What a book... While reading this book, I've experienced boredom, excitement and at times, feelings of inadequacy while reading some of the more difficult chapters (a lot more than would have been optimal). The underlying theme of the book is to explain how regular exercise affects multiple domains of our cognition.
Genre: Self-help / health management / neuroscience (for dummies? xd)
Aesthetics
The book itself is quite small but thick. It has an eye-catching yellow cover and bold design. Inside of the book is handled in a minimalist fashion which is really compelling to me - I do not enjoy a lot of shenanigans such as a gigantic heading and tons of sections written in bold. Minimalistic design is fine but one needs to be careful with it because it can easily happen that book is made in minimalistic fashion but at the price of decreased readability, which is sadly the case with this particular book.
The issue itself is not that striking, but in my opinion, it slightly decreases the enjoyment of the book because sometimes it's hard to stay focused on its contents particularly when you are reading through a cluttered section that is not well divided into respective paragraphs.
The issue itself is not that striking, but in my opinion, it slightly decreases the enjoyment of the book because sometimes it's hard to stay focused on its contents particularly when you are reading through a cluttered section that is not well divided into respective paragraphs.
Informative value
The informative value of this book is great but on some occasions, it's a little too much. There are sections that, in great detail, describe how certain neurotransmitters impact various parts of a brain and what exactly is happening, when you are experiencing anxiety, depression or suffer from attention deficit disorder (ADD). The explanations themselves are really fascinating, but sometimes they just overwhelm the reader.
As for the content itself. Each chapter of the book discusses the benefits of exercise in relation to anxiety, depression, concentration, hormonal and many other phenomena in great detail. The author provides a lot of studies to firmly establish the validity of his claims as well as a large amount of anecdotal evidence based on case studies he has dealt with while working in a field of psychotherapy for more than 30 years.
The only demerit I see, in regards to the informative value is that chapters themselves are not structured very well. Sometimes a chapter begins with a case study, other times with a research study, a general definition of phenomena discussed in the chapter itself or even the author’s personal story that might not always carry a lot of importance in the broader context of the book.
Expressiveness
As a part of one of my psychology courses, I've learned the basics of cognitive neuroscience and neurology and yet I sometimes had to re-read a certain paragraph multiple times to conceive the complexity of explanation I was provided with and all its nuances. It feels like that jargon itself is the biggest issue. This book is supposed to be somewhat of an accessible overview of the impacts of physical activity on one's cognition but the excessive use of scientific jargon can easily go over the head of an average reader and make him put down the book in the middle of the second chapter, which is a shame.
On a similar note, I feel like the author’s writing style is not really that great, or perhaps, he didn't adapt his writing style to complement the contents of the book well. As I mentioned earlier, there is an excessive use of scientific jargon and some paragraphs about research studies or author's personal experiences are far too wordy and unable to convey the message in a clear and accessible manner. Needless to say, stumbling upon this kind of book section can cause frustration and an urgent need to skip a page or a two which is never a good sign.
Overall feel
Upon finishing this book, I was left with a mixture of positive and negative emotions. On one hand, I truly enjoyed its contents – I think it provided a lengthy and information-heavy explanation of a topic I am currently very interested in - but on the other hand, the jargon, formatting and author's writing style somewhat diminished my enjoyment of the book itself.
My final verdict is that I would not recommend this book to anyone who does not have the basics of neurology and neuroscience down and even if you do, you should be prepared, that it will not be a book, that is easy to digest (I had to re-read it twice to fully absorb all its content I was interested in).
Golden Nugget (s)
If I had to sum up this entire book in one idea, It would probably be something like this :
If you are not exercising regularly, you should really give it a shot, because it improves your brain activity across multiple domains - It works!
In the 9th chapter of the book, you can find 9 ways in which exercise contributes to healthier brain and enhanced cognitive performance. I'll just list them and provide a shortened explanation of them.
1. It strengthens the cardiovascular system
- Healthy heart and lungs equal to reduced resting blood pressure.
- Healthy heart and lungs equal to reduced resting blood pressure.
- Contracting muscles during exercise releases growth factor, used to build and repair the blood vessels in the brain and throughout the body.
- Exercise means more nitric oxide in your cardiovascular system, which results in widened vessel passages and more blood flowing into the brain.
- In addition to widened vessels, exercise also reduces their hardening and directly counteracts certain cardiovascular diseases, prevents stroke etc.
2. It regulates fuel
- Exercise increases the amount of IGF-1 (the factor that regulates the amount of insulin in your body), which leads to a more efficient distribution of glucose to your brain. Glucose is basically the fuel that keeps your brain functional therefore its optimal concentrations ascertain optimal cognitive performance.
3. It reduces obesity
- Exercise burns calories and, as some recent studies have indicated, decreases appetite.
- Exercise burns calories and, as some recent studies have indicated, decreases appetite.
4. It elevates your stress threshold
- Exercise combats corrosive effects of too much cortisol in your system when stressed. Exercise is a form of a mild stress itself so doing it increases your resilience to stressful events because you get used to the increased stress present in your organism.
5. It lifts your mood
- Exercises serve as a catalyst to the processes which increase the number of neurotransmitters that help to create new connections in the brain. For instance, depression is a connectivity issue - the brain is unable to produce a sufficient number of certain transmitters, therefore, has a hard time creating new neural connections (storing and working with a new information). A person suffering from it is stuck in a loop of negative thoughts with no way out. Also, it’s worth noting that the case of one's bad mood is similar to depression but much less severe so exercising will have a positive impact either way.
6. It strengthens your immune system
- From the evolutionary perspective, the immune system is designed to function at its best while the person is in a state of physical activity. There is a little bit of mystery and ambiguity on how exactly exercise boots the immune system, but there are several case studies indicating that it works.
7. It fortifies your bones
- Exercise puts stress on the bones, making them more durable in the long term.
8. It boosts motivation
- Exercise counteracts the natural decline in levels of dopamine, that comes with ageing.
9. It fosters neuroplasticity
- Exercise strengthens neurons and the connections between them, making them more robust, thus they are less susceptible to neurodegenerative diseases.
So, what kind of exercise is the most effective to improve my brain function?
According to Ratey, the brain benefits the most from aerobic exercise during which you maintain at least 60% or your maximum heart rate*. He is also an advocator of interval training, in which you strain the body in an asymmetrical manner, which produces more "good" stress for your body and brain, increasing your resilience to external stimuli.
On a similar note, he encourages people to engage in "complex exercises" such as yoga or martial arts. Via these kinds of exercises, you can improve your motor skills. In addition, research suggests that the part of the brain (cerebellum) that helps us hone our motor skills and also acts as the intermediary in between various parts of the brain responsible for sustaining concentration and attention.
* Your maximum heart rate is 220 minus your age
That would be it for today's review. It was a bit longer than I planned it to be, but I am glad it turned out this way because, in my opinion, it contains all the key information regarding this book and under what circumstances it's worth picking up. It might be of great use for someone who is in doubt or just looking for a non-fiction book that fits his immediate needs.
Hope you are having a wonderful day
Cheers
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