Today, we’re going to discuss ways to radically increase your “brain power.” First, exercise can keep your brain sharp as you age. A new study has demonstrated that a program of exercise can, over the course of a year, increase the size of your hippocampus, the part of the brain that is involved in memory forming, organizing and storing. The hippocampus often shrinks in late adulthood, leading to memory impairment.

Regular exercise can also improve the ability of overweight children to think, plan and even do math. Tests have shown that previously inactive children who start to exercise, experience increased brain activity in the prefrontal cortex, an area associated with complex thinking, decision making and correct social behavior. The more they exercise, the better the result. About two-thirds of all Americans are now overweight or obese, and about one-third of all our children. This alone should motivate people enough to get moving, but the statistical numbers keep going in the wrong direction year after year.

Not only are we as Americans growing larger, we're also suffering more disease and degeneration as a result of this. Nearly 25 percent of adults suffer from type 2 diabetes or pre-diabetes, and type 2 diabetes is now one of the most common chronic conditions affecting children below the age of 20. We can now add a decrease in brain power and brain function to the list of afflictions directly related to the fattening of America. Not only does cognitive function rise in both children and older adults when they stick to an exercise program, but your blood sugar stabilizes and your insulin levels also normalize.

Simply put, normalizing your insulin levels is an important factor for optimizing your overall health and preventing disease of all kinds, from diabetes, to heart disease, to cancer, and everything in between. I actually view exercise as a drug, because of its power to effect beneficial change on a diseased body. While the consensus is no single cause can be blamed for the alarming increase in neurological diseases like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's or age-related dementia, or Attention Deficit Disorder or Autism-spectrum disorders in our children, a sedentary lifestyle now appears to be at least a contributing factor.

There are some suspected contributors to the rise in neurological disorders. First and foremost are some common and widespread man-made chemicals lurking in your food supply, including artificial sweeteners like aspartame, pesticides and MSG. Avoiding these and other synthetic chemicals as much as possible will help to lower your chances of becoming one of the unfortunate people who suffer from a neurological disorder. But one of the best things you can do for your brain as a preventative measure is to keep active through exercise. According to other research, those who said they had engaged in moderate exercise such as brisk walking, aerobics, yoga, strength training or swimming in their 40s, 50s and beyond were less apt to have mild cognitive impairment. As you age, you don't want to find yourself facing cognitive impairment.

New studies show that moderate exercise can reverse normal brain shrinkage by two percent, effectively reversing age-related hippocampus degeneration by one to two years. Also the people in the control group who didn't exercise saw an average of 1.4 percent decrease in hippocampus size. When these researchers say the hippocampus region of the brain increases in size as a response to exercise, they are talking about a powerful tool to fight the onset of Alzheimer's disease. The hippocampus, which is considered the memory center of your brain, is the first region of your brain to suffer shrinkage and impairment at the onset of Alzheimer's disease, leading to memory problems and disorientation..

Besides reversing the normal shrinkage of aging brains, exercise also helps younger brains grow stronger in the first place. Researchers hypothesize that the human brain responds to exercise by increasing growth factors that lead to more blood vessels, more neurons and more connections between the neurons, all of which can lead to a healthier brain. According to these new studies, this lack of exercise in our schools might be producing not only less active brains in our children, but also less developed brain regions that control complex thinking and social behavior. Getting our children moving again might be just what we need to help turn the tide on the alarming rise of attention deficit related disorders currently afflicting our youth.

There are many different types of exercise to let you start immediately, and they all provide benefits that extend well beyond benefitting your brain. When you're planning your exercise routine, try to incorporate the following types of exercise:

• Aerobic: Jogging, using an elliptical machine and walking fast are all examples of aerobic exercise. This is the most common type of exercise being done and the one I would caution people if you are aging and arthritis is a factor. If this is your case get your doctors permission for aerobic exercise.

· Interval training or burst type training, can dramatically improve your cardiovascular fitness and fat-burning capabilities. So, short bursts of activity done at a very high intensity can help you reach your optimal weight and level of fitness, in a shorter amount of time.

· Strength Training: Rounding out your exercise program with a 1-set strength training routine will ensure that you're really optimizing the possible health benefits of a regular exercise program. You need enough repetitions to exhaust your muscles. The weight should be heavy enough that this can be done in fewer than 12 repetitions, yet light enough to do a minimum of four repetitions. It’s also important NOT to exercise the same muscle groups every day. They need at least two days of rest to recover, repair and rebuild.

In closing, you also want to keep your brain active and engaged, because the saying "use it or lose it" really does apply when it comes to keeping your brain fit. An example of keeping your brain engaged is reading a daily newspaper, doing a weekly crossword puzzle, solving Sudoku or other brain teasers..

Your brain is meant to last you a lifetime, but it will degenerate and decay if you fail to take the proper steps to care for it. Getting enough exercise, keeping your brain active and protecting it from the wrong kinds of foods while feeding it the foods it thrives on should keep your brain active and healthy well into your senior years and help you avoid common brain diseases. Exercise can keep your brain sharp as you age.

Regular exercise can also improve the ability of overweight children to think, plan and even do math, according to other recent research. MRIs have shown that previously inactive children who start to exercise experience increased brain activity in the prefrontal cortex, an area associated with complex thinking, decision making and correct social behavior.

The more they exercise, the better the result.