Running Is My Therapy: Relieve Stress and Anxiety, Fight Depression, Ditch Bad Habits, and Live Happier

serotonin, acetylcholine, GABA, and glutamate. 2.Exercise can improve levels of BDNF (brain derived neurotrophic factor)—a chemical involved in brain growth. 3.Exercise reduces stress. 4.Exercise enhances positive mood states and decreases negative mood states. 5.Exercise improves prefrontal cortex functioning.

Exercise does the following: Helps your brain to produce BDNF, which is like a fertilizer that helps your neurons grow. Improves your understanding, decision-making, and ability to focus. Helps you to switch between tasks. Helps people to recover from mental illness. Releases chemicals that help you get new ideas. Vegetables

language or taking up a new sport. In general, we get the best neurological workout by pushing our limits. The neuroscientist Daniel Levitin, whose most recent book is Successful Aging, spells it out: “If you’re just thinking the same thoughts and doing the same things you always did, it doesn’t force the brain to keep making new pathways available

More than any other tactical domain we discuss in this book, exercise has the greatest power to determine how you will live out the rest of your life. There are reams of data supporting the notion that even a fairly minimal amount of exercise can lengthen your life by several years. It delays the onset of chronic diseases, pretty much across the bo