We have witnessed exercise physiologists continue to push the envelope of what is possible by the human body and mind. In the 50’s the, once considered impossible, 4 minute mile barrier was broken by Roger Bannister. The 4 min mile is common now. In fact, the pace to run a sub 2 hour marathon is at an incredible 4 and a half min miles, 26.2 miles of that pace. That’s 42.2km in Canadian. On October 12, Eliud Kipchoge, who can run a 3min 50sec mile, completed the world’s first sub-2hour marathon in 1:59:40, truly incredible! BOOOMB another barrier goes down. His message after accomplishing this feat was simple and elegant “I would like to inspire many people, I want you to know your mind is the limiter, and I’m expecting more.” And keep in mind, some not too distant science told us death would occur before this marathon speed could physiologically occur. The brain and mind are powerful. The book “Endure” by Alex Hutchinson explores the endurance athlete limits in depth, the book is also an interesting summary and chronicle of Nike’s sub 2hr marathon mission. Nike’s mission, and actions, to support a group of absurdly talented, skilled and motivated marathon runners with top sports scientists. A great scientific mission into the possibilities for the human training and performance.

Another example of how impressive new training methods have impacted our view on human potential occurred in 2018, when 70 year old Bob Knuckey completed the Texas Ironman in only 11 hours and 20 minutes. To put it in historical context, the very first Ironman was organized in 1978 to discover who the greatest athlete was between; swimmers, cyclists and runners. Athletes run a marathon (26.2 miles or 42.2 km), bike over a hundred miles, 112 miles to be exact (180.2 km) and swim 2.4 miles (3.9 km). Track and swim star, Gordan Haller won the initial Ironman of 1978 in 11 hours and 46 minutes, at his prime age of 28. The 2018 performance of 70 year old Bob Knuckey, bested the 1978 Ironman winning time of 28 year old Gorgan Haller, by over 25 minutes. Don’t fall into the “I’m just getting old” trap of acceptance to decrease your physical activity, or let your health go altogether. It goes without question the gold standard to improve every single system of the human body, is to move more. Embracing and engaging in regular physical activity is the fountain of youth for all of us. Everything is impossible until someone steps up their game and does it, the brain and mind are strong. Believing the impossible is the first step, and that step comes from the most metabolically demanding organ in our body, the brain. This Blog will explore the science of protect, preserve and improve both brain and mind.

Our brain makes up less than 2% of our body weight, but it utilizes over 25% of the energy we expend. The future of fitness is going to drastically increase the ways we can protect and train our brains to recover and improve. There are already some studied and quantified ways to train our brains. Think of these methods and tools as bicep curls for our brains. And increasing to moderate physical activity is by far the best way so let’s start there.

There are many ways to quantify improvements in brain health and function: memory, reaction time, co-ordination… Let’s take a look at how 5-10 minutes of 80% exercise intensity, can improve learning. During a task designed to test learning speed, this kind of exercise before the learning task has consistently demonstrated a 20% improvement rate in learning. Napersville physical education teacher, Phil Lawler, knew this and wanted to implement a similar program before school, in hopes of giving his students the best possible opportunity to be successful learners. What he did was simple, he had the kids run one mile at 80+% of their max heart rate, measured by a chest strap (Apple watches did not exist). That’s it. This was the only change the students undertook. No increase in teaching, no change in curriculum, no extra hours studying. The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study is an international standard test to rate the students in math and science. One year of one mile running before school took student’s scores from the bottom half in both math and science, to first in science and sixth in math. Physical activities’ positive impact on the brain is the most significant impact which occurs to the body, yet it is very rare for someone to employ the services of a personal trainer to improve their mental performance and capacity. Easily the most under-rated, under-appreciated and under-utilized effect of physical activity is the positive impact it has on our brains. 80+% max heart rate for 5-10 minutes drastically increases the body’s release of brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). BDNF is miracle grow for our brains. We know why it works, we know how it works, we simply have to get up and get to work.

We all know what we eat is important. After all it is very true, “You are what you eat”, but many don’t realize the importance of timing in eating. We are a hunter, gathering animal, which has become a bunch of grazers. For thousands of years we foraged and scavenged the plains in search of our next meal. This process often took days, or even weeks. Nowadays, it is rare to even go a few hours without food or a drink of some sort. What we now realize is the high demand this places on our body’s ability to regulate itself. We measure this energy required by our bodies to digest and breakdown the things we put in our food holes, as the thermic effect of food. This process takes 10-20% of total energy to burn… much more in some really big eaters. When we give our body a break from digesting food constantly, we allow those energy resources to be spent differently. Often what occurs during this time, these resources are moved to clean up duty. Nothing to do? Well I guess I could clean up a little. This clean up is extremely important when it comes to the brain. Neurologists and brain surgeons have known for years, waste products accumulate in the brain causing neuronal tangles. In fact, these tangles are the physiological causes of neurodegenerative diseases like Dementia, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Fasts, periods of zero or very little food intake, are common in nearly every religion. They pose no health risks and actually allow your GI to rest and recover, allowing the remainder of your body to clean up the damaged cells it has. Even cancer is thought to be caused by damaged cells. In DNA reproduction uncontrollably replicating these cells, lead to a large mass of broken, non-functioning cells called a tumor. And yes, fasting has been shown to slow or stop the progression of cancer.

The specifics are simple; there are prolonged fasts and time restricted eating (all eating and drinking of calories occurs in an 8 hour window, or less). Prolonged fasts can last 3+ days. Both are effective. Overall caloric restriction, or eating less, has actually demonstrated a 40% increase in life spans for men and women. A simple way to give fasting and time restricted eating a try, is to first stop eating after dinner and wait as long as possible until eating or drinking in the morning, including coffee. Do it for a month. Also give 3 days with no food a try, once a season seems to give significant physiological and neurological benefits. Obviously no single change reduces CNS damage and decay. Many of the techniques combine for an even greater effect. Thermal therapies are a great add on technique to improve our CNS and brain health and resiliency.

