength-training exercises
increased their muscle strength by 22 percent, compared to
30 percent among those who physically did the exercises
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You can harness the power of your mind to not only help you
improve cognition and learning, but also help you develop
muscle strength, recover movement lost due to a stroke, or
even overcome pain, depression or anxiety
By Dr. Mercola
It used to be thought that your brain was hard-wired,
like a computer, and incapable of changing or recovering
function that was lost.
We now know that this is not true and, in fact, your
brain has a great deal of “plasticity,” meaning it is a
dynamic, changeable structure capable of recovering,
repairing, and regaining functionality that had previously
been lost.
One of the ways you can “change” your brain is actually
through thought itself, and emerging research is showing
that mental effort can actually result in physical changes
to your mind and body.
Even Thinking About Exercise Can Increase Your Muscle
Strength
As the ASAP Science video above shared:
“Imagining an action and doing it require the
same motor and sensory programs in the brain.”
When translated to real-life scenarios, like playing the
piano or exercising, research shows that many of the same
benefits exist for imagined or physical actions. For
instance, those who mentally practiced playing the piano
achieved the same accuracy level as those who physically did
it.
Likewise, people who simply imagined doing
strength-training exercises increased their muscle strength
by 22 percent, compared to 30 percent among those who
physically did the exercises. Now I don’t recommend making
all of your workouts “imaginary,” but the power of your
thoughts to evoke changes in your brain and body is truly
fascinating.
Along these lines, research recently revealed that when
you focus your mind on a specific muscle during a workout,
you work that muscle 22 percent harder.1
By harnessing your brain as a workout tool, you may, in
fact, be able to get in better shape, faster.
In fact, just believing that your daily activities are
exercise has also been shown to improve physical fitness.
Harvard researchers informed one group of hotel housekeepers
that their daily work qualified as exercise, whereas a
control group did not receive this information. Four weeks
later, those who believed their work was a form of exercise
had a decrease in weight, blood pressure, body fat,
waist-to-hip ratio, and body mass index, even though their
behaviors hadn’t actually changed at all.2
How to Harness Neuroplasticity for Your Health and
Well-Being
The ASAP Science video is based on a book – The Brain
That Changes Itself -- by psychiatrist and researcher
Norman Doidge, MD. In it he describes how your thoughts can
literally alter brain anatomy by switching your genes on and
off, and how brain exercises can not only help you improve
cognition and learning, but also help you develop muscle
strength, recover movement lost due to a stroke, or even
overcome pain, depression or anxiety. As stated in the
video:
“Each thought actually changes the structure and
function of your brain by affecting the neurons at the
microscopic level.”
Likewise,
Dr. Michael Merzenich, professor emeritus at the
University of California, who has pioneered research in
brain plasticity for more than 30 years, describes brain
plasticity as follows:
"It's simple in concept. The brain changes
physically, functionally, and chemically, as you acquire
an ability or as you improve an ability. You know this
instinctively. Something must be changing as your brain
advances, as it progresses. Actually what it is
doing is changing the local wiring, changing the details
of how it's connected. It's also changing itself in
other ways, physically, functionally, and those changes
account for that improvement, or account for the
acquisition of an ability. You don't realize it but as
you acquire an ability – let's say, the ability to read
– you actually create a system in the brain that does
not exist, or that's not in place, in the non-reader. It
[the ability] actually evolves in the brain."
Stimulating Your Brain is Key
As Dr. Merzenich explains, your brain is designed and
constructed to be stimulated and challenged, and to
carefully examine, resolve and interpret your environment.
What research into brain plasticity shows us is that by
providing your brain with appropriate stimulus, you can
counteract this degeneration. A key factor or ingredient
necessary for improving brain function or reversing
functional decline is the seriousness of purpose
with which you engage in a task.
In other words, the task must be important to you, or
somehow meaningful or interesting — it must hold your
attention.
Rote memorization of nonsensical or unimportant items
will not stimulate your brain to create new neurons – but
imagining the act of exercise or playing a musical
instrument might. Dr. Merzenich has been instrumental in the
development of a kind of "brain gym" environment — a
computer-based brain-training program that can help you
sharpen a range of skills, from reading and comprehension to
improved memorization and more. No matter what your age or
current level of brain function, your brain can likely
improve to some degree or other by engaging in brain
exercises, but there are other ways to harness the power of
your mind as well …
Improving Your Physical and Mental Self Through Proper Brain
Fitness
Aside from engaging in a computer-based brain exercise
program, Dr. Merzenich lists several things you can do on a
daily basis, as part of your day-to-day lifestyle, to help
maintain optimal brain fitness:
Your Mind is Intricately Linked to Your Physical Activity …
Just as your thoughts may be able to alter your physical
body, physical exercise also protects and beneficially
alters your brain. In fact, while staying engaged mentally
and socially are known to be important for brain health,
research suggests physical activity may actually be even
more important to keep your brain healthy and prevent brain
shrinkage as you age.
Among people in their 70s, those who were the most
physically active had less signs of aging in their brains
than those who weren’t, while engaging in intellectually
challenging or social activities appeared to have no effect,
one study found.3
The bottom line is … you can very well harness the power
of your thoughts to create real physical changes in your
body. And on the flipside, physical activity can also lead
to positive changes in your brain. A lifestyle that
encourages both of these modalities is likely going
to give you the most benefit now and in the years to come.
© Copyright 1997-2013 Dr. Joseph Mercola. All Rights Reserved.
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