Why does exercise make you stress resistant?

Researchers at Princeton University recently made a remarkable discovery about the brain. They examined the brain of rats, and found that rats that regularly perform physical exercises are much easier to tolerate stress than lazy rats. Scientists already know that exercise stimulates the creation of new brain cells (neurons, nerve cells), but only now it becomes clear that new cells are functionally different from other brain cells.

In the experiment, the preliminary results of which were presented last month at the annual meeting of the Society for the Explorers of the Brain in Chicago, scientists allowed a group of rats to train. Another group was deprived of this opportunity. After a while, all the rats were expected to swim in cold water, which they do not like very much. After that, scientists began to study the brain of animals. They found that the stress of bathing activates nerve cells in all areas of the brain. (Researchers can even say which neurons were excited, because cells emit a special protein in response to stress.) But in trained rats, young brain cells that (according to scientists) appeared and grew as a result of intensive training, "stress protein" isolated in smaller quantities. Trained rats and looked calmer than the rats from the "lazy" group. "The cells born of training," the researchers think, "are already being created with a margin of safety ." Apparently the rats, through physical exercise, have created a biochemically calm brain.

For many years, both in everyday life and in scientific circles, it was believed that exercise and training improve mood. But it was unclear exactly how exercise can affect mood and anxiety . Now, thanks to new research methods, as well as recent advances in biochemistry and genetics, scientists have yet to understand how exercise rebuilds our brain, making it stress-resistant. For example, a group of researchers who sought to dispel the myth of serotonin as the “hormone of happiness,” introduced rats into a state of helplessness and anxiety. All of these rats had elevated serotonin levels. But what is interesting is that the rats that had run for several weeks showed a lower degree of anxiety, and the increase in serotonin level was not as strong as in the other experimental subjects.
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Another group of researchers studied the effect of moderate exercise on cell oxidative processes. Anxiety in rodents and humans is accompanied by excessive oxygen starvation of the cells, as a result of which cells (including brain cells) may die. Moderate exercise reduces the effects of oxygen starvation. In an experiment conducted by researchers at the University of Houston, rats were injected with drugs that chemically caused oxygen starvation in all cells of the body. After that, the rats were transferred to a new, unknown to them, situation. Those rats who performed physical exercises, unlike their lazy brethren, did not hide in panic in dark corners, but began to explore new territory, although they were also afraid.

“An interesting picture emerges - exercises and loads prepare and train brain cells, and they are already experienced and can really cope with critical situations for real stress and stress,” says Michael Hopkins, a graduate student at the Dartmouth Laboratory of Neurobiology of Memory and Training, “It’s really amazing that you can now perfectly connect exercise and stress resistance.”

Stress resistance does not appear overnight. But it will appear, and all scientists agree with this. For example, in an experiment at the University of Colorado, rats that had been playing sports for only three weeks did not prove to be stress-resistant. But those rats that ran six weeks - showed. “Something happened in these three weeks,” says Dr. Benjamin Greenwood, a research fellow at the University of Colorado. He also added that “it is not yet clear how to translate” this rate at six weeks from the rat time to the human time. Maybe we will need more time, maybe less. In addition, no one has yet said which loads are optimal for the rapid development of stress resistance. But one thing is completely clear - it is necessary to continue training. Continue running, pedaling, swimming (while in the studies, the animals performed only aerobic exercises). You may not feel the reduction in stress after your first run. But according to Dr. Greenwood, the biochemical processes will already start, and the changes in the cellular structure of the body will be profound.