How Exercise Rewires Your Brain for Better Mental Wellbeing

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Dr. Tracey Marks, psychiatrist, explains what happens immediately, and what happens over the long term:

For now and for later

First of all, a single workout can already alter brain chemistry and protect against stress. In the longer term, exercise promotes neurogenesis, primarily in the hippocampus, improving memory and reversing brain aging. It also strengthens the prefrontal cortex, which is critical for decision-making, focus, and emotional regulation.

In more general terms, exercise boosts brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) levels, which in turn boost neuron growth and connectivity.

Exercise also promotes angiogenesis (blood vessel construction), improving oxygen and nutrient delivery to the brain.

Timeline of benefits:

  • Immediate: increased blood flow and temporary BDNF spike.
  • Weeks: new neurons, connections, and blood vessel growth.
  • Months: visible brain volume changes and better brain connectivity.

Dr. Marks’ Timing Tips

  • Morning: boosts energy and helps regulate the circadian rhythm.
  • Midday: resets stress levels (specifically: to low)
  • Evening: helps process emotions (but it’s still recommended to avoid high-intensity exercise close to bedtime)

For more on all of this, enjoy:

Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

Wondering what kind of exercise is best?

You might also like to read:

The Neuroscientist In The Gym: Dr. Wendy Suzuki Explains The Exercise That Protects Your Brain

Take care!

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  • Feel-Good Productivity – by Dr. Ali Abdaal

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    “Rise and grind” is not a sustainable way to live. Yet for most of us, there are things we do have to do every day that we don’t necessarily do for fun. So, how to be productive with those things, and not feel like we are constantly compromising and sacrificing our time on this earth for some intrinsically trivial but extrinsically required activity that’ll be forgotten tomorrow?

    And most of us do also have dreams and ambitions (and if you don’t, then what were they before life snatched them away from you?), things to work towards. So there is “carrot” for us as well as “stick”. But how to break the cycle and get more carrot and less stick, while being more productive than before?

    Dr. Abdaal frames this principally in terms of neurology first, psychology next.

    That when we are bored, we simply do not have the neurochemicals required to work well anyway, so addressing that first needs to be a priority. He lays out many ways of doing this, gives lots of practical tips, and brings attention to the ways it’s easy to go wrong (and how to fix those too).

    The writing style isdeceptively relaxed and casual, leading the reader smoothly into understanding of each topic before moving on.

    Bottom line: if you want to get more done while feeling better about it (not a tired wreck), then this is the book for you!

    Click here to check out Feel-Good Productivity, and thrive!

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  • Maca Root’s Benefits For The Mood And The Ability

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    Maca Root: What It Does And Doesn’t Do

    Maca root, or Lepidium meyenii, gets thought of as a root vegetable, though it’s in fact a cruciferous vegetable and more closely related to cabbage—notwithstanding that it also gets called “Peruvian ginseng”.

    • Nutritionally, it’s full of all manner of nutrients (vitamins, minerals, fiber, and a wide array of phytochemicals)
    • Medicinally, it’s long enjoyed traditional use against a wide variety of illnesses, including respiratory infections and inflammatory diseases.

    It’s also traditionally an aphrodisiac.

    Is it really anti-inflammatory?

    Probably not… Unless fermented. This hasn’t been studied deeply, but a 2023 study found that non-fermented and fermented maca root extracts had opposite effects in this regard:

    Anti-Inflammation and Anti-Melanogenic Effects of Maca Root Extracts Fermented Using Lactobacillus Strains

    However, this was an in vitro study, so we can’t say for sure that the results will carry over to humans.

    Is it really an aphrodisiac?

    Actually yes, it seems so. Here’s a study in which 45 women with antidepressant-induced sexual dysfunction found it significantly improved both libido and sexual function:

    ❝In summary, maca root may alleviate antidepressant-induced sexual dysfunction as women age, particularly in the domain of orgasm❞

    ~ Dr. Christina Dording et al.

    Read in full: A Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Trial of Maca Root as Treatment for Antidepressant-Induced Sexual Dysfunction in Women

    As for men, well these mice (not technically men) found it beneficial too:

    Effects of combined extracts of Lepidium meyenii and Allium tuberosum Rottl. on [e-word] dysfunction

    (pardon the censorship; we’re trying to avoid people’s spam filters)

    It did also improve fertility (and, actually in real men this time):

    Does Lepidium meyenii (Maca) improve seminal quality?

