Mounting evidence is showing that regular exercise can help prevent a host of cognitive impairments and enhance your brainpower.
Researchers recently examined more than 100 studies on the topic, and discovered that both resistance training and aerobic exercise provide mental benefits, but in different ways. Aerobic exercise improves your long-term planning capability, and your ability to stay on task. Resistance training improves your ability to focus amid distracters.
According to the Los Angeles Times:
“... MRIs of people in their 60s showed increases in gray and white matter after just six months of exercise. This happens in the prefrontal and temporal lobes, sites that usually diminish with age. With exercise ... they grow ... [T]he hippocampus area of the brain, key for memory formation, shrinks 1% to 2% per year in those older than 60, but when people in this age group begin fitness regimens, it grows by 1% to 2% instead.”