I came across a post on Medium that pitted the cognitive burden of uncertainty vs difficulty. The assertion that uncertainty has a greater cognitive burden rings true for me as a care partner. Care partners of loved ones with dementia are six times more likely to get dementia as well. I have preserved my brain health in part because of certainty about what I am doing, with routines that provide certainty for my tasks.
The author focuses on neural processing; my approach would be to pit stress vs difficulty. Extensive literature indicts the cognitive burden of chronic stress. Uncertainty can be a creator of stress, as can other factors such as a hurried or worried mind. Unfortunately, these trying times induce chronic stress for many. Speaking of stress …
Studies confirming the benefits of exercise for brain and emotional health constantly pop up. One that recently caught my eye declared “that exercise was as effective as pharmacological treatments or psychological therapies” for treating depression. The researcher goes on to declare that exercise should be a “first line treatment” and that it remains “underappreciated and underutilized.”
Yet the same researcher also asserts that medications are easier for doctors to prescribe and for patients to follow. He suggests taking antidepressants first to elevate a patients mood enough to then start exercising. Such a tactic ironically refutes exercise as a “first line treatment.”
Exercise as a lifestyle factor provides health benefits that go beyond combating depression. Exercise also enhances the growth and performance of the brain. This lifestyle factor provides additional benefits for our cardiovascular and musculoskeletal systems. There are no drawbacks to exercise if not chronically overdone.
Medicine tends to address a specific problem. If medicine addresses the problem well but a person leads a crappy life, then medicine can mask the need and the extra benefits a better lifestyle might have provided. Denied those extra benefits, using medicine to address a specific problem might lead to additional problems and additional medicine.
Maybe medicine succeeds to prime a patient for harder yet more beneficial lifestyle changes for some. Others might conclude they do not need the harder, more beneficial adjustment to lifestyle. Lifestyle factors in general should be the first line of treatment when that is possible. They are preventative as well as curative, with fewer risks and greater benefits. Medicine and therapies then become the second line of treatment for specific problems.
I am aware of the exceptions to this advice. Genetics or environmental conditions may inhibit a “lifestyle first” approach for many individuals. It’s also possible that negative lifestyle factors make the pursuit of positive ones near impossible without medical interventions. We are a country with much chronic stress and social isolation, with both being bad for brain health, both making a change of lifestyle difficult.
This begs the question related to the previous study. Can the difficulty of a lifestyle change such as exercise be overcome through certainty of the benefits?
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Sorry, I’m having trouble accessing this message online to “Like” it. But I do appreciate your insights, and like you, I agree that lifestyle solutions are preferable to medications. However, sometimes both are necessary.