    Oh, to be in the mood

    Here’s an interesting study in which 3g/day yielded significant mood improvement in these 175 (human) subjects:

    Acceptability, Safety, and Efficacy of Oral Administration of Extracts of Black or Red Maca (Lepidium meyenii) in Adult Human Subjects: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Study

    And yes, it was found to be “well-tolerated” which is scientist-speak for “this appears to be completely safe, but we don’t want to commit ourselves to an absolutist statement and we can’t prove a negative”.

    Oh, to have the energy

    As it turns out, maca root does also offer benefits in this regard too:

    The improvement of daily fatigue in women following the intake of maca (Lepidium meyenii) extract containing benzyl glucosinolate

    (that’s not an added ingredient; it’s just a relevant chemical that the root naturally contains)

    Want to try some?

    We don’t sell it, but here for your convenience is an example product on Amazon 😎

    Enjoy!

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  • The Glucose Goddess Method – by Jessie Inchausspé

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    We’ve previously reviewed Inchausspé’s excellent book “Glucose Revolution”. So what does this book add?

    This book is for those who found that book a little dense. While this one still gives the same ten “hacks”, she focuses on the four that have the biggest effect, and walks the reader by the hand through a four-week programme of implementing them.

    The claim of 100+ recipes is a little bold, as some of the recipes are things like vinegar, vinegar+water, vinegar+water but now we’re it’s in a restaurant, lemon+water, lemon+water but now it’s in a bottle, etc. However, there are legitimately a lot of actual recipes too.

    Where this book’s greatest strength lies is in making everything super easy, and motivating. It’s a fine choice for being up-and-running quickly and easily without wading through the 300-odd pages of science in her previous book.

    Bottom line: if you’ve already happily and sustainably implemented everything from her previous book, you can probably skip this one. However, if you’d like an easier method to implement the changes that have the biggest effect, then this is the book for you.

    Click here to check out The Glucose Goddess Method, and build it into your life the easy way!

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Related Posts

  • How Internal Organs Can Be Affected By Spicy Foods (Doctor Explains)
  • The Insider’s Guide To Making Hospital As Comfortable As Possible

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Nobody Likes Surgery, But Here’s How To Make It Much Less Bad

    This is Dr. Chris Bonney. He’s an anesthesiologist. If you have a surgery, he wants you to go in feeling calm, and make a quick recovery afterwards, with minimal suffering in between.

    Being a patient in a hospital is a bit like being a passenger in an airplane:

    • Almost nobody enjoys the thing itself, but we very much want to get to the other side of the experience.
    • We have limited freedoms and comforts, and small things can make a big difference between misery and tolerability.
    • There are professionals present to look after us, but they are busy and have a lot of other people to tend to too.

    So why is it that there are so many resources available full of “tips for travelers” and so few “tips for hospital patients”?

    Especially given the relative risks of each, and likelihood, or even near-certainty of coming to at least some harm… One would think “tips for patients” would be more in demand!

    Tips for surgery patients, from an insider expert

    First, he advises us: empower yourself.

    Empowering yourself in this context means:

    • Relax—doctors really want you to feel better, quickly. They’re on your side.
    • Research—knowledge is power, so research the procedure (and its risks!). Dr. Bonney, himself an anesthesiologist, particularly recommends you learn what specific anesthetic will be used (there are many, and they’re all a bit different!), and what effects (and/or after-effects) that may have.
    • Reframe—you’re not just a patient; you’re a customer/client. Many people suffer from MDeity syndrome, and view doctors as authority figures, rather than what they are: service providers.
    • Request—if something would make you feel better, ask for it. If it’s information, they will be not only obliged, but also enthusiastic, to give it. If it’s something else, they’ll oblige if they can, and the worst case scenario is something won’t be possible, but you won’t know if you don’t ask.

