
Body & Mind
Train your biceps and gain a healthier brain.
We all knew this age old truth, A healthy body equals a healthy mind.
But a long string of separate science studies last few years showcase something that might be news for you.
Wonderful, health inspiring news and body-mind incentive to keep fit and active all through life. Be it from running or lifting weights, or better yet, by doing both.
In short: People between age 50 to 86 diagnosed with 'mild cognitive impairments', commonly called dementia were in some studies tasked with lifting challenging weights a few times per week. The recipe is simple, Rep away on a challenging weight at least twice per week at roughly 80% of your maximum one rep weight. And the conclusion is equally simple, yet beautiful.
The stronger their body became, the stronger, fitter and healthier their brain also ended up being. Or as one lead scientist said in one study: "improvement in cognition function was related to their muscle strength gains".
One such study was published in Journal of the American Geriatrics Society and you can find the link to the journal down below.
But while we already knew that healthy and active choices provide tremendous health benefits all through life, no matter the chronological age, for both body and mind, the perhaps most fascinating thing with this study is that it so clearly showcase an actual physical change in an active and fit individual´s brain as they grow physically stronger in their body.
MRI scans from several of these studies has clearly revealed that the physical areas of our brain increase in size and mass as the participants grew stronger and added more weights to their workouts.
Improving not just their individual cognitive function, but the actual physical mass and thickness and capacity in the brain.
While lowering the impact of any potential or diagnosed cognitive impairment.
And I can of course only agree with the conclusions of these studies that the scientifically documented beneficial effects of a healthy and active lifestyle with weightlifting, daily cardio, and healthy food choices are now so strong that we are well beyond the point of not recommending challenging weight training and daily physical activity for every human being.
The scientific verdict is so conclusive that it should almost be considered a cognitive disorder not to recommend daily physical activity and healthier food habits en masse.
And the importance of that simple health and fitness recommendation becomes more urgent as we mature.
The older you get, the more important it gets for your own well being and quality of life to keep physically active on a daily basis, and to do it in a challenging way.
So get moving girls and guys and lift some weights.
Smash em like Hulk and call them out for being puny little weights. And do not forget to get your steps in as well.
Quote from one study
“The more we can get people doing resistance training like weight lifting, the more likely we are to have a healthier aging population,”.
“The key, however, is to make sure you are doing it frequently, at least twice a week, and at a high intensity so that you are maximizing your strength gains. This will give you the maximum benefit for your brain.”
- Dr Mavros.
Body & Mind baby.
I think the healthiest way forward for humanity is if we simply acknowledged once and for all that our brain and mind are no different from any other muscle in our body.
Sure, it is a complicated and wonderful muscle, and it is capable of complex thought and emotional responses, but like all our other muscles and our fitness capacity, our brain is perpetually in need of healthy and active daily choices to remain fit and healthy because every single thing in our body from the tiniest of cells to our blood vessels, our gluteus maximus and minimus, our brain, heart, and mitochondria all respond in tremendously beneficial ways to physical activity and health-promoting food and environments.
So if you provide yourself with a lifestyle of healthy fit choices, your brain, like the rest of your body, your strength and durability, and body fat will not really care about chronological age. Your hereditary genes, gender or flawed opinions on age and health.
Just as how your biceps and ass, strength and heart will not really care either. And as a thank you for those healthy fit choices, your entire being will respond in kind and keep you decades more healthy and young, happy and capable through your entire lifespan ( relative to the same person not living a healthy fit life ).
The fear of aging is just that. A superstitious fear not grounded in the proper reality of science-based health and lifestyle choices.
It is true, very few enjoy the thought of going from age 30 to 85.
And some things absolutely do change as we biologically speaking mature no matter what we do.
But fear is more than anything, a biological reaction that can go out of hand and have very little to do with actual facts and reality.
While facts and simple reality for us all is that while some things, such as wrinkles and near-sightedness, and menopause do happen, the big and truly important things however, such as functional strength and excessive body fat, heart health, cancer, diabetes, the cognitive functions of our mind, our agility, cardio, and our capacity to enjoy daily life, all these things, back pain and sexual function, all these things have very little to do with the number of chronological years we have lived and our genetic heritage. All while they have tremendously much more to do with the way we are actually going about living our daily life.
So relax your fears and let science guide your own journey through life.
