Exercising Makes Us Smarter
Exercising is very healthy for both your body and your mind. In addition to helping you stay healthy and fit, exercise also helps you feel better about yourself, have more energy, regulate stress, and combat anxiety and depression.
However, the power of exercise on your body and mind goes even further. Recent studies have shown that physical activity is also beneficial to the brain, and that it improves the ability to remember and learn.
Aerobic exercise can promote learning
Several studies have linked improvements in physical fitness to important developments in memory and learning abilities. For example, one study found that children who had good aerobic fitness scored better on memory tests than those with poor physical fitness.
The researchers also suggested that combining exercise and study helps improve memory and makes studying less difficult, especially when facing complex and challenging tasks.
Exercising helps the development of new brain cells
According to experts, cardiovascular exercise not only enhances learning, but also causes real changes inside the brain. Hormones secreted through exercise have beneficial effects on improving attention, increasing levels of animation and on perception.
On the other hand, studies have shown that intense aerobic activities, such as running, can increase neurogenesis (birth of new neurons) and improve the chances that these newly formed cells can survive and thrive.
It has also been found that exercise stimulates the production of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which helps conserve brain cells and stimulates the growth of new neurons.
Exercise and cognitive reserve
Several studies have shown that the benefits of exercising are cumulative, that is, that they affect cognitive reserve (the ability to tolerate changes in brain structures related to age or a certain pathology).
What type of exercise is best for promoting learning
While exercise in general is beneficial for the brain, some types of training are better at promoting certain types of learning than others, as each affects our minds in a certain way.
Most studies suggest that cardiovascular exercise offers the greatest benefits for increasing memory and improving learning. However, there is also evidence that strength training can benefit the brain and that even moderate exercise can lead to such brain benefits.
Researchers have found that moderate exercise, such as walking and lifting weights for toning purposes, can help prevent memory problems associated with the aging process.
One study also found that older adults who had been diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment showed improvements in memory and language skills after following an exercise schedule of two weekly 90-minute sessions of aerobic exercise, strength training and exercise for a year. balance.
