Rating: 4.5/5
Audio Version review
I have exercised intermittently throughout my life, but I have had a lot of difficulty in recent years sticking to anything because I have attended college and had several children. When I found myself at my heaviest ever last year, I decided to get serious about weight loss. I chose this book to listen to because I was hoping it would inspire me to exercise, and not only for the weight loss potential. It was an excellent choice! The book's focus is, in fact, not on weight loss at all. This book focuses on the myriad of ways cardio exercise helps the brain and therefore the whole body. This book has definitely succeeded in helping inspire me to remain active. Even a little bit of exercise has tremendous effects on the brain and body.
The book starts out talking in-depth about a case study of a school in Illinois - Naperville. They instituted a new exercise program and managed to get some surprising results. Only three percent of their student body is overweight, AND they were at one point number one in the entire world on the TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study). They even had students wanting to work out before taking important exams like the SATs. The book goes on to discuss exercise's effect on certain conditions such as depression, anxiety, ADHD, addiction, aging, and hormonal changes. This was all fascinating information, of course. It was particularly interesting to me how these conditions are connected though levels of certain hormones and proteins in the brain (dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, GABA, BDNF, and others.) There were some shocking things too -- like how brain damage caused by drinking, the negative effects of depression, and general brain shrinkage can be fixed by cardiovascular exercise (like, at a certain point it levels out to where you might not be able to tell there was damage at all. It's apparently a myth that you can't grow new brain cells.) I was honestly blown away by how many ways the brain is able to compensate and fix itself with just a little exercise.
This author comes at this from an evolutionary standpoint. That is, he explains the way the brain works in terms of how we "evolved" to hunt and gather, and how our fight-or-flight responses, stress responses, and "state of emergency" comes into play in a modern society. This helps the information make more sense. Even if you believe humans were created rather than evolved, this STILL makes sense. Our bodies were designed to work in a certain way, and moving is an essential part of that!
Yes, this book does come across as repetitive. For me, however, that was a good thing. There are a lot of jargon (scientific) terms used, but I was actually reasonably familiar with all of them. It took a few times hearing them for it to really sink in what they were/what they meant in the context of this book. And since I was listening to the audio version, it was helpful for him to keep repeating and emphasizing what each of the hormones of proteins does in the body and the brain. I know I will remember them better because of the way this book was written. So (unlike a lot of other reviewers) I actually thought the repetitive nature of this book was helpful.
Purchase here!
Thanks for the review! Does the book have any specific ages listed in terms of specific exercises and intensity to use?
ReplyDelete