When You Move Your Body, Your Brain Physically Grows New Cells
Exercise is not a wellness habit. It is a neurological event. Here is the science of what happens inside your brain when you move, and why no drug on earth replicates it.
Photo: Tobi / Pexels
There is a sentence in the scientific literature that still feels like it should not be true. The human brain grows new neurons throughout life, including into the tenth decade, and the single most powerful stimulus for that growth is physical movement.
Not a pharmaceutical. Not a nutrient. A walk.
This is not a metaphor for feeling better after exercise, or a description of increased blood flow, or a mood-state questionnaire that got better after a few weeks of jogging. It is a structural, measurable, histologically confirmed phenomenon: movement stimulates the production of new neurons in the hippocampus, the brain region responsible for memory consolidation, spatial navigation and emotional regulation. Those neurons mature, migrate, and integrate into existing neural networks. The hippocampus physically grows. The change shows up on MRI scans of human brains.
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