In his Dr. Ratey's new book, he explains why exercise is the single most powerful tool we have to optimize brain function.
Dr. Ratey says that we actually grow brain cells when we exercise and it can be running, walking aerobics, etc. When the body moves oxygen is pumped to the brain so that brain tissue develops and can show new growth. This is unique because what he is saying is that we become smarter when we exercise. He has studies that prove this point as well. The exercises are not new, but it's the intensity in the way we move that can grow our brains.
SPARK shows how exercise may be the key to solving some of our most prominent health problems. The boomer generation is heading toward their golden years worried about the possibility of memory loss and Alzheimer's. Exercise helps keep the mind sharp. With tremendous clarity, Ratey distills the science, provides specific recommendations, and inspires even the biggest couch potato to get moving.
The benefits of exercise include:
- Better brain function,
- Beats stress,
- Lifts your mood
- Boosts your memory
- Sharpens your thinking
- Relieves anxiety and depression
- Helps with ADHD
- Slows down aging
Buy the book on Amazon: Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain
For more information, visit: www.johnratey.com.
About Dr. John Ratey
Dr. John J. Ratey, M.D., is an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and has a private practice in Cambridge, Massachusetts.For more than a decade he taught residents and Harvard medical students as the Assistant Director of Resident training at Massachusetts Mental Health Center. He continues to teach psychiatrists as a regular instructor in Harvard's Continuing Medical Education program.
As a clinical researcher he has published more than 60 papers in peer-review journals in the fields of psychiatry and psychopharmacology.
In 1986 he founded the Boston Center for the Study of Autism, and in 1988 he founded a new study group of the American Psychiatric Association focused on the study of aggression, which grew out of his research and development of novel drug treatments for aggressive behavior. During this time Dr. Ratey lectured internationally on aggression and disturbances in the brain that affect social functioning.
Dr. Ratey and Dr. Hallowell began studying ADHD in the 1980s and co-authored Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder from Childhood through Adulthood (1994), the first in a series of books that demystify the disorder. Dr. Ratey also co-authored Shadow Syndromes (1997) with Catherine Johnson, PhD, in which he describes the phenomenon of milder forms of clinical disorders.
