Exercise On the Brain: a NYT OpEd

8 Comments

1. KeithS on November 9, 2007 at 5:37

   Could we see that let­ter to the edi­tor that you guys wrote?

   
   
   
2. Alvaro on November 9, 2007 at 12:29

   Hel­lo Kei­th, we can’t share it until (if) it is pub­lished. The basic point is that, as good as phys­i­cal exer­cise is, it is not the only or main ele­ment to think of, so the OpEd pro­vides very par­tial advice, at least.

   We also men­tion that over 40 mil­lion in the US already belong to a health club, and mil­lions more do walk often, so the val­ue of the advice for them is pret­ty lim­it­ed, vs. oth­er areas (stress man­age­ment, men­tal stim­u­la­tion) that can be more relevant.

   There will be more sci­en­tif­ic data pub­lished over the next weeks that puts the “debate” in a bet­ter per­spec­tive. I think the basic prob­lem is a con­fu­sion over what we are talk­ing about: train­ing of spe­cif­ic cog­ni­tive skills vs. a gener­ic “brain health”.

   
   
   
3. alimary on November 9, 2007 at 1:32

   I am so glad to see more con­nec­tion with phys­i­cal AND men­tal. So many con­cen­trate on diet and exer­cise, leav­ing out one very impor­tant aspect that sup­ports the first 2, our mind! Our mind is what sup­ports and moti­vates us to begin and fol­low through with diet and exer­cie. It con­trols our focus.

   
   
   
4. John Rice on November 10, 2007 at 9:02

   Con­grats on keep­ing an eye out for info like this that needs clar­i­fi­ca­tion. While many jour­nal­ists in gen­er­al do a good job relay­ing the facts, many times impor­tant ideas and facts are con­densed or por­trayed out of con­text. It seems like this is an ongo­ing issue, espe­cial­ly with news arti­cles detail­ing research and opin­ion among scientists.

   
   
   
5. Alvaro on November 10, 2007 at 11:38

   Hel­lo Ali­ma­ry and John,

   Ali­ma­ry: Thanks, I could­n’t have said it better.

   John: thanks for your great blog. Yes, that is a con­stant chal­lenge giv­en how busy jour­nal­ists are and also how over­spe­cial­ized sci­en­tists have become, experts in their nar­row fields and not help­ing read­ers inte­grate new find­ings into exist­ing ones. There is much need for more inter­dis­ci­pli­nary research AND bet­ter health Education.

   
   
   
6. School Psych on November 10, 2007 at 4:40

   A great lit­tle book (enti­tled ‘Neu­ro­bics’ writ­ten by Lawrence Katz, Ph.D.) syn­the­sizes the sub­stan­tial find­ings about the brain on keep­ing it fit and flex­i­ble. Here’s a quote: “Sci­en­tif­ic research has repeat­ed­ly proved that social depri­va­tion has severe neg­a­tive effects on over­all cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties. The ongo­ing MacArthur Foun­da­tion projects val­i­date keep­ing active social­ly and men­tal­ly as crit­i­cal fac­tors for men­tal health.”

   Great site, by the way.

   
   
   
7. Alvaro on November 12, 2007 at 12:01

   Thank you, School Psych. That is a great book. The val­ue of life­long learn­ing and men­tal stim­u­la­tion is well beyond doubt, it is a bit of a mys­tery to me why the authors of that OpEd want­ed to focus sole­ly on the val­ue of phys­i­cal exercise.

   
   
   
8. Ramesh Raghuvanshi on December 2, 2007 at 9:07

   For men­tal and phys­i­cal health ancient Hin­du saga Giv­en us a valu­able proverb== Reduce your food half, dou­ble your drink­ing water, triple phys­i­cal and men­tal exer­cis­es and increase joy in your life four time. This rem­e­dy is very use­ful for a good lifestyle.