We often think of stress with a negative connotation, the stress reactions by the body are the most basic ways our body improves every major bodily system. Induce an amount of stress, which we can overcome, and this leads to adaptation and improvement. This is also the exact mechanism, which causes increased muscle mass with strength training. Staying in temperatures above 90°C and below 5°C (in cold water is best) for a prolonged time, regularly, induces a highly stressful situation for our body’s ability to maintain thermal homeostasis, or our regular preferred operating environment. This leads to a massive release of highly effective neural protective hormones, neurotransmitters and enzymes. Regularly inducing our bodies to release these neurochemicals to produce beneficial signaling pathways is very good for both overall health and longevity. In fact, there is a well known and well done Finnish study, which demonstrated regular sauna use, led to a drastic decrease in all cause mortality. The types of heat shock and cold shock proteins released by the body during hot and cold exposure, has been shown to be neurological and cardiac protective to mice when having a researcher induced heart attack or stroke. Increased levels of heat shock proteins circulating in our body, if we have a heart attack or stroke, have a direct correlation to the severity of physical consequences following the heart or brain damage. Heat shock proteins are like a suit of armor for our heart and brain. They are also released in high levels during high intensity physical activity. We need to get uncomfortably hot, think 10-20 minutes in a hot (90°C) sauna, or uncomfortably cold, think 10 minutes in a cold bath (5°C) or shower to protect our brains and hearts. This mental ability to stay in an uncomfortable environment is also a very effective ability to strengthen when it comes to developing strong and healthy mental resilience circuits. Meditation also stands under the umbrella of brain strengthening.

A complete and exhaustive list of all the health benefits of meditation is far too extensive for this blog but rest assured, meditation is by far the most productive thing you could do for your health and happiness each day. Meditation is the most common activity that the world’s most successful humans have in common in their daily routines. The brain runs all. Brain improvement equals improvement in every aspect of our body. We need stress to grow but excessive stress without occasional, consistent reprieved rest is what leads to all major organ failure. Meditation is the rest required from the stress to become growth, rather than damage and decline. In a world where even the most advanced neuroscience has left us with few tools for neural healing, meditation is an effective one.

Meditation is easy to learn, and simply a technique to focus on your breathing, in the moment. Great apps like “Headspace” and “Calm” teach you to meditate in 10 simple 10 minutes meditation sessions for free. There isn’t anyone who doesn’t have 10 minutes free a day. Tim Ferriss is the #1 current productivity guru of Silicon Valley, whose purpose is to deconstruct the world’s most successful people and give insights and techniques we can steal from them to improve our own lives. If you want to be successful, study what successful people do. What is the most commonly occurring task over 90% of the super successful do each day? Yup, it’s meditation. If nearly every highly successful person from Warren Buffet to LeBron James, tells us meditation is the single most important thing they do each day, then we should take note and reevaluate why we can’t fit 10 minutes each day into our schedules. As Warren Buffet puts it, “You’ll be a mess if you don’t take care of your mind.” Meditation is rest for your mind, but sleep is the foundation of good health and rest for the mind and body.

Adequate sleep is mandatory for neural growth and any other growth that occurs in our minds and bodies. In fact, STRESS + REST= GROWTH. Too often we think of conditions of the brain such as Dementia, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, as hereditary or passed on from genetics. Blaming our genes for conditions such as these with heavy environmental and lifestyle choice limitations, which contribute heavily to onset, severity and all together avoidance of these conditions, is a mindset that needs to be changed. There are many ways we can protect our brains from the neurodegenerative effects of these conditions. Sleep may be the most powerful. Many studies have now identified lack of sleep as a very common thread in those who suffer severe symptoms of the brain destroying conditions. Sleep better and your whole body will improve, and this is even more important to those who are physically active or potentially overworked, or over stressed. The less time you think you have for sleep, the more you need it. Sleep makes everything better. A complete guide to sleeping better is the complete focus of (http://www.hphealth.ca/blog) this recent blog.

The last item we have to acknowledge about brain care is the impact of concussion like brain trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) on our central nervous system. Concussions and PTSD didn’t just begin a few years ago when we decided group these symptoms and give them an official diagnosis. Assessment and diagnosis is great, but currently too many medical professionals do not understand the most current and effective treatments for these conditions. In fact in 2017, the world’s largest conference on concussions in sports, made a major change to the recommended treatment of post concussive symptoms. The change was polar. Original post concussion was treated with bed rest, dark room and no mental or physical exertion. Now, the recognized, researched and proven more effective treatment involves early moderate physical activity to increase heart rate to about 80% max heart rate, progressively increasing for 15-20 minutes. As mentioned earlier, this will increase miracle grow for our brain, brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). We need to feed our brain this while it heals and nothing increases BDNF levels in the brain, than a good burst of physical exertion. Be careful with physical activity that intensify signs and symptoms and discuss this with the best sports medical professional you can find.

There are powerful and simple ways to bolster brain strength, heal brain injury and protect the brain from the neurodegenerative afflictions of the mind. All to often we blame aging for reductions in brain power and brain health. All the recommendations here surpass the common pharmaceuticals used for these neural disorders in many elegant research studies, without side effects. Physical activity, nutritional fasting, thermal therapies, meditation and healthy sleep are all easily accessible ways to build a better brain. These methods should be used in synergy as your biceps curls for your brain. Train your brain or it will let you down, when you need it most. Here’s your brain training blueprint. The side effects are too numerous to list and all purely positive. Practice often and be better than yesterday.