Healthy Brain, Happy Life

In her informative and inspiring book, neuroscientist Wendy Suzuki transforms the way we think about our brain, our health and our personal happiness.  This mix of personal memoir, science narrative and practical advice bring the human brain into focus as never before, revealing the powerful connection between exercise, learning, memory and cognitive abilities.



Nearing forty, Dr Wendy Suzuki was at the pinnacle of her career. An award-winning university professor and world-renowned neuroscientist, she had tenure, her own successful research lab, prestigious awards, and international renown. But despite her professional success, she was overweight, lonely and tired, and knew that her life had to change.

Wendy started simply – by going to an exercise class. Eventually, she noticed that not only did she begin to get fit, she also became sharper, had more energy, and her memory improved. Being a neuroscientist, she wanted to know why.

Using Wendy’s journey from frumpy, fat and frustrated to fit and fabulous as a guide, Healthy Brain offers not just the HOWS of making exercise an important part of life, but the WHYS of the benefits it brings. But movement is just the first step to being Brain Healthy. Once you get your body and mind hooked on exercise, you bring in practices in mindfullness to calm stress and allow your minds to wander to unlock creativity. As your brain begins to change (something called neuroplasticity), the benefits build–you get fitter, improve your memory, increase your ability to work quickly and move from task to task easily.

One of her main discoveries is the powerful mind-body link. The author emphasizes how powerful exercise is. “Exercise is responsible for the majority of the positive brain changes seen with environmental enrichment.” And so, Dr. Suzuki invests much time talking about the power of the brain-body connection. Towards that end, she combines physical workouts as a way to energize your brain: “The body has a powerful influence on her brain functions and conversely but the brain has a powerful influence over how are bodies feel and work and heal.” Exercise causes definite changes in your body–it boosts the level of three key chemicals that affect mood.

As Wendy Suzuki says in her TED Talk, “After several years of really focusing on this question, I’ve come to the following conclusion – that exercise is the most transformative thing that you can do for your brain today for the following three reasons. No. 1, it has immediate effects on your brain. A single workout that you do will immediately increase levels of neurotransmitters like dopamine, serotonin and noradrenaline. That is going to increase your mood right after that workout. My lab showed that a single workout can improve your ability to shift and focus attention, and that focus improvement will last for at least two hours.

No. 2, the most common finding in neuroscience studies, long-term exercise, is improved attention function dependent on your prefrontal cortex. You not only get better focus and attention, but the volume of the hippocampus increases as well. You not only get immediate effects of mood with exercise, but those last for a long time. So you get long-lasting increases in those good-mood neurotransmitters.

But really, the most transformative thing that exercise will do is its protective effects on your brain. You’re going to create the strongest, biggest hippocampus and prefrontal cortex so it takes longer for these dementia or Alzheimer’s to actually have an effect.”

Healthy Brain, Happy Life is available to buy on Amazon (a bit cheaper, if you’re buying used!)

You can also listen to the interview with Wendy Suzuki on YouTube , where she explains everything about the benefits of 30-minute daily workout.

Let us know what you think x

 

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