This book review summarizes the book "Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain". It discusses how exercise physically remodels the brain for improved performance, and how the book illustrates that exercise is the best defense against various mental and physical ailments. The review provides background on the authors and explains that the book aims to help readers understand how physical activity improves brain function in order to motivate exercise's inclusion in their lives.

1. Book Review by Pat Moran:
Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain

2. Did you know you can beat stress,
lift your mood, fight memory loss,
sharpen your intellect, and function
better than ever simply by elevating
your heart rate and breaking a sweat?
The evidence is incontrovertible:
aerobic exercise physically
remodels our brains for peak
performance.

3. About the Book:
In SPARK, author, John
Ratey, MD embarks upon a
fascinating journey through
the mind-body connection,
illustrating that exercise is
truly our best defense against
everything from depression
to ADD to addiction to
menopause to Alzheimer's.

4. About the Authors:
John Ratey, M.D. is a clinical
professor of psychiatry at Harvard
Medical School. He is the author of
numerous bestselling and
groundbreaking books, including
Driven to Distraction and A User's
Guide to the Brain. He lives in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, where
he has a private practice. Eric
Hagerman is a former editor of
Popular Science and Outside. His
work has been featured in The Best
American Sports Writing 2004,
Men's Journal, and PLAY.

5. Intro: Making the Connection
The book begins by explaining why exercise makes us feel
better. It says:
• “We assume it’s because we’re burning off stress or
reducing muscle tension or boosting endorphins, and we
leave it at that.”
• “But the real reason we feel so good when we get our
blood pumping is that it makes the brain function at its
best.”

6. –Author, John J. Ratey
“I often tell my patients that the point of exercise is to build
and condition the brain.”

7. The Mind-Body Connection:
The book says that our culture treats the mind and body as
if they are separate entities.
It argues, “to keep our brains at peak performance, our
bodies need to work hard.”

8. What You’ll Learn in Spark:
In Spark, the authors
demonstrate how and why
physical activity is crucial to
the way we think and feel.

9. They explain the science of how exercise cues the building
blocks of learning in the brain; how it affects mood, anxiety
& attention; how it guards against stress and reverses some
of the effects of aging in the brain; and how, in women, it
can help stave off the sometimes tumultuous effects of
hormonal changes.

10. Why Should You Care About How
Your Brain Works?
Its running the show.
Right now, the front of your
brain is firing signals about
what you’re reading & how
much of it you soak up has a
lot to do with whether there
is a proper balance of
neurochemicals and growth
factors to bind neurons
together.

11. Why Should You Care How Your
Brain Works with Exercise?
Exercise has a documented,
dramatic effect on these
essential ingredients. It sets
the stage, when you sit down
to learn something new, that
stimulation strengthens the
relevant connections; with
practice, the circuit develops
definition, as if you’re
wearing down a path through
a forest.

12. The importance of making these connections carries over to
all issues the authors deal with in this book.
• In order to cope with anxiousness, for instance, you need
to let certain well-worn paths grow over while your blaze
alternate trails.

13. Benefits of Interactions Between
Your Brain & Body:
By understanding such
interactions between your
body and your brain, you can
manage the process, handle
problems, and get your mind
humming along smoothly.

14. Book’s Purpose:
The book’s main purpose is
to get readers to understand
how physical activity
improves brain function and
to get them motivated
enough to include it in their
life in a positive way, rather
than think of it as something
they should do.

15. The Challenge:
In October of 2000, researchers from Duke University
made the New York Times with a study showing that
exercise is better than sertraline (Zoloft) at treating
depression. What great news!
Unfortunately, it was buried on page 14 of the Health &
Fitness section.
If exercise came in pill form, it would be plastered across
the front page, hailed as the blockbuster drug of the
century.

16. Furthermore…
Additional studies demonstrate
the importance of this book’s
findings…

17. 1. ABC World News reports that exercise might stab off
Alzheimer’s disease in rats;
2. CNN flashes stats on the ever-expanding obesity crisis;
3. the New York Times investigates the practice of treating
bipolar kids with costly drugs that are only marginally
effective yet carry horrendous side effects.

19. In a nutshell:
• This book delivers in plain
English the inspiring science
connecting exercise and the brain
& to demonstrate how it plays
out in the lives of real people.

20. –Author, John J. Ratey
“I want to cement the idea that exercise has a profound
impact on cognitive abilities and mental health. It is simply
one of the best treatments we have for most psychiatric
problems.”

21. For more information on Health & Fitness,
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patrickmoranfitness.com

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