We all know that exercise is important in maintaining a happy and healthy lifestyle. Exercise has been found to boost your overall mood, stamina, and health and has now been found to boost your brain power.
A new study from the University of South Carolina has found that 30 minutes for adults and 20 minutes for children results in a 5 percent to 10 percent improvement in cognition. A 30 minute treadmill session has the ability to increase brain function, causing it to function both faster and more efficiently. The findings do not measure an individuals IQ or level of intelligence, rather the increased rate of functionality in the frontal lobe.
The study used brain monitors and treadmills to measure cognition before and after exercise. The study found that frontal lobe functionality improved after exercise.
Did you know that exercise and brain function were connected? Will you start to exercise to increase brain power?
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It is important to note that one has to eat after working out to achieve these benefits — feed your brain by feeding your body!
rose / 934 posts
@Twirly_Red3@xanga - I’d also recommend eating a bit before working out so as to maximize your ability to properly work out. I know that if I go into working out hungry it’s a lot harder to push myself as much as I’d like. Being able to work out better = better results, which I’m sure would extend to brain functioning if these results are accurate.
I would think it has to do with oxygen and blood circulation, along with the change in hormones while working out. so it’s not necessarily the exercise itself but the physiological side-effects of working out that contribute to better cognitive abilities. I find that exercising can definitely make me feel more up for studying and stuff, although this is not always the case. It usually only helps if my exercising sessions are very short, like 5-10 minutes max and that I push myself quite a bit.
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@ashleynicole - working out while hungry is bad because your body will start breaking down proteins in the absence of glucose to provide you with energy! and those proteins will come from your muscles, etc.
rose / 934 posts
@setfire_x@xanga - Yeah it’s definitely better to eat something before working out! Although I’ve also heard that at the same time working out after eating can result in losing less weight (I don’t remember the specifics of what I’d read, but I guess something like it would work off the food itself as opposed to fat you already have stored in your body?). But in the end you’ll not have that much energy to be able to work out as much/well as you would if you’d eaten beforehand. Probably better to make sure you eat a small something as opposed to a large meal, or if eating a large meal give it a while to digest. If I go in right after eating I get cramps haha. So I usually either snack first or eat and then wait an hour or two before working out. I hate being in the gym and then feeling my stomach growl from hunger!
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I notice that I feel more alert the days that I exercise.