Another Reason To Get Moving

I’m always interested in finding another reason to encourage people to move their bodies. We’re so hooked into the idea of exercise needing to be about “the burn” and lose or control weight, that when we don’t care about weight for whatever reason, exercise often also goes out the window!

Driving to my clinic this morning I was listening to an interview on Radio National with a researcher, Professor Nicola T. Lautenschlager, from the University of Western Australia who’s been working with older people to try to improve their memory.

The study involved two groups of people aged over 50. They had a control group maintain their normal exercise routine (for most of them it was no activity! ) and a study group walked for 50 minutes 3 times a week, or other equivalent moderate physical activity, for 24 weeks.

At the end of the study, the walkers had significantly better results in cognitive tests and had better delayed recall. That is, their memories had improved, and was still better six months after the initial program, and also a year after the program.

In other words, their memories improved!

Researchers don’t know why but speculate it might be because of improved blood flow to the brain.

I spoke to an acupuncturist colleague to get clear on the energetic spin of the issue. Energy medicine is learned by studying living bodies, so usually has a different understanding of what’s going on in the body than does western medicine. My colleague agreed the increased oxygen flow to the brain is part of the improvement. She added that in energetic medicine, the kidneys both govern the brain and underpin the lung circulation. So when the kidneys are activated in a healthy balanced way, like regular moderate walking, not only more oxygen but more chi (life energy) is reaching the brain, and it responds!

She warns that if a person is on their feet for hours a day at work, or over-exercises, they risk over-stimulating the kidneys which over time depletes the brain and diminishes brain function.

Someone who sits too much (like me!) and doesn’t activate their kidney yang enough, their brain starts to deteriorate over time, then memory loss begins to occur, and so on.

She added that walking can also improve our longevity because healthy kidneys means a healthy circulation and a healthy brain!

So there you have it – western science and eastern energetic medicine agree: walk for 30 minutes a day and you’ll feel great, mate!!

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