Neuroplasticity in Action: How Movement Shapes Our Brain and Body

Moving is really good for your body and your brain.

In fact movement is one of the primary functions of our brain. Throughout every day of our life the majority of the interworkings of our body are going on without us having to think about it and the same goes for many of the complex movements we do with our body.

For example when you reach to grab a cup of water there are small muscles in your back on the opposite side that start to engage in order to counter balance the weight of the cup.

The Subconscious Mechanics of Everyday Movement

However, when you go to pick up a cup of water you aren’t thinking,

“There are 8 ounces of water in the cup.”
“The cup itself weighs half an ounce so in order to lift this cup I need to lift with a little over a half a pound of force.”
“Is my wrist going to do most of the lifting or is it going to be my shoulder my elbow try to lift it more?”
“I have to remember to contract the muscles on the opposite side of my back so I don’t lose my balance.”

A somato-cognitive action network alternates with effector regions in motor cortex.

This is all happening subconsciously and when you utilize those muscles to pick up that cup there is a part, actually many parts of your brain that light up. However, since you’ve done that movement many times— nothing out of the ordinary is happening in your brain. Rather an extraordinary thing is happening. That movement that you have done so many thousands of times just got reinforced from a neurological standpoint and a muscle standpoint. Now since you have done that motion thousands of times the neurological and musculoskeletal benefits are most likely minute. However, work with someone who has had a stroke and is working to gain back function of their hands or fingers and you’ll quickly realize that the once simple skill requires a massive amount of brain power and strength to accomplish, but then within months can be back to near normal function.

The Power of Learning: Neuroplasticity at Work

Now, let's shift our focus from a routine task to a novel one. Imagine transitioning from simply reaching for a cup to reaching for three colored balls, as you embark on the exciting challenge of learning to juggle. You read an article about how juggling could be good for your brain and thought, “Hell why not give it a shot.”

Here’s the problem though. You’ve never juggled before. So you pull up YouTube, type in, “Learn how to juggle.” You click the first video, watch a 5 minute video and decide you’re ready to try it. After multiple attempts at trying to get more than one ball in the air you decide the creator of the video didn’t do a great job explaining so you go to the next, “Learn How To Juggle Video”. After watching the video you give it another shot, a total of ten minutes have gone by and you’re finally juggling two balls.

10 more minutes have gone by and by no means are you a master juggler, but if your crazy uncle asked you to a juggling duel you wouldn’t have to immediately bow out, essentially after just 20 minutes you “kinda” know how to juggle.

The reason you kinda know how to juggle is because neuroplasticity. Your brain and body’s ability to learn a new skill and hardwire that skill. However, like building muscle into our old age, neuroplasticity takes repetition and recovery.

Take our juggling example from above. In the moment your were learning that new skill you were challenging your brain and that was good for you. Your brain along with your muscles were starting to train new patterns and create more neural connections.

The Role of Repetition in Neurological and Muscular Development

Fast forward twenty years into the future. You never picked up those balls or tried to juggle since and the juggling urge comes upon you, you remember that night all those years ago and give it one more shot.

You fail miserably. Okay maybe you don’t fail miserably, but most likely you are closer to where you were after the first 5 minutes, or maybe it feels like trying it for the first time. This is because neuroplasiticity needs repetition, and doing something just once and just for twenty minutes isn’t going to be enough to hardwire a new neural pathway or entrain the muscle memory needed to perform the task. However, that challenge 20 years ago, trying the new skill was beneficial for the brain and if you’d have continued it would have created more neural connections and created a healthier brain.

Remember, back when we were talking about picking up the glass of water, and how your body had to make all the calculations in order for you to pick up the glass of water to drink? You had done that movement 1000s of times before, so it was easy and you didn’t have to think about it. Now think of all the calculations that your brain is doing subconsciously when juggling.

When it comes to learning new skills like juggling, playing the piano, or literally anything where you have to utilize your mind and/or body it takes repetition. Overtime when there is repetition and consistency then essentially we can learn literally any new skill, that’s the power of our brain and of neuroplasticity.

At this point you might be thinking, “ Okay maybe I can learn anything, but I have enough to do already. Why do I want to try and learn something else?”

Building a Robust Brain: The Power of New Skills and Activities

Learning a new skill is not just about the immediate challenge; it's about forging new neural connections that contribute to long-term brain health and resilience. Learning a new skill has been shown to increase our cognitive reserve(this helps our brain become more resilient to damage or degeneration), improve memory, specifically in advanced age(this is most likely due to keeping an active and functioning brain), reduce cognitive decline (studies have found that those that continue to engage in new activities and learn new skills have slower rate of cognitive decline compared to those who don’t). Essentially engaging and learning new activities keeps your brain active and healthy, it makes it more robust against disease and aging, and the benefits don’t just apply to the brain but learning a new skill can translate to boosting confidence and self-efficacy in many others aspects of your life.

We started this blog discussing the importance of movement and how the brain hardwires movement and creates new neural connections when learning a new skill. The importance of learning new skills for the health and longevity of the brain and briefly touched on the importance of movement. In our next blog we are going to dive deeper into the importance of movement, it’s relationship with neuroplasticity and why a recent study showed that individuals with neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s can increase the longevity of their health through physical activity and challenging their brain.