The benefits of exercise are endless. From eliminating ailments to improving overall health, exercise does wonders for the human body. Often, the cognitive benefits of exercise get lost in the shuffle. Research has suggested that exercise has an impact on increasing grey and white matter in the hypothalamus. What that means is that exercise can help key cognitive attributes such as memory, productivity, and the over all thought process!
During exercise, the entire structure of the brain changes. That change in structure directly impacts cognitive functioning. In addition to structural changes, exercise stimulates the creation of new brain cells.
In an analysis that I did two years ago, my research answered the question, “Which forms of exercise benefit cognitive attributes?” Most exercise is beneficial to the body but only one type is beneficial to the mind. That type of exercise is aerobic exercise. Evidence based findings have shown that anearobic exercises such as lifting weights and ballistic stretching exercises such as static stretching benefit the body greatly but do not have a direct impact on cognitive functioning.
So take advatage of these findings and engage in aerobic exercise 30-45 minutes per day. Another option is if one has writers block or needs a study break, get up, go for a run, come back and you will be more focused and retain more information post aerobic exercise!
