Most people know from personal experience that physical movement after prolonged periods of sitting can increase your mental alertness and sense of wellbeing. This blog post will explain how the body uses movement to recharge the batteries of your brain.
When you start exercising, your brain recognizes this as a moment of increased demand for mental and physical alertness. Just as your heart pressure increases to meet the increased demand, the brain activates the sympathetic nervous system (“fight or flight response”). This “stress response” in the brain leads to the release a protein called BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor). BDNF has a protective and also reparative element to your memory neurons and acts as a reset switch. That’s why we often feel so at ease and like your head is clearer after exercising.
At the same time, endorphins, another chemical that balances stress, is released in your brain. Endorphins tend to minimize the discomfort of exercise, block the feeling of pain, and are even associated with a feeling of euphoria.
There is a lot going on inside our brain and it is oftentimes a lot more active while exercising than when we are just sitting down or actually concentrating mentally:
Improve your memory with daily exercise and movement
A recent study published by Hopkins et.al. in the journal Neuroscience* found that memory and mental alertness increased with regular exercise and even more so with recent exercise:
“Those who had exercised during the preceding month but not on the day of testing generally did better on the memory test than those who had been sedentary, but did not perform nearly as well as those who had worked out that morning.”
So regular exercise can significantly increase your alertness and productivity. It seems like the first 20 minutes of moving around, after being sedentary, provide most of the neurological health benefits. Hence to keep your brain and health at its peak capacity incorporate several brain-recharging movement sessions through your day.
Make it a habit
Starting to exercise regularly or even daily is sometimes easier said than done. Exercise is a keystone habit. This means that daily exercise can improve your sense of wellbeing and give you more energy and focus to make other healthy lifestyle choices. Therefore I believe movement and exercise is worth making into a daily habit. To make exercise into a habit you need to commit to a daily movement/exercise routine and keep it up for about 30 days. After 30 days the exercise routine starts to become one of those things that you automatically do without even questioning it. At that point regular exercise becomes easy, it is like brushing your teeth before going to bed or tying your shoelaces before walking out the door. Below are some tips to get started with your 30-days of regular movement and exercise:
- Put your gym clothes right over your alarm clock or phone when you go to bed: This technique sounds rather simple, but has been one of the most powerful ones. If you put everything the way you want it for the gym before you go to sleep and put your alarm under your gym clothes, you will have a much easier time to convince yourself to put your gym clothes on to do your exercise routine first thing in the morning before any other interruptions.
- Track your exercises and log them (fitness apps for the mobile phone might be handy in this regard).
- Join a fitness class or personal trainer that makes you accountable to stick to your routine.
- Think about starting small and then… start even smaller. To make it easy to commit and succeed with your new habit keep it achievable. 5 or 10 minutes of just stepping outside to take some deep breaths of fresh air, taking a short walk and some squats or wall push-ups goes a long way in setting the habit. Then on days when you have time and feel keen for more training you can choose to temporarily expand on your minimum movement commitment.
Once you get started you are set!
The hardest thing with exercise is to get started. Once you actually are out there moving, the increase of the BDNF proteins in your brain acts as a mood enhancer and you are likely to enjoy and stick to the exercise. The release of endorphins also has an addictive effect, and more exercise is needed to achieve the same level of euphoria over time. This means that once you are set in your exercise routine the endorphins will keep calling you back for more and gradually encourage you to do higher and higher intensity exercise.
So, in short BDNF and endorphins are the reasons exercise makes us feel so good. The somewhat scary part is that they have a very similar and addictive behaviour like morphine, heroin, or nicotine. The positive difference is that it’s actually really good for you and will enhance your health and long-term sense of wellbeing.
* Hopkins M. E., Davis F. E., Vantieghem M. R., Whalen P. J., Bucci D. J., Differential effects of acute and regular physical exercise on cognition and affect, Neurocience 2012 Jul 26;215:59-68. Epub 2012 Apr 30