OT: Living Well and Brain Health

[Dogdeacon]

I suspect why dancing consistently does comparatively well in all cognitive decline studies is that it checks boxes that doesn't have to do with exercise. I'm not an avid dancer myself so I'm definitely not trying to push my own agenda on someone.

My own position on brain health is to live well in all facets. If you check off all the different boxes, and perhaps most important of all in our society is to get rid of chronic stress, then you need not be concerned about finding the "best" exercise, or "best" activity, etc.

On edit: In regards to the mountain biking v road biking (I've done both, though more road biking), studies have shown that some anaerobic spurts are beneficial, more so than going for a longer period of time without them. I've pushed myself to anaerobic levels while road biking, because that's the type of person I am, but such anaerobic levels are unavoidable (no pushing necessary, it has to happen) if you are mountain biking over very steep terrain and I still would give that the edge.

Thoughtful response, thanks!

Dancing is interesting, I've tried taking dance classes, not recently though and its really hard to get my brain to think that way & body to respond. I have similar issues if I try to do a step specific exercise I.e. new one is Icky Shuffle on an agility ladder. But once you learn proper footwork (say in basketball) it becomes 2nd nature. It is similar to playing an instrument and I think for young people the cognitive benefits of music and learning an instrument are well documented. So in theory maybe dance combines the physical and the musical and the mind to body discipline. I might try a dance class to keep the mind (& marriage!) sharp. Yoga can be similar.

I still disagree on road v mountain biking, its easier to exhaust yourself or stay at aerobic threshold and keep pedaling on street hills - yes there is a forced level of exertion on trails but its quicker and if/when you bonk you walk. Nonetheless there is something mentally stimulating and thrilling, kind of like skiing that navigating a trail provides and the street rarely does. I conclude road biking done with consistent intensity is better aerobic exercise, while acknowledging mountain biking offers something more for the mind.

I'll conclude by returning to swimming again which offers similar challenges to dancing. There are non-intuitive techniques and movements to learn, practice and concentrate on. Each stroke has different techniques and how to enter the water, how to kick, where your head, hands etc are all contribute to efficiency and speed. You have to think about breathing! Particularly in open water (not constantly interrupted by turns) when you find that rhythm there is a mind-body magic to it. Its elusive though and fatigue or distraction takes it back away. The discipline required in sports where you may or likely will get distracted (golf!) are likely good practice for the mind and body. Ideally combine with other sports like basketball where there is mostly reaction & instinct.

 

[intlzncster]

I still disagree on road v mountain biking, its easier to exhaust yourself or stay at aerobic threshold and keep pedaling on street hills - yes there is a forced level of exertion on trails but its quicker and if/when you bonk you walk. Nonetheless there is something mentally stimulating and thrilling, kind of like skiing that navigating a trail provides and the street rarely does. I conclude road biking done with consistent intensity is better aerobic exercise, while acknowledging mountain biking offers something more for the mind.

He was talking about 'anaerobic', not 'aerobic' workout. With the extreme strain induced by climbing, at intervals, mountain biking offers an anaerobic workout. That 'bonking' is the effect of that work. Anaerobic workouts, at extremes for short intervals have been shown to offer superior benefits to most types of exercise. High intensity training.

Rode biking is aerobic for the most part, unless you are doing a lot of hills.

 

[Dogdeacon]

He was talking about 'anaerobic', not 'aerobic' workout. With the extreme strain induced by climbing, at intervals, mountain biking offers an anaerobic workout. That 'bonking' is the effect of that work. Anaerobic workouts, at extremes for short intervals have been shown to offer superior benefits to most types of exercise. High intensity training.

Rode biking is aerobic for the most part, unless you are doing a lot of hills.

I wrote aerobic threshold which means the same thing as anaerobic. It is way easier to simply bike as hard as you can for an entire ride (let's call that pushing aerobic threshold) on the road or do intervals on the road (let's call that anaerobic). Mountain biking might engage the upper body a bit more. Mountain biking down the steep hill you need to brake, coast at times versus on the road you can and should keep peddling the entire time. I guess casual mountain biking is more strenuous than casual road biking, but on the road I recommend getting Strava & using 'segments' to get your into your anaerobic groove.

 

[Jaker]

I didn't bother to red the article, but I assume dropping acid was not listed as a benefit?

 

[diggerfoot]

I'll conclude by returning to swimming again which offers similar challenges to dancing. There are non-intuitive techniques and movements to learn, practice and concentrate on. Each stroke has different techniques and how to enter the water, how to kick, where your head, hands etc are all contribute to efficiency and speed. You have to think about breathing! Particularly in open water (not constantly interrupted by turns) when you find that rhythm there is a mind-body magic to it. Its elusive though and fatigue or distraction takes it back away. The discipline required in sports where you may or likely will get distracted (golf!) are likely good practice for the mind and body. Ideally combine with other sports like basketball where there is mostly reaction & instinct.

