Can Exercise Make You Smarter?
Get-Fit Guy explains whether exercise can make you smarter.
Ben Greenfield
For a long time, researchers have known that exercise can make you smarter. This is due to increased blood flow to your brain, and increased presence of special compounds called “growth factors” that multiply when you exercise, allowing for creation of new brain cells and cell connections.
But the kind of exercise that you perform has a dramatic effect on how much smarter you’re able to get. For example, when you weight train, more of those special growth factors stay in your muscles, but when you do aerobic training, more of the growth factors wind up in your brain.
And that’s not all. Harder aerobic training (like running on a treadmill) can cause enhanced brain functioning compared to easier aerobic training (like an easy walk).
So what’s the take-away message?
Try to do a hard aerobic exercise session a few times a week to keep your brain muscles working. If you need your brain to operate at peak capacity on a specific day, consider getting up early in the morning and doing an aerobic session.
If you have more questions about how to get smarter with exercise, then visit the Get-Fit Guy Facebook page, and also check out the recent article I wrote on 12 ways to hack your mind for a brain-boosting effect.
Image courtesy of Shutterstock
About the Author
Ben Greenfield received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from University of Idaho in sports science and exercise physiology; personal training and strength and conditioning certifications from the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA); a sports nutrition certification from the International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN), an advanced bicycle fitting certification from Serotta. He has over 11 years’ experience in coaching professional, collegiate, and recreational athletes from all sports, and as helped hundreds of clients achieve weight loss and fitness success.