There are plenty of benefits to be physically active. Big ones include reducing the odds of developing heart diseases, stroke, and diabetes. Maybe you want to lose bodyweight, strengthening the muscles, the bones, protecting the joints, lower your blood pressure prevent depression, or just look better. Here’s another one, which specially applies to those of us experiencing the brain fog that comes with age. Apparently exercise changes the brain in ways that protect memory and thinking skills.

In a study done at the University of British Columbia, researchers found that regular aerobic exercise, the kind that gets your heart and your sweat glands pumping, appears to boost the size of the hippocampus, the brain area involved in verbal memory and learning. While they found that resistance training, balance and muscle toning exercises did not have the same results. These findings come in a critical time as researchers say one new case of dementia is detected every four seconds globally. They estimate that by the year of 2050, more than 115 million people will have dementia worldwide.

Exercise have direct and indirect benefits; where it comes directly from its ability to reduce insulin resistance, reduce inflammation, and stimulate the release of growth factors-chemicals in the brain that affect the health of the brain cells. Indirectly, exercise improves mood and sleep patterns, reduces stress and anxiety.

Also, many studies have demonstrated that the parts of the brain that control thinking, and memory (the prefrontal cortex and medial temporal cortex) have greater volume in people who exercise versus people who don't. "Even more exciting is the finding that engaging in a program of regular exercise of moderate intensity over six months or a year is associated with an increase in the volume of selected brain regions," says Dr. Scott McGinnis, a neurologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital and an instructor in neurology at Harvard Medical School.

So, what are you waiting for? Go to the gym and enroll yourself in a short-term training program to built the habit, then increase it to build a lifestyle. And a healthy brain.