Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School

How much exercise? Once again, a little goes a long way. The researchers showed you have to participate in some form of exercise just twice a week to get the benefit. Bump it up to a 20-minute walk each day, and you can cut your risk of having a stroke—one of the leading causes of mental disability in the elderly—by 57 percent.

exercise can turn Jim into Frank, or at least turn Jim into a sharper version of himself.

Too much exercise and exhaustion can hurt cognition.

if you are a couch potato, you are more likely to age like Jim, if you make it to your 80s at all.

If you have an active lifestyle, you are more likely to age like Frank Lloyd Wright and much more likely to make it to your 90s.

the human brain became the most powerful in the world under conditions where motion was a constant presence.

Investigators have known for years that some people age with energy and pizazz, living productive lives well into their 80s and 90s. Others appear to become battered and broken by the process, and often they don’t survive their 70s.

Our ancestors constantly were encountering new food sources, new predators, new physical dangers. Along the road they routinely suffered injuries, experienced strange illnesses, and delivered and nurtured children, all without the benefit of textbooks or modern medicine.

your biggest impression will be not the strength of his muscles but the strength of his mind.

our fancy brains developed not while we were lounging around but while we were working out.

our fancy brains developed not while we were lounging around but while we were working out.