And when we talk about maintaining muscle as we get older, we usually talk about things like strength, balance, mobility, and maintaining our independence. All important reasons to pay attention to our muscles. But what if our muscles are doing something else, something that may be influencing the health of our brains?
Welcome to RenewHer, a podcast for women over 50, ready to reignite their energy and explore what's next. I'm Genell Lemley, brain fitness coach. Here, you'll hear real stories from women taking on new challenges after 50, along with brain health tips to boost focus, energy, and the mindset to move forward with confidence.
Let's dive into today's episode.
Hey there, and welcome back. Think about the last time you picked up a set of weights, or carried a heavy bag of groceries, or lifted a heavy suitcase into the trunk of your car. You probably weren't thinking about your brain. You were thinking about your muscles.
And when we talk about maintaining muscle as we get older, we usually talk about things like strength, balance, mobility, and maintaining our independence. All important reasons to pay attention to our muscles. But what if our muscles are doing something else, something that may be influencing the health of our brains?
Researchers are discovering that our muscles do much more than help us move. They're also involved in communicating with other parts of our body, including our brain. And that connection is opening up some interesting possibilities for how we think about brain health as we age.
Today, I want to explore what researchers are learning about the relationship between muscle and brain health, why strength training may offer benefits beyond building muscle, and what this could mean for women over fifty.
For a long time, we've primarily thought about skeletal muscle in terms of movement. These are the muscles that allow us to walk, lift, climb, and carry things. And we know that maintaining muscle becomes increasingly important as we get older. Beginning in adulthood, we gradually lose muscle mass and strength, and those changes can accelerate later in life, especially if we're not actively working to maintain our muscles.
That's one reason strength training is so important. But here's something I find fascinating. Scientists now recognize skeletal muscle as an active tissue that also produces and releases substances that communicate with other organs.
In other words, our muscles aren't simply responding to instructions from our brain. They're also sending signals throughout our body, and some of those signals may influence what happens in our brain. Researchers refer to this as muscle-brain crosstalk. I love that term because it describes something we don't typically think about. We know our brain tells our muscles what to do, but there's communication happening in the other direction too.
So how does this work? When our muscles contract during physical activity, they release signaling molecules. Some of these are called myokines. You don't need to remember that word. What's important is what these molecules do.
Think of them as chemical messengers. They're released by our muscles and can influence other tissues and organs throughout the body. Researchers are studying how some of these signals may affect inflammation, metabolism, and processes involved in brain health.
One area of particular interest is their potential influence on neuroplasticity. You've heard me talk about neuroplasticity before. It's our brain's ability to adapt and change, including strengthening and reorganizing connections between brain cells. And it's an ability we want to support throughout our lives.
Scientists are investigating whether some of the signals released during muscle activity may help support the biological processes involved in learning and memory. While the research is promising, scientists are still working to understand exactly how these muscle-derived signals influence the human brain
So what could all this communication between our muscles and our brain actually mean? Researchers are exploring several possibilities.
One area they're investigating is mood. We already know that physical activity can have a positive effect on our emotional wellbeing. But scientists are now exploring whether some of the chemical messengers released by our muscles help explain why.
Another area researchers are exploring is learning and memory. Some of the signals associated with muscle activity may influence processes that help our brain cells form and maintain connections. And those connections are important for learning, remembering information, and adapting to new experiences.
But there's also research examining whether strength training itself benefits our cognitive health. And the findings are encouraging. Researchers looked at the results of multiple studies involving adults aged 60 and older to see whether strength training affects memory and other thinking skills. They found improvements in several areas, including working memory and certain types of learning and memory.
Working memory is especially interesting because we use it throughout the day. It's what allows us to temporarily hold information in mind while we're using it. For example, remembering a phone number long enough to enter it. Or keeping track of several pieces of information while working through a problem.
The researchers didn't find significant improvements in every area of cognitive functioning, and that's important. Strength training isn't a magic solution for memory or brain aging, but the findings suggest that its benefits may extend beyond our muscles.
And while aerobic exercise has long received attention for its potential brain benefits, resistance training is increasingly part of that conversation. What I find especially interesting is that researchers aren't just asking whether exercise benefits our brain, they're also investigating how it may influence our brain health. And that's where the communication between our muscles and our brain becomes particularly intriguing.
So why is this especially relevant for us? Because maintaining muscle becomes more challenging as we age. But that doesn't mean we can't maintain or even build muscle as we get older. Changes in hormones, activity levels, and other factors can contribute to reductions in muscle mass and strength. For women, the menopause transition and the years that follow can bring additional changes in body composition.
And while we often hear about maintaining muscle to support our bones, balance, and mobility, we don't nearly hear as much about its potential relationship with brain health. Think about that for a moment. When we work on maintaining our strength, we may be supporting more than our ability to carry groceries, climb stairs, carry heavy suitcases, or stay physically active. We may also be supporting biological processes that contribute to cognitive health.
Now, I want to be careful here. We can't say that having more muscle automatically means having a healthier brain or that lifting weights will prevent Alzheimer's disease. The relationship is much more complicated than that.
Our brain health is influenced by many factors, including sleep, nutrition, cardiovascular health, metabolic health, and our overall lifestyle. And researchers are still trying to separate the effects of muscle mass itself from the effects of physical activity and other health factors. But this research gives us another reason to think about muscle as an important part of healthy aging, not just for our bodies, for our brains, too.
Here's what I think is encouraging about this research. You don't need to become a bodybuilder unless you want to, of course. And you don't need to lift extraordinary heavy weights. Resistance training can take many forms: free weights, resistance bands, weight machines, or exercises that use your own body weight.
The important thing is finding an approach that's appropriate for your abilities and that you can continue doing consistently. And if you're new to strength training, starting gradually and learning proper technique can make a big difference.
There's another distinction worth making. Building and maintaining muscle isn't exactly the same thing as being physically active. Walking, cycling, swimming, and other aerobic activities offer important health benefits. But resistance training provides a different kind of challenge to our muscles. That's why physical activity guidelines generally recommend including muscle strengthening activities at least two days a week in addition to aerobic exercise. It's not necessarily a choice between the two. They complement each other. And when we look at the research on brain health, both deserve attention.
The more I learn about the brain, the more fascinated I become by how interconnected our bodies really are. We tend to think about our organs and systems . Our heart. Our muscles. Our bones. Our brain. But they're constantly influencing one another. And our muscles may be playing a much more active role in that communication than we once realized.
I think there's something encouraging about that, especially as we get older. We often hear about the things we lose with age, muscle mass, strength, speed, sometimes even confidence in what our bodies can do. But there's another side to that conversation. We can continue working to maintain and improve our strength. And those efforts may benefit us in ways we don't immediately see, including potentially supporting our cognitive health.
So the next time you pick up a set of weights, use a resistance band, or do a few squats, consider what might be happening beyond the muscles you're working. Your muscles aren't just helping you move, they're part of a much larger conversation taking place throughout your body. And your brain may be listening.
I've only touched on some of the research today. There's a lot more science behind how our muscles and brain communicate, but I didn't want to put anyone to sleep with too much scientific detail. So if you're interested in digging a little deeper, I've included links to several research articles in the show notes.
But what I hope you'll take away from today's episode is that our muscles may be doing much more for us than we realize. Until next time, stay strong and keep moving
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