    Next up, help them to help you

    There are various ways you can be a useful member of your own care team:

    • Go into surgery as healthy as you can. If there’s ever a time to get a little fitter, eat a little healthier, prioritize good quality sleep more, the time approaching your surgery is the time to do this.
      • This will help to minimize complications and maximize recovery.
    • Take with you any meds you’re taking, or at least have an up-to-date list of what you’re taking. Dr. Bonney has very many times had patients tell him such things as “Well, let me see. I have two little pink ones and a little white one…” and when asked what they’re for they tell him “I have no idea, you’d need to ask my doctor”.
      • Help them to help you; have your meds with you, or at least a comprehensive list (including: medication name, dosage, frequency, any special instructions)
    • Don’t stop taking your meds unless told to do so. Many people have heard that one should stop taking meds before a surgery, and sometimes that’s true, but often it isn’t. Keep taking them, unless told otherwise.
      • If unsure, ask your surgical team in advance (not your own doctor, who will not be as familiar with what will or won’t interfere with a surgery).

    Do any preparatory organization well in advance

    Consider the following:

    • What do you need to take with you? Medications, clothes, toiletries, phone charger, entertainment, headphones, paperwork, cash for the vending machine?
    • Will the surgeons need to shave anywhere, and if so, might you prefer doing some other form of depilation (e.g. waxing etc) yourself in advance?
    • Is your list of medications ready?
    • Who will take you to the hospital and who will bring you back?
    • Who will stay with you for the first 24 hours after you’re sent home?
    • Is someone available to look after your kids/pets/plants etc?

    Be aware of how you do (and don’t) need to fast before surgery

    The American Society of Anesthesiologists gives the following fasting guidelines:

    • Non-food liquids: fast for at least 2 hours before surgery
    • Food liquids or light snacks: fast for at least 6 hours before surgery
    • Fried foods, fatty foods, meat: fast for at least 8 hours before surgery

    (see the above link for more details)

    Dr. Bonney notes that many times he’s had patients who’ve had the worst thirst, or caffeine headache, because of abstaining unnecessarily for the day of the surgery.

    Unless told otherwise by your surgical team, you can have black coffee/tea up until two hours before your surgery, and you can and should have water up until two hours before surgery.

    Hydration is good for you and you will feel the difference!

    Want to know more?

    Dr. Bonney has his own website and blog, where he offers lots of advice, including for specific conditions and specific surgeries, with advice for before/during/after your hospital stay.

    He also has a book with many more tips like those we shared today:

    Calm For Surgery: Supertips For A Smooth Recovery

    Take good care of yourself!

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  • The Hidden Risk of Stretching: Avoiding Hamstring Injuries in Yoga

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    What is Yoga Butt

    Have you ever experienced a mysterious pain while stretching, or perhaps during yoga? You might be dealing with “yoga butt,” a common—although rarely discussed—injury. In the below video, the Lovely Liv from Livinleggings shares her journey of discovering, and overcoming, “yoga butt”.

    Dealing With Yoga Butt

    Yoga butt, or proximal hamstring tendinopathy, occurs when the hamstrings are overstretched without adequate strengthening. Many yoga poses help stretch the hamstrings, but often don’t focus on strengthening said hamstrings; this imbalance is what can lead to damage over time.

    To help prevent Yoga butt, it’s essential to balance stretching with strengthening. You can look into incorporating hamstring-strengthening exercises like Romanian deadlifts, hamstring curls, and modified yoga poses into your routine.

    (If you’re new to strengthening exercises, we recommend reading Women’s Strength Training Anatomy Workouts or Strength Training for Seniors).

    Watch the full video to learn more and hopefully protect yourself from long-term injuries:

    Let us know your thoughts, and whether you have any other topics you’d like us to cover.

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  • How Are You?

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    Answering The Most Difficult Question: How Are You?

    Today’s feature is aimed at helping mainly two kinds of people:

    • “I have so many emotions that I don’t always know what to do with them”
    • “What is an emotion, really? I think I felt one some time ago”

    So, if either those describe you and/or a loved one, read on…

    Alexithymia

    Alexi who? Alexithymia is an umbrella term for various kinds of problems with feeling emotions.

    That could be “problems feeling emotions” as in “I am unable to feel emotions” or “problems feeling emotions” as in “feeling these emotions is a problem for me”.

    It is most commonly used to refer to “having difficulty identifying and expressing emotions”.

    There are a lot of very poor quality pop-science articles out there about it, but here’s a decent one with good examples and minimal sensationalist pathologization:

    Alexithymia Might Be the Reason It’s Hard to Label Your Emotions

    A somatic start

    Because a good level of self-awareness is critical for healthy emotional regulation, let’s start there. We’ll write this in the first person, but you can use it to help a loved one too, just switching to second person:

    Simplest level first:

    Are my most basic needs met right now? Is this room a good temperature? Am I comfortable dressed the way I am? Am I in good physical health? Am I well-rested? Have I been fed and watered recently? Does my body feel clean? Have I taken any meds I should be taking?

