The weird effect these positions have on your brain

I actually took the time yesterday, wrote it down and added it up. And, guess what — I sat for a grand total of 11 ½ hours. Yep, over 11 hours sitting in a chair or on the couch. And, that doesn’t count the 8 1/2 hours of sleep I had the night before, giving me a grand total of just 4 hours where I was up and active. Why am I sharing this with you? I’m certainly not proud of it. I’m sharing it because I know I’m not alone. More and more of us spend larger and larger parts of our day doing something we know isn’t good for us — sitting. And, while you probably know that getting up and getting moving is important to your heart, you may not know how vital it is to your brain. But, it’s a fact that scientists have long been known that exercise has a positive impact on your brain health and your memory. It decreases your risk of Alzheimer’s and can even slow cognitive decline. In fact, my colleague Virginia Tims-Lawson recently wrote an article about a study that showed that just taking a two-minute break from sitting to move around had big benefits to your brain, including increasing the flow of blood and oxygen that keep your brain cells alive. And, it doesn’t stop there… Recent research by scientists at Ludwig Maximilians University Munich in Germany found that whether you’re sitting, standing, walking or vigorously exercising — it all impacts your brain’s ability to store and access memories at different levels. Activity counts For the study, published in the British Journal of Psychology, the scientists used electroencephalography or EEG to measure participants’ brain activity doing memory tasks during periods with and without physical activity. They analyzed brain […]

Click here to view full article