Neurofitness: Exercising the Brain - Juan Pablo Barea (Transcript)

Read the full transcript of educator Juan Pablo Barea’s talk titled “Neurofitness: Exercising the Brain” at TEDxYouth@AICS, Aug 20, 2025.

JUAN PABLO BAREA: There is something that you can take today that would optimize your cognitive functions like memory, focus, and also give you a mood boost that would last for around three hours. But if you did that repetitively in the long term, it would also have benefits against Alzheimer’s, dementia, and even depression. Would you take it? Yes. Right.

So I’m here to talk to you about the positive effects that physical exercise have in your brain. I call it neurofitness because it sounds quite cool, but you will understand why this makes sense in a little bit.

A Personal Journey

So first I’d like to talk to you about how I found that out. Let’s just imagine a student that’s 10 years old and he has already in his short lifetime studied in five different schools and lived in three different countries. So that student is now struggling academically. He has a low focus and his ability to actually focus for more than 10 minutes was already a big deal, very difficult.

His confidence was low as well and he was not really learning. So his grades were really low and he was also self-labeling as a failure, academically speaking. Until a PE teacher saw him always hiding in the corner and that PE teacher said, “You know, I’m going to invest in this student.” And he pulled him aside, taught him some drills, started teaching him some of the motor skills that the student really needed to develop. Also taught him some fundamental skills so that he could be included in a game.

Well, after that student started doing that over and over again, what happened was he started to gain confidence and he started to actually show up in practice. He started to show up and as he moved he thrived. He didn’t even thrive physically only, he was thriving academically as well. Basically he went from academically failing to exceeding and he promised himself when he grew up he also wanted to make that same difference in other students’ lives.

That student was actually me and when I became a PE teacher I really wanted to make that same positive impact in students’ lives. But the more I studied the human body, the more I was intrigued about the findings that science was showing me about movement and the brain, how connected they were and all the positive aspects that we could actually gain from them.

What Neuroscience Tells Us

But basically when we study the brain we know that it’s essential to have a balanced diet, so eating healthy, drinking water, keeping yourself hydrated, sleeping well. All of these are essential for good health. However, the most positive thing that you can do for your brain today is exercise and it’s not me saying this. I got some top neuroscientists who are actually backing me up with this.

Like Wendy Suzuki, she’s the one who says physical exercise is the most transformative thing that you can do for your brain today. And the reason for the relevance of her talk and TED talk is that she specializes in the hippocampus of the brain, where you actually retain the long-term memory but it’s also completely connected to learning.

ALSO READ: Leo Kouwenhoven on "Spooky" Physics at TEDxDelft (Full Transcript)

Well, Dr. Max Sünder, also the director of the Brain Research Center, he has a special search in the neurogenesis, which is the process that our brain produces new brain cells. And notice I mentioned body, there’s a reason for that. It only increases the production of those neurons through movement. This is a very interesting fact that it’s also supported by the study that was led by Max in the laboratory. He was able to find out that you can double or triple the number of brain cells of those that are physically active in comparison to those that are not.

So basically he had a controlled environment in which the rats wouldn’t move much, they didn’t have any stimulations to move around and he had another one which was enriched environment full of those spinning wheels and they had those little trails they had to go, they would get even rewards if they had to move more and basically he could paint in red, as you can see up there, the new baby brain cells called neurons. And why is that relevant? Well, new brain cells, brain cells, neurons and also the production of actually a robust, a bigger neuron is associated to intelligence and basically, oh it’s working now, amazing.

As a teacher, we always have to explain why that happens and how so the students can understand. So in the short term what happens is your heart rate increases through movement, so your muscles are contracting, your heart rate is increasing and the oxygen is floating and in the short term all of that delivery will increase the BDNF growth factors in your brain which are the same ones that actually optimize the neurogenesis process that I mentioned before. Not only that, but you will have the neurotransmitters that are important and essential like the endorphins, dopamine, serotonin, all of them optimizing your focus, your mood and your well-being and that lasts for around three hours like I mentioned in the beginning.

Long-Term Brain Changes

Now, what happens when you do that over and over and over again, in the long term it changes the anatomy of your brain and essentially the hippocampus of your brain which is where you restore your long term memory becomes heavier and the hippocampus, it’s essential for all these factors, but also is where the Alzheimer’s disease and dementia will mostly target. So if you have a heavier hippocampus, you’re protecting your brain against that.

The prefrontal cortex of the brain, it’s also something that is up to 12 times thicker for who is physically active in comparison to who is not physically active. And why is that important?

