Reddy, a clinical associate professor at Harvard Medical School and an internationally recognized expert in the field of neuropsychiatry, wrote in the book “Exercise Transforms the Brain”: Exercise is actually the best investment in the brain.
Harvard study: Exercise is the best way to invest in yourself
1. Exercise makes you smarter
I don’t know if you have ever had this experience:
You feel sluggish and lethargic, stand up and move your muscles and bones, and immediately feel a lot more awake;
Work and study are inefficient, go out and run for a few laps, and the state will soon get better.
As someone said: the greatest charm of exercise is to keep the brain in the best state.
Wendy, a neuroscience professor who studies long-term memory, did an experiment with herself and successfully proved it.
During a rafting activity, she suddenly realized that she was the weakest person when she was young, so she decided to enter the gym to exercise.
After more than a year of exercise, she not only managed to regain a slim figure, but also found that her memory and concentration improved.
She was very curious about this and switched her research direction to the changes in the brain caused by exercise.
After her research, she found that long-term exercise can have a dramatic impact on the anatomy, physiology, and function of the brain:
Simply getting your body moving can have immediate and long-term protective effects on your brain that can last a lifetime.”
Leonardo da Vinci once said: Movement is the source of all life.
No matter what age or occupation you are in, you can use exercise to develop and protect your brain, so you can firmly grasp the initiative in life.
2. Exercise makes you happy
Not only does long-term exercise change my appearance, it also gives me a sense of confidence that radiates from within.
The sense of well-being brought by exercise lies in the fact that it allows us to release stress, relieve our emotions, and obtain both physical and mental pleasure.
Brendon Stubbs, an authoritative expert on sports and mental health, has done an experiment:
He put the participants through a week of exercise training, followed by a seven-day pause to observe their mental state after they stopped exercising.
he results showed that all participants experienced large fluctuations in multiple data, and their psychological state index fell by an average of 15%.
Among them, crankiness increased by 23%, confidence decreased by 20%, and calmness decreased by 19%.
At the end of the experiment, one participant sighed: “My body and mind are more dependent on exercise than I ever imagined.”
In the past, we only observed physical changes caused by exercise with the naked eye. As everyone knows, exercise can also have a significant impact on our emotions.
Exercise will give us a sense of control and self-confidence, and get rid of negative emotions such as stress and anxiety.
At the same time, it can also promote the secretion of dopamine, which has the effect of increasing happiness, making us happier as we move.
People who exercise more and love sports will become more enjoy challenges and love life in the sports that break through themselves again and again.
3: Take control of life, start with sports
Wang Enge, the former president of Peking University, once said when he took office: One needs to make “two friends” in one’s life, one is the library and the other is the sports field. Exercise is an important way to assist the development of the brain, and it is also a good friend who can accompany us for a lifetime. To make exercise more powerful, consider the following suggestions:
First ,Start with walking and discover your favorite sport.
As the saying goes, “Every beginning is difficult.”
For people who have no foundation in sports, walking, which we are accustomed to, is the best way to develop exercise habits.
Because it helps us break through our fear of sports and start the transformation with confidence.
Then, we try various sports to discover the one or several that suit us.
If you like the feeling of sweating profusely, then go for a run and dance;
If you like a gentle way to stretch your body and mind, you can practice yoga and Tai Chi;
Pick out two or three sports you like, scientifically arrange time to practice, and enjoy the fun of sports!
Second, constantly challenge new sports to inject vitality into the brain.
Just as weight loss has plateaus, so does exercise remodel the brain.
When your body has developed the habit of exercise and adapts to the rhythm of exercise, the stimulation of the body and brain by exercise will enter a state of stagnation.
Therefore, we have to try new sports from time to time, let the body start a new round of challenges, and the brain will be developed again.
If you are accustomed to being alone in sports, you can try team cooperation sports such as badminton and basketball;
If you always repeat traditional sports such as skipping rope and running, you might as well follow Pamela and other fitness experts to join the trend of training.
Third, after exercising, do the most important things.
Within 1-2 hours after exercise, it is the time for the brain to proliferate neurons and strengthen the hippocampus.
If you choose entertainment and relaxation items such as watching dramas and sleeping after exercising, it will be a waste of the value-added functions that exercise brings to the brain.
Students can recite and solve problems after exercising; office workers can spend their time writing summaries and making tables; entrepreneurs can think about planning future careers.
You must know that only when the brain is fully used after exercise can one really become “smart”.
A person who sleeps at home every day never knows that there is another kind of happiness for people on the treadmill.
Although sports can not give us the rewards we want in a short period of time.
But sticking to it for a long time will give us a stronger body, a more flexible brain and a happier mood, and thus start a life of continuous compound interest. Only then will you find out: exercise is an excellent investment in life
Post time: Aug-01-2022