Who would have thought that to support your mind, you should focus on the body – but this is exactly what modern science tells us. Ignore your physical body to the detriment of your mind.

Any function of the brain you can think of exercise can either improve, optimize, or prevent undesirable health conditions [1].

You’ve heard it before, but this is yet another reason to incorporate regular exercise into your routine

Without a healthy physical foundation to build on, you can’t expect to have your brain function in an optimal way.

Below I discuss the many ways you can improve your brain, and in turn, your life, by exercising regularly.

I also talk about different ways to incorporate exercise into your routine. To get these benefits doesn’t necessarily require a huge commitment on your part.

Improve mental health

One of the first things I notice when I exercise is that I instantly feel better. And when I stop exercising for a period of time, my mood slowly declines.

Exercise has long been known to improve mental health. It helps your brain produce more “feel good” brain chemicals. This results in:

• Improved mood and overall sense of wellbeing [2]
• Reduced feelings of stress – both the symptoms of stress and your ability to manage stress (more on this below) [3]
• A reduction in depression – studies have shown that exercise is as effective as drugs and/or psychotherapy in treating depression [4]

The positive state that results from regular exercise is enough to justify adding it to your routine if you haven’t already.

Manage stress

Stress is something everyone deals with daily. Not only is it unpleasant, but it can negatively influence how your brain functions.

When you are exposed to stressful situations, your body responds by releasing stress hormones into your system. Having stress hormones in your system has been shown to negatively affect cognitive performance as well as learning and memory [5].

Exercise reduces the levels of stress hormones in your system [6]. This in turn helps you to deal with stress better and can reduce anxiety and help you perform better in your daily life [7].

Be smarter

There are many studies that show a direct connection between regular exercise and improved cognitive function, as well as learning and memory. This happens through many mechanisms and can benefit you on many levels.

People who exercise regularly have increased neurotransmitters like serotonin and norepinephrine which are known to accelerate information processing [6].

As your heart rate increases during exercise, your brain is supplied with more oxygen and nutrients. Your body also releases hormones that stimulate the growth of new brain cells as well as new connections between brain cells [8].

This, in turn, leads to improved mental health, cognitive functioning, and memory through the following mechanisms [9]:

• Neurogenesis – the creation of new neurons in your brain
• Neuroplasticity – improvements in how your existing neurons work
• Neurochemistry – the release of neurotransmitters that improve your brain function

The increased flow of blood to the brain causes oxygen saturation and blood vessel growth in areas of the brain associated with rational thinking and as well as social, physical, and intellectual performance. [6]

Be more focused

Another amazing thing exercise can do for your brain function is to improve your attention span and focus. Your attention is responsible for so much of how you experience life. It is directly related to how productive you are, how present you are with the people around you, and how effectively you can learn new things.

A distracted mind is like an unruly child. With a focused, attentive mind your concentration improves, and you can be more productive and achieve your goals more effectively and efficiently.

Science has shown that another benefit of exercise is that it can improve your attention span [10]. This allows you to focus on a specific task for longer which can help you produce better results.

Keep your mind sharp as you age

It is not only important that you optimize the use of your brain now, but that you also protect it as you age.

You have seen above the many ways exercise improves both the function as well as physical structure of your brain. This can create a bigger reserve that helps keep the effects of neurodegenerative diseases at bay.

Exercise gives you a bigger and stronger hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. This is important because these are the two areas that are most susceptible to neurogenerative diseases and normal cognitive decline in aging.” [11]

How to incorporate exercise into your life

As you can see, exercise can have a huge positive impact on your brain and in turn on your life.

The question is – how can you incorporate it into your life and make it a regular habit in order to realize all these benefits?

You don’t need to train like an Olympic athlete to realize these benefits – you just need to spend some time each day being physically active. Here are some examples of activities you can do:

• Walking
• Running
• Going to the gym
• Yoga
• Playing sports
• Dancing
• Gardening
• Biking
• Swimming
• Throwing a frisbee

Incorporating regular exercise into your routine can be challenging because of all the things that compete for your time.