First, many thanks to you and others for engaging me on this topic; it helps me fulfill an important promise to a very important person. There have been times when I resorted to swimming for conditioning. As this was my last resort for exercise I did only one kind of a work out; I jumped in a pool and swam for two miles. Let's call that a default work out. I got benefits from that work out, including the euphoria that indicates something beneficial is going on with the mind, but it just didn't compare with biking, hiking or running for me. I have no means of quantifying my experience and impression of that, just to claim that my best meditative states never occurred with swimming two miles in a pool.

My "default" swimming work out is not what you are talking about. I never did an anaerobic burst with swimming like I would do with other endurance activities. If there are engagements to the mind swimming like there are from mountain biking or trail running, my default work out did not involve them.

There are brain health studies and there are cognitive decline studies. Brain health studies can engage wider ages and wider activities. Cognitive decline studies are more limited, since researchers do not want to wait around for decades for the results. The default exercises for older people are more likely to be closer to my swimming work out than yours. Biking also would be a tamer version than what you and I have done on the road. A default version of mountain biking or trail running probably could not even be used for cognitive decline studies. On the other hand, a default dancing work out likely would be more vigorous and mentally engaging than any other type of exercise they might use.

Introducing this concept of a "default" work out leads me to a truly astonishing "study." A person thru-hiked the Colorado Trail and kept track of important metabolic numbers before and after. Here is the study. In particular, how his body treated the metabolism of fats and cortisol before and after is eye popping, though not surprising to a fellow long distance hiker. It should be noted that he was an active, fit person to begin with, who obviously knew about the health benefits of exercise, not a Bill Bryson clone.

You won't see "studies" like this written up in medical journals because it's just one person. To get tests of significance you would need large numbers of thru-hikers to study. It's possible but I'm reminded that "exercise isn't patentable." The investment required for a before and after metabolic study of this nature involving thru-hikers, with no practical pay off, just won't happen. Yet what thru-hikers do would be considered a default work out for the nomadic life for which we originally evolved.

This brings me to studies that have been done comparing walks in nature to walks in civilization of the same intensity. The walks in nature bring greater brain health benefits. Our nomadic origins involved walks in nature, not civilization. I suspect that any activity done in nature will have greater benefits than a similar level of activity done in civilization, because of how we originally involved.

This is a little bit of a tangent, but mainstream, corporate funded science (and I'm a scientist) has misled us about our natural condition. Most people reading this probably has read somewhere that the life expectancy for nomads was in the thirties, based on paleolithic anthropology, which is to say based mainly on carbon dating. Ethnographic anthropologists always found much older members of nomadic societies upon their first discovery. Indeed, members of Huron tribes were found to be as old as 100 upon their discovery. Our European ancestors came to a continent where the societies were longer lived than the polluted Industrial Revolution societies from which they came, yet we have been led to think otherwise.

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

I didn't bother to red the article, but I assume dropping acid was not listed as a benefit?

[goes without saying]

 

[Dogdeacon]

First, many thanks to you and others for engaging me on this topic; it helps me fulfill an important promise to a very important person. There have been times when I resorted to swimming for conditioning. As this was my last resort for exercise I did only one kind of a work out; I jumped in a pool and swam for two miles. Let's call that a default work out. I got benefits from that work out, including the euphoria that indicates something beneficial is going on with the mind, but it just didn't compare with biking, hiking or running for me. I have no means of quantifying my experience and impression of that, just to claim that my best meditative states never occurred with swimming two miles in a pool.

My "default" swimming work out is not what you are talking about. I never did an anaerobic burst with swimming like I would do with other endurance activities. If there are engagements to the mind swimming like there are from mountain biking or trail running, my default work out did not involve them.

There are brain health studies and there are cognitive decline studies. Brain health studies can engage wider ages and wider activities. Cognitive decline studies are more limited, since researchers do not want to wait around for decades for the results. The default exercises for older people are more likely to be closer to my swimming work out than yours. Biking also would be a tamer version than what you and I have done on the road. A default version of mountain biking or trail running probably could not even be used for cognitive decline studies. On the other hand, a default dancing work out likely would be more vigorous and mentally engaging than any other type of exercise they might use.

Introducing this concept of a "default" work out leads me to a truly astonishing "study." A person thru-hiked the Colorado Trail and kept track of important metabolic numbers before and after. Here is the study. In particular, how his body treated the metabolism of fats and cortisol before and after is eye popping, though not surprising to a fellow long distance hiker. It should be noted that he was an active, fit person to begin with, who obviously knew about the health benefits of exercise, not a Bill Bryson clone.

You won't see "studies" like this written up in medical journals because it's just one person. To get tests of significance you would need large numbers of thru-hikers to study. It's possible but I'm reminded that "exercise isn't patentable." The investment required for a before and after metabolic study of this nature involving thru-hikers, with no practical pay off, just won't happen. Yet what thru-hikers do would be considered a default work out for the nomadic life for which we originally evolved.

This brings me to studies that have been done comparing walks in nature to walks in civilization of the same intensity. The walks in nature bring greater brain health benefits. Our nomadic origins involved walks in nature, not civilization. I suspect that any activity done in nature will have greater benefits than a similar level of activity done in civilization, because of how we originally involved.

