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Get Off the Couch! Exercise Your Way to a Healthy Brain

- Lindsay S. Nagamatsu

Unfortunately, these days people in general are less active—or more "sedentary"—than ever before. This may be because of our increasing use of technology. In particular, we are spending more time indoors watching TV, playing video games, and on our computers. This means we have less time to be physically active. Our increasingly sedentary behavior has become a major problem in our society, with rates of obesity skyrocketing in recent decades, negatively impacting the health and well-being of many people. In this article, we will explore some of the reasons why physical activity may be more important for our health than we previously thought.
We all know that physical activity is good for the heart and lungs, but is it also good for the mind? In the past, researchers have observed that people who exercise more tend to have better cognitive function. Cognitive functions are processes in the brain that are responsible for the way we think and respond to the environment. Examples of cognitive functions are attention, memory, and decision-making. Research on physical activity and cognitive function has found that athletes have faster reaction times, meaning their brains work more efficiently.

License information: CC BY 4.0
MPAA: G
Go to source: https://kids.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/frym.2017.00020

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