Introduction

Have you ever thought about how powerful your brain is? It can make sense of words and numbers and help you move your body, even when you’re scared or nervous. Not only is the brain powerful, but it’s also extremely fast.

Have you ever wondered why you can interpret what you read as soon as you see it? Or how fast you can spot your friend in a crowd? It’s all thanks to your brain and the millions of neurons it contains; it’s amazing just how much information you can store in such a small amount of space.

So, how exactly can we exercise our brains and train them to do better? In this book, you will learn how the brain works and what you can do to make sure that it’s always in its best condition.

Your brain is a fascinating thing, and you should definitely get to know more about it because it sure knows a lot about you!
Exercise

Rule #1: Exercise Boosts Brain Power

Way back when, our ancestors were nomads, meaning that they had no permanent home and moved from place to place. They were forced to move because staying in one place for too long wasn’t ideal since resources ran out, predators visited them often, and the weather was in continual change. Moving in this way helped their brains develop rapidly.

But what about now? We have very different lifestyles compared to those of our ancestors. Today, we can go for hours without moving from our seats, and how much we move is one of the factors that can determine whether we’ll age healthily or not.

If you live a sedentary lifestyle, meaning you spend the majority of your day not moving very much or lying on the couch, you’ll most likely be an elderly person who withers as time passes you by. However, if you live an active lifestyle, you can continue to be quick and agile even when you’re 75 years old and beyond!

Exercise has lots of advantages: it can reduce your likelihood of developing diseases such as heart attacks and strokes and help you to be in top shape, physically and mentally. Studies have shown that people who are active outperform people with sedentary lifestyles in tests for memory, logic, problem-solving, and reasoning.

Exercise can also lessen the risk of developing diseases later in life. It can also regulate your mood since physical activity releases serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine in your nervous system. It’s been proven that people with sedentary lifestyles still have hope for improvement when it comes to aging successfully.
Researcher shows improvement when it comes to the mental abilities of inactive people after enrolling them in exercises programs. At just four months after beginning the exercise programs, they show significant progress.

Jack La Lanne is a good example of how exercise boosts brain power. He was 70 years old when he successfully managed to pull 70 boats—each carrying one person—from California’s Long Beach Harbor to Queen’s Way Bridge. Jack swam for 1.5 miles while tied to 70 boats behind him. Aside from his strong body—even at his age—Jack is mentally alert. His mind and body were that of a 20-year-old!

Let’s use two men, named Jim and Frank, as examples of people who lived two different lifestyles. Jim, who lived a sedentary lifestyle, is in a home for the elderly, and he barely moves throughout the day. He sits in front of the TV, looks miserable, and often bursts into tears without reason. Frank, on the other hand, lived an active life and is strong and alert. He is always on the move and is an architect who finished building a museum at 90 years old and is full of zest for life.

Even though there are other factors that come into play, you can see the advantages of being active. There is always hope for anyone to improve their lifestyle since just 20 minutes of exercise per day will bring positive changes to your health and your mood.

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Survival
Rule #2: The Human Brain Evolved, Too

Our ancestors didn’t just use their bodies to survive such harsh environments; they also used their brains. What separates us from animals is our capacity for symbolic reasoning. It is the ability to picture in our mind’s those things that are not really there. Imagine drawing a vertical line on the palm of your hand. Because we have symbolic reasoning, we can interpret this line as the letter “I” or as the number one.

Symbolic reasoning helped our ancestors in speaking and warning each other of any danger ahead. Thanks to years of human evolution, we created universal symbols that don’t need to be explained, like the red stop sign for stop and the “thumbs up” signal for okay.

We also apply symbolic reasoning to every field, like languages, the arts, or poetry, and our culture is molded from this unique ability – think of our myths, legends, and sacred texts. Humans can build religions and corporations because of symbolic reasoning, while animals cannot. Right?

Natural selection has weeded out our weak ancestors, and the strongest ones passed their genes on to future generations. Yet, history has overlooked this. Have you ever wondered how humankind grew to over 7 billion people when our ancestors began as a small group in East Africa?

The answer is change. Instead of fighting change, we adapted to it. Richard Potts, director of Human Origins at the Smithsonian Museum, calls this theory the Variability Selection Theory. This theory states that our brain has two powerful features: first, we have the ability to recall our past mistakes, and second, our brain allows us to reflect on and learn from them. These abilities helped our ancestors to weather rapidly-changing conditions without any outside help. They survived predators, harsh climates, and scarce resources –  even without instruction manuals or YouTube tutorial videos!

Something else that distinguishes us from other animals is bipedalism, which refers to our ability to walk on two legs and use our hands for other functions. However, the factor that truly distinguishes humans from other species is the presence of the prefrontal cortex in our brains. The prefrontal cortex is the part that is mainly responsible for our capacity for problem-solving, focus, and control over our basic instincts.

The following story can illustrate the importance of the prefrontal cortex. It's that of a 25-year-old man named Phineas Gage, who was a foreman who worked as part of a railroad construction crew. His co-workers and family described him as being funny, smart, and hardworking. One day at work, Gage had a terrible accident. He was setting up explosives in a dam to clear out the rocks found there when the explosives went off too soon. Because of the unexpected blast, a 3-foot steel rod went straight through Gage’s skull and landed a few feet behind him, destroying his prefrontal cortex.

Miraculously, Gage survived. However, he became a different person and was described as becoming irritable, rude, and impulsive. He died from epileptic seizures several years after. This illustrates the importance of the brain and the prefrontal cortex in our overall health and its impact on who we fundamentally are.

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