This is a little bit of a tangent, but mainstream, corporate funded science (and I'm a scientist) has misled us about our natural condition. Most people reading this probably has read somewhere that the life expectancy for nomads was in the thirties, based on paleolithic anthropology, which is to say based mainly on carbon dating. Ethnographic anthropologists always found much older members of nomadic societies upon their first discovery. Indeed, members of Huron tribes were found to be as old as 100 upon their discovery. Our European ancestors came to a continent where the societies were longer lived than the polluted Industrial Revolution societies from which they came, yet we have been led to think otherwise.

Very cool and interesting.

Again with swimming I highly suggest open water. There has always been something within me that responds to the water, the ocean especially. Playing in a pool can give me a sliver of that but not monotonous laps. My pool is a bubble that opens in the summer and that's much preferred. The ocean is not where I swim for regular exercise; the waves make distance swimming difficult-to-annoying. I swim in bigger lakes for 45 minutes and that swimming provides peace, cardiovascular exercise and beauty. My great grandfather emigrated from the coast of southern Ireland and I absolutely know in my bones that water is essential to me. All 4 of my siblings also live on the coast, I look out over Boston Harbor as I type this. So my conclusion is know thyself and choose the woods, the trails, fields or the water based on your own physiological and psychological response. I see wide open flat lands and become unsettled, I prefer a rocky hilly New England akin to Eire landscape, others might respond to the plains or even a city like NYC.

 

[crazyUCfan23]

Does repetitive lifting of a beer mug from bar to mouth count as exercise?

12 oz curls!

 

[Letsgohuskies11]

Very cool and interesting.

Again with swimming I highly suggest open water. There has always been something within me that responds to the water, the ocean especially. Playing in a pool can give me a sliver of that but not monotonous laps. My pool is a bubble that opens in the summer and that's much preferred. The ocean is not where I swim for regular exercise; the waves make distance swimming difficult-to-annoying. I swim in bigger lakes for 45 minutes and that swimming provides peace, cardiovascular exercise and beauty. My great grandfather emigrated from the coast of southern Ireland and I absolutely know in my bones that water is essential to me. All 4 of my siblings also live on the coast, I look out over Boston Harbor as I type this. So my conclusion is know thyself and choose the woods, the trails, fields or the water based on your own physiological and psychological response. I see wide open flat lands and become unsettled, I prefer a rocky hilly New England akin to Eire landscape, others might respond to the plains or even a city like NYC.

yeah i love swimming in the ocean but i'm also pale so i gotta be careful about getting roasted in the summer

 

[intlzncster]

My great grandfather emigrated from the coast of southern Ireland and I absolutely know in my bones that water is essential to me. All 4 of my siblings also live on the coast, I look out over Boston Harbor as I type this. So my conclusion is know thyself and choose the woods, the trails, fields or the water based on your own physiological and psychological response. I see wide open flat lands and become unsettled, I prefer a rocky hilly New England akin to Eire landscape, others might respond to the plains or even a city like NYC.

This is a very real thing. It's quite true of diets as well. Some folks evolved from peoples who ate predominantly meats, others root vegetables, others fish, others dairy. They say milk is hard to digest for people, yet for some groups it's quite natural. Eating similar to your ancestors, with obvious adjustments for modern advances in health, food, and science, makes sense.

Celtic people (Scottish/Irish) often feel that draw to the ocean or water. Same for me. Unlike you, I prefer swimming in the ocean over anything else. I like all the energy in the water.

Strangely, I'm a sun and warm weather year round type of guy. Not my roots.

 

[Dogdeacon]

This is a very real thing. It's quite true of diets as well. Some folks evolved from peoples who ate predominantly meats, others root vegetables, others fish, others dairy. They say milk is hard to digest for people, yet for some groups it's quite natural. Eating similar to your ancestors, with obvious adjustments for modern advances in health, food, and science, makes sense.

Celtic people (Scottish/Irish) often feel that draw to the ocean or water. Same for me. Unlike you, I prefer swimming in the ocean over anything else. I like all the energy in the water.

Strangely, I'm a sun and warm weather year round type of guy. Not my roots.

Admittedly some of my issues with swimming in the ocean are simply practical, not near my house and damn cold most of the year. I'm certain if I lived somewhere where ocean swimming was more accessible I'd take to it. Another thing I like about the lakes I swim in is there are no motor boats and no predators (my wife doesn't like it too much when I put on a wetsuit and ocean swim at the Cape). But of course I much, much prefer a day of ocean beach-going to a day at a lake.

Agree on diet too, something about a steak when I'm run down really fortifies me and the root vegetables too, I have to have turnip at Thanksgiving, love beets etc. And the mashed potatoes I ate at my ancestral house in County Cork will never be rivaled.

 

[ctchamps]

Ingested?
In what preparation?
What amount?

None of the articles describe dosage. Went to the Journal of Immunology to read the article but outside of a synopsis it's a paid site.

This article is pretty good at discussing the science. Baking soda may be beneficial for digestive problems and could help @Walker11 with his wheat problem.

Link to article:
Drinking baking soda could be an inexpensive, safe way to combat autoimmune disease

 

[Jaker]

"Could be "