Spark

by John J. Ratey

Your overall strategy should include four areas: aerobic capacity, strength, and balance and flexibility. You should consult with a doctor or trainer who knows your history, but I can give you some solid guidelines. AEROBIC. Exercise four days a week, varying from thirty minutes to an hour, at 60 to 65 percent of your maximum heart rate. At this level, you’ll be burning fat in the body and generating the ingredients necessary for all the structural changes in the brain I’ve discussed. Walking should be perfectly adequate, but do it outside with a friend if possible. Whatever you choose, try to find something that you will enjoy over the long haul. Try a more intense pace for two days a week—70 to 75 percent of your maximum—for twenty to thirty minutes. If you haven’t been exercising, you’ll want to build up to this speed, and that’s fine. Consistency is probably more important than intensity. “You don’t have to work as hard as you may think you do,” suggests Kramer. “If you can work harder and run rather than walk, that’s great. But if you can’t, walking is what we’ve looked at, and it can have some fairly dramatic effects.” STRENGTH. Hit the weights or resistance machines twice a week, doing three sets of your exercises at weights that allows you to do ten to fifteen repetitions in each set. This is critical for preventing and counteracting osteoporosis: even if you do all the aerobic training in the world, your muscles and bones will still atrophy with age. A Tufts Unive...