    Note: If the answer is “no”, then maybe there’s something you can do to fix that first. If the answer is “no” and also you can’t fix the thing for some reason, then that’s unfortunate, but just recognize it anyway for now. It doesn’t mean the thing in question is necessarily responsible for how you feel, but it’s good to check off this list as a matter of good practice.

    Bonus question: it’s cliché, but if applicable… What time of the month is it? Because while hormonal mood swings won’t create moods out of nothing, they sure aren’t irrelevant either and should be listened to too.

    Bodyscanning next

    What do you feel in each part of your body? Are you clenching your jaw? Are your shoulders tense? Do you have a knot in your stomach? What are your hands doing? How’s your posture? What’s your breathing like? How about your heart? What are your eyes doing?

    Your observations at this point should be neutral, by the way. Not “my posture is terrible”, but “my posture is stooped”, etc. Much like in mindfulness meditation, this is a time for observing, not for judging.

    Narrowing it down

    Now, like a good scientist, you have assembled data. But what does the data mean for your emotions? You may have to conduct some experiments to find out.

    Thought experiments: what calls to you? What do you feel like doing? Do you feel like curling up in a ball? Breaking something? Taking a bath? Crying?

    Maybe what calls to you, or what you feel like doing, isn’t something that’s possible for you to do. This is often the case with anxiety, for example, and perhaps also guilt. But whatever calls to you, notice it, reflect on it, and if it’s something that your conscious mind considers reasonable and safe for you to do, you can even try doing it.

    Your body is trying to help you here, by the way! It will try (and usually succeed) to give you a little dopamine spike when you anticipate doing the thing it wants you to do. Warning: it won’t always be right about what’s best for you, so do still make your own decisions about whether it is a good idea to safely do it.

    Practical experiments: whether you have a theory or just a hypothesis (if you have neither make up a hypothesis; that is also what scientists do), you can also test it:

    If in the previous step you identified something you’d like to do and are able to safely do it, now is the time to try it. If not…

    • Find something that is likely to (safely) tip you into emotional expression, ideally, in a cathartic way. But, whatever you can get is good.
      • Music is great for this. What songs (or even non-lyrical musical works) make you sad, happy, angry, energized? Try them.
      • Literature and film can be good too, albeit they take more time. Grab that tear-jerker or angsty rage-fest, and see if it feels right.
      • Other media, again, can be completely unrelated to the situation at hand, but if it evokes the same emotion, it’ll help you figure out “yes, this is it”.
        • It could be a love letter or a tax letter, it could be an outrage-provoking news piece or some nostalgic thing you own.

    Ride it out, wherever it takes you (safely)

    Feelings feel better felt. It doesn’t always seem that way! But, really, they are.

    Emotions, just like physical sensations, are messengers. And when a feeling/sensation is troublesome, one of the best ways to get past it is to first fully listen to it and respond accordingly.

    • If your body tells you something, then it’s good to acknowledge that and give it some reassurance by taking some action to appease it.
    • If your emotions are telling you something, then it’s good to acknowledge that and similarly take some action to appease it.

    There is a reason people feel better after “having a good cry”, or “pounding it out” against a punchbag. Even stress can be dealt with by physically deliberately tensing up and then relaxing that tension, so the body thinks that you had a fight and won and can relax now.

    And when someone is in a certain (not happy) mood and takes (sometimes baffling!) actions to stay in that mood rather than “snap out of it”, it’s probably because there’s more feeling to be done before the body feels heard. Hence the “ride it out if you safely can” idea.

    How much feeling is too much?

    While this is in large part a subjective matter, clinically speaking the key question is generally: is it adversely affecting daily life to the point of being a problem?

    For example, if you have to spend half an hour every day actively managing a certain emotion, that’s probably indicative of something unusual, but “unusual” is not inherently pathological. If you’re managing it safely and in a way that doesn’t negatively affect the rest of your life, then that is generally considered fine, unless you feel otherwise about it.

    If you do think “I would like to not think/feel this anymore”, then there are tools at your disposal too:

    Take care!

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