EXERCISE AND THE BRAIN

Imagine you are offered to give up 30 minutes
of your morning time in exchange for free
a magic pill.
The pill improves your learning capability
reduce your anxiety and stress
improves your mood and motivation
and generally it makes you a better version
of yourself for the rest of the day.
So would you take that offer?
Well what I just described is the reason
why you should exercise.
When you think of exercising the first things
that comes to your mind are the benefits or
maybe losing weight or having a healthier heart.
But the real benefits of exercise happen in the brain.
So what is the brain for anyway?
You may think it’s
about solving math problems
or creating a new smartphone app
that will make you are millionaire.
But neuroscientist Daniel Wolpert says that
our brain is for one thing only:
To produce adaptable and complex movement.
That’s it!
The Koala is a great example.
In the past it had a much bigger brain
but once it adapted it’s digestive system
to derive all the energy it needs
from Eucalyptus leaves, it didn’t had to move
as much, less movement meant less brain activity
and its brain shrunk.
Studies has shown that
there is a very powerful connection
between the brain and movement.
A big brain is needed to
facilitate complex movements and executing
such movements and getting your heart rate up
enhances your brain power.
Exercise has been shown to help people better
deal with stress and anxiety, improved mood,
focus and motivation.
A 2007 study has shown that
exercise also primes the brain to learn faster.
Subjects who did high intensity training beforehand
were able to learn vocabulary 20 % faster than
those who remained sedentary.
This phenomenon is due to a protein
called Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor
or BDNF for short.
BDNF helps to support the survival
of existing neurons and encourages the growth
and differentiation of new neurons and synapses.
In the brain, it is active in the hippocampus, cortex,
and basal forebrain—areas vital
to learning, memory, and higher thinking.
A 2013 study showed that
only 20 to 40 minutes of aerobic exercise
increased the BDNF in the blood by around 32%.
So the reason why exercise is a key trigger
for all kinds of positive effects in the brain,
particularly learning, is
because movement signals to the brain
that something important is happening.
Maybe not in modern times,
but in the past the reason to move was
for the sake of survival.
You move to escape a predator
to find better shelter, hunt for food et cetera.
And while moving its in your best interest
to remember the lay of the land so you don’t get lost
and you can locate forageable food again.
When attacked by a predator you
better remember which path was most efficient
to escape, so you can prevent yourself
from becoming a tigers meal the next time.
When you are sitting on your couch
watching television you signal your brain that
nothing important is happening and it’s time for rest.
Exercise also affects the areas of the brain
responsible for motivation and action.
The reward center is one of
the most important areas in the brain.
Dopamine is a key player in the reward system.
From evolutionary perspective dopamine is released
when we expect some kind of reward,
it makes us want to do stuff,
and it reassures us that
the thing we did was worth doing.
So if your reward center is not working properly,
you might have hard time to get things done.
If your brain doesn’t expect reward
and fulfilment from something
it won’t justify doing it.
There are pills that can help with this,
but you don’t have to buy any kind of drugs to
get your reward system going.
Studies show that
exercise boost motivation
by increasing dopamine storage
and increasing the creation of dopamine receptors
in the reward center.
It might not make you stay up all night
in a studying frenzy like adderall, but it will
give you more willpower and focus to do
those little things that don’t usually feel rewarding.
But even though your reward center
might be working just fine,
you are feeling great,
and you are satisfied with your ability to learn,
you can still improve all of these areas.
When you exercise
you might not feel a drastic change all of a sudden,
but later on you will look back
and notice the difference in learning speed,
mood, focus and you will get more things done.
Now that you know all the benefits of exercise,
it’s up to you whether or not you will take
the magic pill and improve your life or
you will stay the same and get the same results