A financial management graduate from the University of St. Thomas, Ryan Novaczyk has extensive experience supervising financial operations at senior living communities in the United States. From 2008 to 2019, Ryan Novaczyk served as the president and CFO of New Perspective Senior Living before he was eventually promoted to CEO in September 2019. New Perspective recently published a blog post discussing how walking enhances brain health. Walking is good for your brain as it boosts blood flow to the center of your nervous system. If you walk at a steady pace, your breathing will eventually get deeper and your heart will pump blood faster, increasing the supply of oxygenated blood in the body. Such increased blood flow is nourishing to the brain. Already, blood vessels make up one-third of the brain and the organ itself takes in as much as 20 percent of all oxygen in the body. Hence, increasing oxygenated blood flow improves the brain’s cognitive functioning, reducing fogginess and strengthening memory. But, not all forms of walking have the same effect. Long walks are better for the brain than short walks. So are faster-paced walks. Studies conducted by researchers from the University of Munster, Germany found that participants who walked further in a two-minute test (better walking performance) generally had brains with greater microstructural integrity. That means their brains had stronger white matter so nerve signals passed quickly and smoothly to and from the brain.

1. Why Walking is Good for Your
Brain
Ryan Novaczyk

2. Introduction
A financial management graduate from the University of St. Thomas, Ryan Novaczyk has
extensive experience supervising financial operations at senior living communities in the
United States. From 2008 to 2019, Ryan Novaczyk served as the president and CFO of New
Perspective Senior Living before he was eventually promoted to CEO in September 2019. New
Perspective recently published a blog post discussing how walking enhances brain health.

3. Walking is good for your brain as it boosts blood flow to the center of your nervous system. If
you walk at a steady pace, your breathing will eventually get deeper and your heart will pump
blood faster, increasing the supply of oxygenated blood in the body. Such increased blood
flow is nourishing to the brain. Already, blood vessels make up one-third of the brain and the
organ itself takes in as much as 20 percent of all oxygen in the body. Hence, increasing
oxygenated blood flow improves the brain’s cognitive functioning, reducing fogginess and
strengthening memory.

4. But, not all forms of walking have the same effect. Long walks are better for the brain than
short walks. So are faster-paced walks. Studies conducted by researchers from the University
of Munster, Germany found that participants who walked further in a two-minute test (better
walking performance) generally had brains with greater microstructural integrity. That means
their brains had stronger white matter so nerve signals passed quickly and smoothly to and
from the brain.