Quick Book Suggestion/Review (Spark)
Posted on | June 1, 2009 | 2 Comments
At the suggestion of my Mother in Law (Psych PhD) and my girlfriend (general geek – like me) I just read the book “Spark”. While it’s not perfect, I thought it might appeal to a lot of the members of this community. Loosely put, it deals with the neurological effects of exercise and its effects on mood and learning.
On a broader scale, it’s an endorsement of a lot of the activity we do. The author alludes to evolutionary fitness concepts a few times. I found a lot of the science backing one of the primary messages of the paleo/primal community: That our evolution makes us ill suited to a glut of crap food, and sedentary lifestyle.
This is no big shock, but the book goes on to explain how the neurological effects of exercise can have a positive effect on a number of conditions that don’t seem to be related. Not just learning and memory but, depression, addiction, ADD and general maladies of aging. These conditions are real and the author isn’t suggesting that exercise is exactly a cure all. That said, he is a practicing psychiatrist and he does recount a number of cases where his patients have made life style changes and greatly reduced or eliminated their need for drugs. As our understanding of the neurological basis of a number of psychological disorders improves, it
appears that the brain responses to exercise in ways that directly address many of these issues.
A lot of people in our community seem to take it as almost an article of faith that these conditions can be fixed by lifestyle changes. Regular readers will know that I’ve taken issue with this very stance on the past. I do think people are quick to prophesize the paleo approach with the zeal of the newly converted, and ignore contradictory evidence. That said, I found it extremely refreshing to see a book aimed at mainstream audiences using good science to reach many of the same conclusions.
I personally find the books exercise science a little off, but its difficult to tell if this represents actual errors, or just simplifications intended to keep it accessible. I’m sure the neurology is simplified a bit too, and that I just don’t have the knowledge to notice the omissions. His section on nutrition is also something like two chapters long. After 250 pages talking about how the mainstream medical community tends to regard exercise as an afterthought it was a little distressing to see nutrition treated the same way. I also took a little issue with his nutrition recommendations (whole grains, wahoo!). Here again, you can’t have anything and the party line is still a grain based diet. While I don’t agree with it, I wouldn’t expect a doctor who hasn’t personally examined nutrition extensively to recommend anything besides “business as usual.”
Thoughts? Has anyone else read this? If anyone else decides to I’d like to hear your opinions on it.
Here is a link to the book’s page on amazon
Comments
2 Responses to “Quick Book Suggestion/Review (Spark)”
Leave a Reply
Recent Comments
- cmason on Paleo(ish) Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Lindsay on Paleo(ish) Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Gypsy on Paleo(ish) Chocolate Chip Cookies
- cmason on Paleo(ish) Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Georgia on Paleo(ish) Chocolate Chip Cookies
Meta
Google Friend Conect
June 7th, 2009 @ 2:47 pm
I’ve been wanting to read this, thanks for the helpful review!
June 8th, 2009 @ 12:56 pm
No problem, let me know what you think of it if you do get to check it out.