Heena Sharma Blog

Regular aerobic exercise can help in improving thinking skills not only in older people but in young people as well, a recent study suggests. According to the research, regular aerobic exercise such as walking, cycling or climbing stairs may improve thinking skills not only in older people but in young people as well. The study also found that the positive effect of exercise on thinking skills may increase as people age. The specific set of thinking skills that improved with exercise is called executive function. Executive function is a person's ability to regulate their own behavior, pay attention, organise and achieve goals. "As people age, there can be a decline in thinking skills, however our study shows that getting regular exercise may help slow or even prevent such decline. We found that all participants who exercised not only showed improvements in executive function but also increased the thickness in an area of the outer layer of their brain," said

Just 35 minutes of walking or cycling three times a week along with a healthy diet may improve cognitive skills in older adults, a new study suggests. The study, published in the journal Neurology, examined the effects of both exercise and diet on cognitive skills. For the study, the team involved 160 persons with an average age of 65 and randomly assigned them to one of the four groups -- aerobic exercise alone; DASH diet alone; both aerobic exercise and the DASH diet; or health education, which consisted of educational phone calls once every week or two. The research team found those who exercised and consumed the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet that is rich in fruits and vegetables, beans, nuts, low-fat dairy products, whole grains, and lean meats, had greater improvements compared to health education controls. Participants who exercised showed significant improvements in cognitive skills when compared to those who did not exercise. Read Mo

Practicing yoga regularly can enable governments and individual households save on healthcare costs, Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Suresh Prabhu said here on Monday. Speaking at the inaugural session of a two-day international yoga conference, Prabhu said that yoga helps provide the right balance between providing good healthcare without burdening individual households or governments. "If you do yoga regularly, it will prevent diseases, it will make life better with almost no cost. The governments will not be burdened with costs, nor households will have to face the big challenge of how to provide hospitalization to the family members," the Minister said. "This is a great opportunity of bringing yoga as an answer to many problems that the global world is facing." Read Complete Article Business Standard

Engaging in exercises such as cycling, aerobics and gymming for more than three hours a day can worsen mental health than not exercising at all, a study has found. Health News : Engaging in exercises such as cycling , aerobics and gymming for more than three hours a day can worsen mental health than not exercising at all, a study has found. The study, published in journal The Lancet Psychiatry, found that people who exercised between three and five times a week had better mental health than people who exercised less or more each week. Conversely, people doing extreme amounts of exercise might have obsessive characteristics which could place them at greater risk of poor mental health, the researchers said. "Previously, people have believed that the more exercise you do, the better your mental health, but our study suggests that this is not the case," said Adam Chekroud, Assistant Professor at Yale University in the US. "Doing exercise more th