Importance of physical activity for mental health

Our brain needs activity to keep his health and what better to keep fit it that making a physical activity that besides improve our physical state, two by one in personal welfare. The mental health is a grave problem that is establishing  each day more in our society by what use the sport in his prevention and even intervention is a key factor for this appearance of our lives.

Last scientific studies on physical activity and mental health

Each day are more the scientific studies that report on the profits of the physical activity on our cognition, emotions and mental health. All are good reasons to start with in the gym or initiate in a new sportive activity and begin to feel also a mejoría mental. We go to do a review of what says the science in this regard in the last investigations that relate the physical exercise with the mental health.

Sport as a natural brain modulator

Firstly, we have to remember that the physical activity reports big profits like natural regulator of many of the neurotransmisores cerebral involved in our mental health as they are the serotonin (improves states of low spirit), endorfina (natural analgesic that regulates the stress), oxytocin (modulates emotional processes) or the dopamine that is the responsible neurotransmitter of the pleasure.

The exercise acts as if of a fertilizante treated  increasing the levels of the factor neurotrófico derivative of the brain that is the manager to improve the connections sinápticas of the brain and remodel them (plasticidad neural).

The physical activity warns the depression

All this cerebral activity that puts  in movement thanks to the physical activity boosts the capacity that has the brain to change and adapt to the situations. During the physical activity will have to surpass challenges and crisis that will improve our capacity of resiliencia personal. This adaptability  of the brain reduces the symptoms depresivos and improves the processes of learning when it makes  a physical activity of way programmed and continued. They are the data reflected by a recent study carried out by the University of Bochum (Germany) published in June of 2021 in the magazine Frontiers in Psychiatry .

The physical exercise promotes the cognitive functions in the old age

Another recent investigation of the University of Tamagawa and the University of Kobe in Japan, published in the magazine Neuroimage in May of 2021, associated of positive way the exercise in childish age with some better cognitive functions in the stage adult. The results of the study revealed that the connections between the cerebral hemispheres and the network neural were stronger in the people that had practised sport of boys since these were able to resolve better determinate tasks of cognition

The aerobic exercise improves the learning of the vocabulary

When we speak of mejoría on our mental health are used to to associate it only to that the sport warns of disorders like the anxiety and the depression. However, also it improves our welfare improving functions such as the learning, the communication, the management of conflicts or the emotional intelligence. The physical activity optimises therefore our performance like people. One of these appearances was showed recently by another study of the University of Delaware published in the magazine Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research in 2021, as which the realisation of an aerobic sportive practice improved the learning of vocabulary in the boys that practised it. It is likely that the boys do not finish winning a medal of olympic gold, but the one who knows if they will be the next prize nobel of literature.

They exist a lot of other reasons and scientific references that show the profits of a physical activity controlled on our performance and mental health. You need more reasons to start with to practise physical activity?

References of the studies

• Wanja Brüchle, Caroline Schwarzer, Christina Berns, Sebastian Scho, Jessica Schneefeld, Dirk Koester, Thomas Schack, Udo Schneider, Karin Rosenkranz. Physical Activity Reduce Clinical Symptoms and Restores Neuroplasticity in Major Depression. Frontiers in Psychiatry , 2021; 12 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2021.660642
• Toru Ishihara, Atsushi Miyazaki, Hiroki Tanaka, Takayuki Fujii, Muneyoshi Takahashi, Kuniyuki Nishina, Kei Kanari, Haruto Takagishi, Tetsuya Matsuda. Childhood exercise predicts response inhibition in later life via changes in brain connectivity and structure. NeuroImage, 2021; 237: 118196 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118196
• Madison Pruitt, Giovanna Morini. Examining the Role of Physical Activity on Word Learning in School-Aged Children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 2021; 64 (5): 1712 DOI: 10.1044/2021_JSLHR-20-00359