In which I motivate you to hit the gym
Are you lazy and stressed? Do you want to be "biochemically, molecularly, calm?" Then run!Scientists have long known that exercise stimulates the creation of new brain cells, and some believe that's the reason working out tends to have an antidepressant effect. A study by Princeton scientists has found that cells that are created from running don't respond to stress in the same way regular ol' lazy-people cells do, according to an article in the New York Times.These "exercise-created" cells express fewer stress genes than regular cells do in stressful situations. If you're a rat.The researchers experimented with two groups of rats, only one of which was allowed to run. Then the rats were made to swim in cold water (which the Times tells us helpfully, "they don't like to do") and their brain cells were monitored.
The “cells born from running,” the researchers concluded, appeared to have been “specifically buffered from exposure to a stressful experience.” The rats had created, through running, a brain that seemed biochemically, molecularly, calm.
Other studies have shown that this effect is consistent with not only physical stress, but also emotional stress. In one experiment, rats were injected with an oxidative chemical that artificially raised their stress levels and then placed in an unfamiliar area. Rats that had exercised were "relatively nonchalant" and explored the area. Rats that did not exercise hid in dark corners. So.
“It looks more and more like the positive stress of exercise prepares cells and structures and pathways within the brain so that they’re more equipped to handle stress in other forms,” says Michael Hopkins, a graduate student affiliated with the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory Laboratory at Dartmouth, who has been studying how exercise differently affects thinking and emotion. “It’s pretty amazing, really, that you can get this translation from the realm of purely physical stresses to the realm of psychological stressors.”
OK, and here is the part where I actually motivate you to start going to the gym. Working out will help your brain cells not die.
Anxiety in rodents and people has been linked with excessive oxidative stress, which can lead to cell death, including in the brain. Moderate exercise, though, appears to dampen the effects of oxidative stress.