Slashdot Mirror
Why Exercise Boosts Brainpower
aditi sends us a report from Reuters on research indicating that exercise boosts brainpower by building new brain cells in a brain region linked with memory and memory loss. Quoting: "Tests on mice showed they grew new brain cells in a brain region called the dentate gyrus, a part of the hippocampus that is known to be affected in the age-related memory decline that begins around age 30 for most humans. Researchers used magnetic resonance imaging scans to help document the process in mice — and then used MRIs to look at the brains of people before and after exercise. They found the same patterns, which suggests that people also grow new brain cells when they exercise."
So here we are, once again, with Locke's ideal of a sound mind in a sound body.
The challenge for computer geeks: finding a way to merge exercise with mostly-sedentary hobbies and jobs. Perhaps it's a job for mobile computing: Set a tablet PC in front of a treadmill, and read Slashdot while running?
I'm sure it's just not exercise, but exercise + education that makes a person not "dumb". But compare the same person with and without exercise, the one with will perform better on brain tests.
--Thomas J. Owens
All regions of the brain benefit from the increased blood flow and do all body systems. The metabolic adaptations are also universal to most body systems.
The meditative state that many exercises induce are also beneficial.
They're not "dumb", but they're also not necessarily the intellectual type. From what I've seen, the reason for that is that your intellectual spends too much time in an introverted state to worry about the world around them. Regular exercise is not engaging to their internal senses, so they tend to find it "boring". The more extroverted types get their engagement from the world around them, and thus find pleasure in physical activity.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I would suspect it is because they don't actually try to actively use their minds? (assuming this is entirely true) For instance, giving someone who doesn't exercise anabolic steroids would not turn them into a strong person.
How do I know this?
Because 99% of the really smart people I've met in my life are big, fat, dope-smoking UNIX guys who think a treadmill is a place where corn is ground up to make tires.
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
High performance sporting is not healthy. Repeat: NOT healthy. I've been training for marathons with an Olympic athlete who consistently runs 42K in under 2 hours 15 minutes. He needs to take a continuos stream of dietary supplements and run 25 kilometers daily, use special cushioning on all his footwear to compensate for the deformation that the impact of running produces, and keep an extremely strict dietary regimen, not to mention constant sports massages to keep himself from cramping as well as a myriad of other things.
Being a professional means pushing your body to extremes it was not meant to take. We're not built to run such distances at those speeds.
Remember though, that only applies to the 0.001% of the population that plays professionally and has masochistic tendencies. Your average slashdotter should get off its ass and at the very least walk a half hour daily. I know that ever since I started running in the morning my day feels much better than before, and indeed I do feel sharper.
My grandfather was a golden-glove boxer, and fought on a PT boat in the Pacific during WWII.
He was one of the smartest people I have known. He could recite long passages from Greek poetry (like the Illiad, etc.) from memory. The breadth of his knowledge has been an inspiration to everyone who knew him. Ignorance is a choice, as is physical weakness.
There aren't any nobel prize winning boxers because they are devoting their time to boxing and not to science. I'd suspect you could find some nobel prize winners that work out.