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Center for NeuroWellness
What the Olympics Get Right About Brain Health (and What They Get Wrong)

What the Olympics Get Right About Brain Health (and What They Get Wrong)

Kristine Keane, Psy.D.

Every time the Olympics come around, we get swept up in what the human body can do.  It’s hard not to watch these amazing athletes and assume they must be the picture of total health. The speed, the strength, the precision. When bodies are performing at that level, brains must be thriving too, right? 

That assumption is partly right and partly wrong. The Olympics get something profoundly correct about brain health, and they get something meaningfully wrong.  

What They Get Right: Consistent, Intense Movement Is Extraordinary for the Brain

What elite athletes do that most people don’t is move their bodies consistently, at high levels, for years.  

Regular exercise can increase your brain’s production of a protein called BDNF, or brain-derived neurotrophic factor. BDNF plays a direct role in protecting brain cells, strengthening connections between them, and supporting the pathways involved in learning, memory, and cognitive flexibility. In other words, movement helps your brain stay adaptable and resilient.  

  • Cardiovascular training supports blood flow to the brain and is associated with improvements in memory and processing speed. 
  • Resistance training supports executive functions like planning, decision-making, and mental endurance. 
  • Practices like yoga and Pilates that integrate breath, balance, and body awareness support stress regulation and emotional balance.

That’s the part the Olympics get absolutely right: consistent movement changes the brain over time. 

What They Still Get Wrong: When Sport Culture Works Against the Brain

We’ve come a long way in awareness around concussions and repetitive head impacts. Research has changed how we understand what repeated impacts can do over time, and modern concussion guidance is far more sophisticated than it used to be.  

But awareness and culture change are not the same thing. Athletes in high-impact sports like boxing, rugby, soccer, football, cycling, and skiing continue to accumulate subconcussive impacts that may never show up on an injury report but can quietly chip away at the cognitive advantages they’re building through training.  

In many elite environments, the “push through it” ethos still runs deep, especially in high-impact or high-speed sports. Athletes can spend years building neural resilience through training and simultaneously lose ground through impacts that go unrecognized, underreported, or undertreated.  

Knowing head impacts matter is an important step, but it’s not enough on its own. The real shift happens when sport cultures act on that knowledge consistently, at every level of competition, and most are still catching up. 

What the Rest of Us Can Actually Take From This

You don’t need an Olympic training schedule to get real brain benefits. Not even close. 

When I tell patients that the research-backed threshold for meaningful brain benefit starts around 150 minutes of moderate activity per week, they’re usually surprised—and relieved. 

That’s: 

  • 30 minutes, five days a week, or 
  • 15 minutes a day if you’re building from scratch

And yes, 15 minutes counts. 

If you’ve been stuck in “if I can’t do a full workout, why bother?” this is your permission slip to start smaller. Your brain responds to consistency more than intensity. 

A daily walk, a short strength circuit, a swim, or yoga with real attention to breathing all activate the same core biology. The underlying neuroscience doesn’t change just because the intensity does.

The Part That Matters Most

Brain health is not something that just happens to you. Exercise is one of the most practical, evidence-based ways to support cognitive function now and to make a meaningful deposit into your future. 

So the next time you watch an Olympic athlete do something remarkable, notice the part you don’t see on camera: the years of showing up, day after day.  

That part of the equation isn’t reserved for the elite. It’s available to anyone willing to start. Even with fifteen minutes. 

Dr. Kristine Keane, a clinical and sports neuropsychologist, is widely recognized for her profound expertise in brain health. Drawing on extensive experience, she is passionately committed to enhancing cognitive and emotional well-being. 

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