There’s more evidence that what’s good for your heart is good for your head. A new study shows that people who run，swim or do other moderate intensity(中等强度的)exercise have brains that look，on average，10 years younger than the brains of couch potatoes.

“Our study showed that for older people，getting moderate intensity exercise may be protective，helping them keep their brains work better，”said Dr. Clinton Wright of the University. Of Miami，who led the study. But it’s not necessarily easy. Walking，golf，bowling and yoga didn’t count，and people need to start before they begin showing memory loss，Wright’s team reported in the journal Neurology.

The study of nearly 900 people who exercise regularly showed that 90 percent fell into the low-intensity group. These people are part of a larger group taking part in a bigger study called Northern Manhattan Study. They were asked how long and how often they exercised during the past two weeks. Five years later，they were tested for memory and thinking skills and got a brain MRI. Seven years after that，they took the memory and thinking tests again. The 10 percent who said they took part in moderate intensity exercise scored better on the tests. These included running，climbing，swimming，riding bicycles and so on.

“We found that those with moderate heavy activity had higher scores and slower decline than inactive patients when comparing the results，”the study team wrote.

Many studies have shown that exercise may not prevent Alzheimer’s but may delay it. The findings fit in with a study that found two years of exercising，eating healthier food and brain training can promote people’s memory function.

All over the world people are hooked on sports, which help them to strengthen their body and build their character. 【小题1】 They improve the participants’ physical skills, and provided entertainment for the audience as well.

Many people like to watch others play games. 【小题2】 Often they get very excited when “their” player or team wins. If they are crazy about the game or the player, then they will become their die-hard fans. Some sports are so interesting that people everywhere go in for them. Football, for example, has spread around the world. Swimming is popular in countries near the sea or in those with many rivers. 【小题3】 And think of people in cold countries. Masses of people love to skate or ski in Japan, Norway or Canada.

【小题4】 Chinese boxing, also has a very long history. But basketball and volleyball are rather new, which started in the late of the nineteenth century. People are inventing new sports or games all the time. Water skiing, as a modern game, is one of the newest in the family of sports.

People from different countries or races may not be able to understand each other, but after a game, they get to know each other better and they often become good friends. Sports help to train a person’s character. 【小题5】

They also learn to be competitive and optimistic, which will equip them for life challenges in the future.

It is hard to say I was a runner years ago. The longest I had ever run was 5 km. What’s more, I didn’t like running. No matter how hard I tried, every so often I would fasten my old shoes, walk out of the house with heavy steps, get less than a mile in and wonder why I was bothering, especially when there are many more satisfying ways of exercising.

Before last summer, I had never taken part in any kind of race at all. But at the end of July, I completed a triathlon(三项全能)after two weeks’ training. At the end of it came the run—which ended up more like a walk. Then I realized something about it attracted me. The extremely painful fun of doing something I hated and was unprepared for turned out to be an excitement. The difficulty felt like something to test my abilities.

When an invitation of the Berlin Marathon dropped onto my desk a few weeks after the triathlon, it felt like a change of fate. After the triathlon, I didn’t say I should start running at once. Was it because I hate running? In fact, in course of running I enjoyed the joy of exceeding my limits. I felt necessary to find out again where those limits might lie. So I said yes.

Training for a marathon often takes at least 20 weeks or more. The training plan becomes something to stop me worrying when the race seems too frightening. This worry feels impossible to avoid, but there is something equally sure about the training plan: if I follow it, then I have done everything I can; if I do everything I can, then I won’t regret what comes at the end.