The science of fitness and health does not make life less, it makes it richer and more vivid and full. And the science of health and fitness also makes life last longer.
Make daily choices that cater to your own health in body and mind.
Lift weights, do cardio. Eat healthily, make love, smile, love and tell those fears and that horrendous lazy bug to sod off, because if you do. You will get to age in a kick-ass beautiful way, and that is by now a scientific fact.
And when you face an uphill battle with that lazy bug or that unhealthy worm that lives inside us all, think hard enough about the kind of life you would like to create, because most people would wish for nothing more than to craft a daily life of active fun, healthy choices, fit and capable bodies and minds, tasty and healthy food that neither wreck your own body and mind nor the planet. And most people would love for nothing more than to be able to enjoy the entire journey that is a long and fulfilling life leading up to a sharp-minded, strong and sexually fulfilled and happy 85 years old.
Well, most will obviously say 'yes I want that', and the good thing about fitness and health is that the ongoing result of lifelong fitness and health in body and mind is almost entirely about your own daily choice. It is up to you and not some imaginary soul and life sucking demon called old age. Eat shit and body and mind will respond to that.
Do the opposite and treat it well and witness cancer risk plummet with 40 to 50% and dementia with as much as 90%.
People suffer through agonizing fears in regards to their hereditary genes and sickness and old age, and some of us are almost paralyzed whenever they consider the genes and issues their parents left behind them to inherit through their DNA. But what every scientist knows is that the genes we inherit, they only account for about 10% of our cancer risk. And those genes have nothing much to do with dementia.
Most of the outcome is simply down to daily lifestyle choices in fitness and food, and the way we treat our world. A sustainable, and unpolluted world does not cause cancer and dementia the way that air polluted cities do.
Ps.
Did I mention that as little as 3 super intense minutes per day is enough to actually produce significant health and body improvements. You should of course not limit your physical activity to merely 3 minutes. 35 minutes is hundreds of times better. But 3 minutes of apeshit intense daily training is enough to get healthier in body and mind so time is not the issue. And neither is it an impossibility, a healthier you is just an active, daily choice away, and the choice is all yours, every single morning.
This simple truth can be seen in a recent 2018 study that concluded a 40-year long Swedish health and fitness study on dementia.
The female participants got to measure their cardiovascular fitness capacity by completing a stepwise-increased maximal cycling test and were followed over 40 years.
The conclusion?.
Females in their 50´s with very good to excellent fitness capacity reduce their risk of developing dementia with 90% compared to people with lower levels of fitness capacity.
And in the case when the very fit females did develop dementia they did so on average 11 years after the point when less fit females developed dementia.
music of the day while you are reading our article
Monster at the end by Anthrax
The Mouse In our Wall
We play in the snow, under the shooting star
Told to you, as I once told, a mind and girly soul, so beautiful.
Inside the walls of our homes, and lives. There are Undraped windows through which we see both in and out, and at night I look out and up with you.
A shooting star stirs and moves the northern lights. Like a spoon through water, it moves before our eyes. Clear as day yet slightly obfuscated through the sheets of glass, the world is silent and it could be a dream as I witness the star cut through the puffy clouds.
And at night.
Some other times, there we are, walking through life's small moments and we are holding hands.
Together, we stand outside having walked amongst the falling leafs and the subtle snow.
Rain or sunshine matters not.
Looking in, through the of night, all chilly frosty glass, the burning lamps the pleasant light and warmth that moves and lives inside.
Is it empty we ask out loud, or is there someone looking out? Back at us. Do they hear our silent minds, can they feel our burning soul and warming hands.
In between these two sides. Neither looking in or out. Or perhaps, they do them both all the time.
There live a gnarly little furry mouse that moves about with his love and all their friends.
At night, you can hear them talk and hug it out. They move, play and dart around, inside and outside the walls that people build. Sometimes they walk our floors, sitting near, our sleeping faces.
We kiss and make a cute little snowy angel. Your arms wisp around and I kiss your pretty lips, yet again.
And right there. In the corner of my eye. I swear the little mice sits right nearby. Looking out at us as we hug it out.
And perhaps he too thinks the very same. Looking out and about, at us and all the shooting stars.

Connect with me
in this life of ours scattered across this tiny sphere
Beyond2c is a digital magazine with both nonfictional and fictional content
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Mike Koontz
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