The benefits of swimming for your brain

so whether you're a regular swimmer at your local pool or you just love a dip on holiday i'm sure you know the benefits of swimming for your physical health but did you know about the huge boost that swimming can give to your brain and mental health today i break down the mood boosting and biological benefits of swimming for your mental health and your brain health hi i'm neuroscientist dr ben webb and i want to help you cultivate a healthy brain for a mentally healthy and happy life welcome to episode 49 of better brain better you hey how are you doing i hope you've had a good week i'm really delighted to spend time with you today and if you're watching on youtube please do like subscribe and hit that notification bell to hear when we release new videos thanks for listening in to the podcast on your favorite podcast platform if you like what you hear on our show please do leave us a review it really helps to spread the word so we can help more people we release weekly episodes for brains of all ages so your brain determines every aspect of your life your thoughts emotions movement and memory your brain works tirelessly for you 24 hours a day seven days a week so keeping your brain healthy and sharp is essential to your well-being so just as you can protect other areas of your health you can take steps to keep your brain healthy preserve your memory and lower your risk of brain diseases like alzheimer's parkinson's and stroke to help you optimize your brain health i've put together a guide that shows you the six simple steps you can take right now to help keep your brain healthy you can get this free guide at ologyoonlinecourses.com forward slash brain health that's ologyonlinecourses.com forward slash brain health go ahead and download this free guide it will help you to start optimizing your brain health immediately so we've long known that swimming is an excellent cardiovascular exercise that strengthens your heart and circulatory system but it's also really beneficial for your brain and mental health it helps the brain to release mood boosting brain chemicals repair damage to brain cells and actually grow new brain cells so your brain is where your thoughts and emotions live and a healthy brain contributes greatly to good mental health so swimming can help lower anxiety and depression it provides extra benefits to the brain as the aerobic action affects brain chemicals that influence your mood and provide stress reducing hormones so swimming like all exercise releases endorphins in the brain and endorphins are naturally produced chemicals feel good hormones that increase the sense of positivity and well-being they help to manage stress anxiety and overall mood and recent research has shown that swimming can have an antidepressant effect reducing depressive symptoms with a positive impact on those struggling with depression so if you swim with a group this actually has additional health benefits swimming with a group is typically a social affair and having and making friends with similar interests can be a strong antidote to loneliness a condition that is of epidemic proportions loneliness and so socialization can actually be as damaging to your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day and the problem is particularly pronounced among older adults but exercise especially when it's performed in the context of a supportive peer group can provide a needed physical and mental boost that could alleviate loneliness and pay long-term health benefits one of the most important discoveries within the past deca decade or so is the connection between exercise and the growth of new brain cells so short for brain derived neurotrophic factor bdnf is a protein generated in your brain that can help repair cells and support the growth of new brain cells and research has shown that we can generate new brain cells as adults we actually have to really work at it and swimming is a really good type of exercise for both promoting bdnf and the growth of new cells in your brain so swimming improves brain function and also helps repair damaged brain cells in a in the hippocampus this is the part of the brain primarily responsible responsible for memory and learning and the various reasons why you might lose brain cells in the hippocampus it may be lost or damaged due to age but there are also other reasons such as excessive alcohol consumption or stress and brain damage from stress can be reversed with swimming by promoting the growth of new brain cells or replacing lost ones in the hippocampus so swimming helps your brain to manufacture more bdnf than exists in the brains of people who are sedentary and several studies have shown an association between swimming as exercise and increased levels of bdnf in your brain and these higher levels can have wide ranging positive effects on cognition memory and mood regulation all functions of a healthy brain that's aging well so swimming encourages the growth of new neurons in the hippocampus so as we've seen hippocampus is the part of the brain that supports memory retention and learning the number of neurons in the hippocampus region of the brain increased dramatically after swimming for just simply just swimming for 30 days the hippocampus is the part of the brain associated with making and being able to recall memories so swimming is shown to increase the neuron growth and repair in the hippocampus region it's a vital activity to help improve your memory so swimming is also one of the most important skills that a child can actually learn research suggests that learning to swim at an early age promotes better physical cognitive and language development in children and children who learn to swim at an early age reach many developmental milestones much earlier than those who do not learn to swim so any form of exercise can actually improve your sleep but there's just something about swimming that makes it a great way to improve sleep quality so perhaps it's the fact that it's a full body workout that targets your core as well as your arms and your legs or perhaps it's the submersion in water colder than your body temperature that makes you want to cuddle up and snooze afterwards or maybe it's just the heart-pounding workout you get during a really really hard swim in the pool whatever it is swimming helps you to sleep better there's no doubt about it and that's really important for your brain health because during sleep that's your brain effectively take is when your brain effectively takes out its rubbish during sleep cerebrospinal fluid the fluid that runs through the brain and the spinal cord washes in and out of your brain like waves on the ocean this helps your brain to get rid of metabolic waste generated by hard working cells effectively this fluid wash this fluid wash acts as your brain sort of dust men taking out the trash leaving your brain in an optimal state to go to work the next day if you don't get sufficient slow wave sleep that's deep sleep over years and decades your brain gradually builds up piles of residual metabolic waste including the toxic proteins that lead to alzheimer's disease so swimming can help to clear away the metabolic waste that builds you up in your brain and leads to dementia and alzheimer's disease by helping you to get better sleep and cold water swimming also seems to protect your brain against degenerative diseases such as dementia because a recent study actually found that a cold shock protein was present in the blood of regular users of london's parliament hill liday the presence of which has been shown to slow the onset of dementia so there are currently more than a million people with dementia in the uk with this total expected to actually double by 2050 and current treatment options have only limited impact so the cold shock protein called rbm3 is believed to help slow and possibly even partially reverse the progress of some neurodegenerative diseases like alzheimer's so cold water swimmers at london's parliament hill lido volunteered themselves to be test subjects in a study during the winters of 2016 to 2018 during which they were regularly tested for the rbm3 protein and for comparison the researchers used members of a tai chi club who practiced beside the pool but never actually get in and the study found that a significant number of the swimmers had elevated levels of rbm3 whereas none of the tai chi groups levels increased so cold cold water swimming might actually provide some much needed protection against dementia so there's lots of brain and mental health benefits to swimming that we're really only beginning to truly understand but more than anything swimming indoors or outdoors is really good for your brain and your mental well-being and when you're immersed in the water feeling the water on your skin your brain is building new brain cells and repairing damaged ones and all your worries seem to drift away as i mentioned at the top of the show just as you can protect other areas of your health you can take steps right now to keep your brain healthy preserve your memory and lower your risk for brain diseases like alzheimer's parkinson's and stroke and to help you optimize your brain health i've put together a guide that shows you the six simple steps you can take right now to help keep your brain healthy so you can get this free guide at ologyonlinecourses.com forward slash brain health that's ologyonlinecourses.com brain health so please do go and doubt this download this free guide and start taking care of your brain health so thanks so much for spending time with me today i hope today's episode on the benefits of swimming for your brain health was helpful and i will look forward to seeing you next time

Channel: Dr Ben Webb

Views: 16,244

Keywords: benefits of swimming for the brain, why swimming is good for your brain, swimming and your brain, swimming and brain cells, swimming and mental health, how swimming benefits your mental health, how swimming improves your brain health, how exercise improves your brain health, how exercise benefits your brain, exercise grows brain cells, exercise and your mental health, exercise and brain health, swimming boost brain function, cold water swimming and dementia, swimming and sleep

Id: y-iLPuuPiWE

Length: 11min 22sec (682 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 20 2021