“Staying active with a variety of activities is best, as each type of exercise may offer unique benefits for your brain health and may even help your brain to grow as you get older, rather than shrink.

For instance, a review of more than 100 studies, published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, revealed that both aerobic and resistance training are important for maintaining cognitive and brain health in old age. The lead researcher, Michelle Voss, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Iowa, noted multiple benefits of each.  As reported in the Los Angeles Times:

“Aerobic exercise improves ability to coordinate multiple things, long-term planning and your ability to stay on task for extended periods. Resistance training, which is much less studied than the aerobic side of things, “improves your ability to focus amid distracters.”

… Voss explained that MRIs of people in their 60s showed increases in gray and white matter after just six months of exercise. This happens in the prefrontal and temporal lobes, sites that usually diminish with age. With exercise, Voss says, they grow.

Voss also explained that the hippocampus area of the brain, key for memory formation, shrinks 1% to 2% per year in those older than 60, but when people in this age group begin fitness regimens, it grows by 1% to 2% instead. Beyond growing one’s brain, exercise improves the ability of different parts of the brain to work together, Voss says.”