Best Exercise for Brain Health

In the age of the internet, one of the greatest challenges is separating signal from noise. Brain health and healthy aging are popular topics among Empower’s primary demographic, and rightfully so. After all, it’s no good being physically fit if you do not retain your cognitive acuity. The good news is that exercise has been shown to reduce both the physical and mental decline commonly associated with aging. In fact, active seniors consistently demonstrate physical and cognitive capacities remarkably similar to people half their age.

So which exercise is best for brain health? This is where the noise starts. In fact, I think the question makes a false assumption because different exercises benefit the brain in different ways. All of them are important, and all of them are critical for an optimally functioning brain. I don’t think it can be reduced to an either-or choice. Rather, it should be all of the above. Here is what the research shows and the underlying mechanisms at play:

Cardio

Long considered the gold standard for brain health, cardiovascular exercise increases blood flow and oxygen supply to the brain, both essential.

Strength Training

Recent studies have determined that for the aging population, strength training is even more neuroprotective than cardio. But this is because of the neurological demands strength training places on the nervous system. This is a different but complementary mechanism. One caveat: for brain health, load matters. You need to be moving heavy loads at or above 80% of your 1 rep max in order to stimulate the neurological adaptations associated with brain health.

Dance

As great as the first two are for brain health, dance produced even stronger brain health benefits, again through a different mechanism. The cognitive challenge of timing and coordination required by dance, paired with the increased blood flow, contributed to robust neuroprotective benefits. Though the researchers did not study other movement activities, I suspect that any exercise requiring a high degree of balance and coordination, such as gymnastics or martial arts, might provide similar benefits.

Touch

The researchers did not control for human contact, but it is possible dance scored especially high in part due to the power of touch, something long associated with better health outcomes and healthier aging. Again, this can probably be generalized to other activities in which two partners coordinate their movements and are in contact with one another (insert innuendo).

Pickle Ball

No, I am not joking. As I was preparing to write this, I stumbled upon a recent study linking racket sports with improved neurological health. And why not? Coordination, heart rate, social engagement; racket sports offer several stimuli associated with improved brain health. And no, it didn’t seem to matter which racket sport you chose; they all conferred similar benefits.

Putting it All Together

Where folks go wrong is in arguing over which activity is better than the other, as if you should pick just one of the above activities in order to optimize brain health. Just by examining the different mechanisms by which each of these influences brain health, I think it becomes clear that a mix of all of the above is the best strategy you can implement to remain cognitively sharp into your later years. Your recipe for a healthy brain: get together with friends, sweat, practice some challenging skills, work as a team, lift heavy stuff.