32 Quotes by John J. Ratey

After a stressful event, we often crave comfort food. Our body is calling for more glucose and simple carbohydrates and fat... And in modern life, people tend to have fewer friends and less support, because there's no tribe. Being alone is not good for the brain.

Just as anxiety can feed on itself, so can courage.

One small but scientifically sound study from Japan found that jogging thirty minutes just two or three times a week for twelve weeks improved executive function. But it's important to mix in some form of activity that demands coordination beyond putting one foot in front of the other.... Aerobic exercise and complex activity have different beneficial effects on the brain. The good news is they're complementary.

Students would be assessed on effort rather than skill. You didn't have to be a natural athlete to do well in gym.

Exercise is not an instant cure, but you need to get your brain working again, and if you move your body your brain won't have any choice.

The more we build these networks and enrich our stores of memory and experience, the easier it is to learn, because what we already know serves as a foundation for forming increasingly complex thoughts.

The way you choose to cope with stress can change not only how you feel, but also how it transforms the brain. If you react passively or if there is simply no way out, stress can become damaging.

Exercise Is Medicine,” so.

What makes aerobic exercise so powerful is that it’s our evolutionary method of generating that spark. It lights a fire on every level of your brain, from stoking up the neurons’ metabolic furnaces to forging the very structures that transmit information from one synapse to the next.