The Inter­na­tional Health, Rac­quet and Sports­club Asso­ci­a­tion (IHRSA), main asso­ci­a­tion for health and fit­ness cen­ters, pub­lished an arti­cle today titled Are You Sure Your Mem­bers are Work­ing Out ALL Their Mus­cles? writ­ten by none other than our own Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and Dr. Goldberg.

Here are some highlights:

• “Phys­i­cal exer­cise boosts the brain’s rate of neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis through­out one’s life, while men­tal exer­cise increases the rate at which those new brain cells sur­vive and make func­tional con­nec­tions into your exist­ing neural net­works. Both phys­i­cal exer­cise and the chal­lenge from men­tal exer­cise increase the secre­tion of nerve growth fac­tor, which helps your neu­rons grow and stay healthy. The bot­tom line is that humans need both phys­i­cal and men­tal exer­cise for good brain health.
• “In the short term, mem­bers can expect to see improved per­for­mance (atten­tion, mem­ory and stress man­age­ment), as with any other mus­cle. In the long term, they will notice the pre­ven­tion and delay of deficits due to aging or disease.”
• “Fur­ther­more, the effects of men­tal train­ing seem to trans­fer or gen­er­al­ize beyond the specifics of a par­tic­u­lar exer­cise. This means that peo­ple don’t just get bet­ter at the spe­cific task they’re doing, but the skills actu­ally trans­fer to gen­eral cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties and men­tal fac­ul­ties, as mea­sured inde­pen­dently from the task itself.”

At Sharp­Brains, we hope your res­o­lu­tions for 2007 include:

1. Reg­u­lar phys­i­cal exercise
2. Reg­u­lar men­tal exercise
3. Good nutri­tion and lots of water
4. Plenty of rest and reduced stress