The Importance of a strong body to support a strong mind
How A Strong Body Supports A Strong Mind
If I were to ask you, "How can I make my computer faster without upgrading the CPU?" how would you respond? You might say "Up the clock speed of your CPU", or "Close unnessary programs" and either of those would probably work to some extent. But what is the easist and most sure fire way to get a big performace gain? Upgrade your supporting hardware. Get a better graphics card, RAM, & power supply and witness your favorite games at higher resolutions and how Chrome will now let you have more then three tabs open before sending your computer to crawl. If you want the computer to "think" quicker without replacing its "brain" you upgrade all of the components that support it. Studies show that the same is true for the mind and the body.
The Studies
If you google anything related to benefits of exercise you will be bombarded with a litany of statistics and reasons exercise is good for you. However while many of those are well and good, living longer, being stronger, having more energy I want to focus on mental aspects. How, like the computer, when we focus on keeping our bodies strong our mental performance also benifits. Evidence shows that physical exercise (PE) affects brain plasticity, affecting cognition and your sense of wellbeing ( Weinberg and Gould, 2015 ). In fact, experimental and clinical studies have reported that PE creates structural and functional changes in the brain, meaning that morning run is creating real physical changes in how our brain functions. Studies suggest that in adults, PE causes structural changes such as increased gray matter volume in frontal and hippocampal regions ( Colcombe et al., 2006 ; Erickson et al.,2011 and reduces damage caused to gray matter ( Chaddock-Heyman et al., 2014 ). PE also triggers the release of neurotrophic factors such as ( peripheral BDNF ; Hötting et al., 2016 ). Acute exercise induces alterations in cerebral blood flow, glucose and lactate levels which support your metabolism carrying “food” to the brain ( Mandolesi et al., 2017 ). More recently, growing evidence shows that acute aerobic exercise, (defined as a single intense exercise session), improves cognitive functions, especially prefrontal cortex-dependent cognition ( Basso and Suzuki, 2017 ). Beside frequency and duration, the intensity is a parameter to be considered when evaluating PE effects. It has been shown that moderate intensity exercise is related to increased performance in working memory and cognitive flexibility, whereas high-intensity exercise improves the speed of information processing ( Chang and Etnier, 2009 ).via GIPHY
But I Hate Exercise!
I hear you, and I've been there. I can think of any number of reasons why you might think excercise is not for you but I guarentee you they all fall flat in the face of the evidence. Do you hate exercise? How can you hate something that is proven to improve you mood and reduce depression? (see Weinberg and Gould, 2015 ) Next time your feeling down try going for a walk around block and I bet you'll feel a little better. For your long term success I suggest you work on building a routine. For more on that I suggest reading a ( recent post ) by Christian Sommer on just that! Good luck!Photo by Karsten Winegeart via Unsplash