Well, basically, you can roughly compare the prefrontal cortex of your brain to the RAM memory of a computer. That’s where there is the processing speed, right? You know when it’s loading and trying to find something? Yeah, when you have the RAM memory, it’s higher, you don’t have to wait, you access immediately. And that is basically what’s happening with the prefrontal cortex mainly. So not only that, but it’s also related with the planning, the emotional regulation and all of these important factors.

ALSO READ: What Raising 12 Million Dollars Taught Me: Brooke Linville (Transcript)

Now, the hippocampus, like I mentioned in the beginning, it’s like the hard drive, it’s where you store the long term memory. And this is essential for learning. And also, it’s like I mentioned before, protective against those neurodegenerative diseases.

The Student’s Role in Learning

Something that is essential to know and to understand is that we PE teachers, we do this, we do that. We optimize all of your brains, but you are the ones who need to use that storage to actually put relevant information. So, of course, you still need to strengthen, you still need to work hard, you still need to put in the work, but it’s going to be easier. It just will be easier if we weren’t able to actually have the same simulation with the PE class.

The Brain as a Tree

Now, you can also have a different analogy and look at the brain as a tree. If you look at the neuron, it’s pretty similar to a tree and has the axons and the dendrites and they connect to each other and it’s almost like they’re communicating to each other. And every movement that you make nurtures this growth, gaining from roots to branches and the connectivity sparkling around and optimizing all the access to information, the speed of thought, the memory consolidation, and also the well-being. All of these are stimulated by a movement.

Now, if you want to imagine an individual that is physically active and compare the brain, you can look at this brain that I’m showing you at the picture right now and then picture the tree of souls from Avatar. Do you guys remember Avatar? So, imagine that tree of souls. So, this is what’s happening in your brain when you’re moving. It’s all sparkling and shining and connecting and you are 100% going and just thriving. And this is why physical activity is so important. You want your brain to be sparkling, connecting like that.

Well, the next question, when I say this, some people that are maybe not as physically active and maybe they don’t have time, they come to me, “Mr. JP, this is amazing information. I love it.”

Minimum Exercise Requirements

But what is the minimum requirement that I need to actually, how much is the minimum amount of exercise that I need to put in in order to see some of these benefits? Good news are you don’t need to become a triathlete. You don’t need to become a marathon runner. You can actually see some of the benefits following, if you’re not physically active yet, following three simple steps.

For example, it’s actually around 150 minutes that is recommended a week for you to see some of these benefits. But you can break them down. You can do 20 minutes a day at a moderate intensity of cardio, whatever. It’s actually maintaining your heart rate around 60 to 75% of your maximum heart rate. It can be aerobic and also resistant training.

ALSO READ: Rethinking Culture: Small Actions Today, Big Impact Tomorrow by Jolynna Sinanan (Transcript)

Now, also something that benefits is like when you are coming here from the train station and you look at your watch and you can come walking faster. If you walk a little bit faster and you’re accelerating your heart rate and you’re in a way that you’re changing also the way you are speaking and breathing, but not losing the breath. That’s already enough. If you’re able to do that, going and coming back, you’re already benefiting from that today.

Complex Motor Skills and Brain Growth

Learning complex motor skills and then getting those patterns and repeating those patterns. It’s a very, very strong way and powerful way to increase your gray matter of the brain. Now, the reason of this is because you are using your body to repeat the same movement over again. And that is one of the main factors for the gray matter in your brain. The dendrites again, connectivity, all of that is happening more and more.

A Call to Action

And well, basically, I want to call, I want to invite you guys to do a call for action, because basically when you are physically active and you train your brain, you also change your life. You’re able to move, you’re able to see, you’re able to feel better. And when you do better, you treat others around you better. You also treat yourself better. So if you want to make the world a better place, you got to start with yourselves. And doing that 20 minute, it’s a must if you want to improve your well-being and your wellness.

Now, if you want to change the world, you got to start with yourself. It’s not a difficult task, as I showed you before, but it’s got to come from you. And let’s see if you guys really got it. Let’s see, because we had those glitches and those problems before, so I’m not sure. Let’s see.

So let’s say you want to improve the relationships around you. You want to have a better mood and treat others around you better. And what can you do to do that better? Improve that exercise, right?

And what about if you want to do better in school? You want to get better grades and you want to maybe, I don’t know, in the university also, you want to do better academically. What can you do? Exercise.

What if you want to get a promotion at your work? You want to show up at work 100% ready to go. What can you do?

So if you want to change the world, what can you do? Exercise. Let’s go. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Neurofitness: Exercising the Brain – Juan Pablo Barea (Transcript)