When We Stop Playing Sports, Our Brains Change

Do you know all the benefits of playing sports?

If we stop playing sports and become sedentary, we will harm all of these memory-laden areas of the brain, in addition to harming our body.

Many jobs require us to sit for long hours without moving.

However, when we stop all physical activity during our free time, we reach a higher level of sedentarism.

Our body needs to move and exercise. It is not natural to sit idly by. This is why many specialists recommend doing at least 30 minutes to an hour of exercise per day.

But it is always complicated for us …

When we stop exercising, we do it because we feel tired after working so hard. Or because we don’t want to get up early. Or simply because we are not used to it.

However, having a completely sedentary lifestyle is bad for our health. But it also causes changes in our brain that we are not aware of.

Let’s take a closer look.

When we stop playing sports, our blood flow decreases

When we exercise, our blood flow increases, not only during training, but also throughout the following day.

However, it is of no use if we exercise today and then do nothing for a week. It is essential to distribute our sports hours over several days of the week.

Increasing blood flow is very positive for our brain. If we stop playing sports for a long time, these are the consequences we may face:

• Our memory can start to fail. We will forget what we had to do or what we should not forget because of the decrease in blood flow to the brain which causes a decrease in neural connections.
• We will be more prone to have a cerebral infarction because of what is known as ischemia.
• If the blood flow to the brain decreases noticeably, it is possible that irreversible damage is occurring in the brain tissue.

Here are some consequences that we can suffer from if the blood flow decreases due to lack of exercise.

Knowing this, it should also be noted that it is not necessarily by going to the gym that you will avoid all these problems.

Walking (it is even better if it is in nature) at least an hour a day constitutes a sport practice when it becomes a habit.

In addition, we must remember that by stopping playing sports, we will promote stress. Thus, anxiety and health problems will be common.

So if we can avoid them… why not do it?

Sport is good for our brain

In addition to the consequences on our brain when it comes time to stop exercising, it is important to mention another series of changes that will occur if we choose a sedentary life.

Among these changes, the hippocampus, one of the areas of our brain responsible for memory, will be affected.

Changes can also occur in the lower parietal lobe, an area of ​​our brain that allows us to detect emotions on other people’s faces and interpret what our senses are telling us.

In other words, our empathy and our instinct will be drastically reduced if we stop all sporting activity.

In addition, our lower temporal gyrus, which is fundamental for recognizing other people’s faces, numbers and objects, may also be affected.

If we get to this point, it is clear that exercise is very positive for our brain, especially since taking care of it takes little effort.

Conclusion

As we have already mentioned, moderate physical activity can prevent our brain from suffering from changes, sometimes irreversible.

The only thing necessary is to exercise regularly. A few minutes each day is enough to keep us in shape and enjoy better physical and mental health.

Do you play sports often or are you more of the lazy type?