For many people, the improved mood alone is enough motivation to exercise regularly.

Other ways to help you stay motivated include:

• Join a class or work out with a friend who’ll hold you accountable
• Track your progress, which encourages you to reach a goal
• Hire a personal trainer (paying an expert is good motivation)

If you want to increase your physical activity but not ready to commit to a structured routine, I recommend a fitness tracker. This will allow you to track just how active you are during the day.

A fitness tracker will track your activity throughout the day and let you know if you’ve achieved your goal, or how close you are to achieving it. This is primarily done through tracking your steps.

This feedback alone will gently encourage you to put in those extra steps needed to achieve your goal before the end of the day.

I have worn various fitness trackers for years and have used it to track my daily steps, running, exercise, biking trips, and more.

In addition to tracking your exercise, most fitness trackers these days can also track your sleep. Having good sleep is another important factor to optimizing brain function – I have a whole section about this below.

If you are interested in a fitness tracker, click here for more information.

Key Takeaways

Regular exercise can improve:

• Overall mental health including improvements to mood and depression
• Increased mental focus
• Manage stress better
• Be smarter, accelerate information processing, and improve cognitive function
• Improve focus, concentration, and attention span
• Improve memory

Regular exercise also helps keep your brain healthy as you age and helps protect against neurodegenerative diseases.

Exercise can be anything that gets you moving.

Tracking your physical activity throughout the day helps ensure you are getting the regular exercise you need.

Get started today:

Track your activity throughout the day. If you don’t already have one, click here for more information. Start with a reasonable goal based on your current activity level. Increase it by 500-1000 steps each week until you reach 10,000 steps a day.

Works Cited

[1] J. Tocino-Smith, “10 Neurological Benefits of Exercise,” Positive Psycology, 12 4 2021. [Online]. Available: https://positivepsychology.com/exercise-neurological-benefits/.

[2] A. A. M. S. B. Astrid Bjørnebekk, “The antidepressant effect of running is associated with increased hippocampal cell proliferation,” PubMed, 15 3 2005. [Online]. Available: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15769301/.

[3] H. e. al., “Stress reduction correlates with structural changes in the amygdala,” PubMed, 23 September 2009. [Online]. Available: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19776221/.

[4] C. e. al., “Exercise for depression,” PubMed, 12 September 2013. [Online]. Available: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24026850/.

[5] S. Lupien, F. Maheu, M. Tu, A. Fiocco and T. Schramek, “The effects of stress and stress hormones on human cognition: Implications for the field of brain and cognition,” ScienceDirect, December 2007. [Online]. Available: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0278262607000322.

[6] M. Ploughman, “Exercise is brain food: The effects of physical activity on cognitive function,” PubMed, July 2008. [Online]. Available: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18781504/.

[7] T. J. Schoenfeld, P. Rada, P. R. Pieruzzini, B. Hsueh and E. Gould, “Physical Exercise Prevents Stress-Induced Activation of Granule Neurons and Enhances Local Inhibitory Mechanisms in the Dentate Gyrus,” JNeurosci, 1 May 2013. [Online]. Available: https://www.jneurosci.org/content/33/18/7770.

[8] Ding, S. Vaynmana, M. Akhavana, Z. Ying and F. Gomez-Pinilla, “Insulin-like growth factor I interfaces with brain-derived neurotrophic factor-mediated synaptic plasticity to modulate aspects of exercise-induced cognitive function,” ScienceDirect, 8 2 2006. [Online]. Available: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306452206003228.

[9] M. Juliette Tocino-Smith, “10 Neurological Benefits of Exercise,” Positive Psycology, 12 4 2021. [Online]. Available: https://positivepsychology.com/exercise-neurological-benefits/.

[10] T. M. Altenburg, M. J. M. Chinapaw and A. S. Singh, “Effects of one versus two bouts of moderate intensity physical activity on selective attention during a school morning in Dutch primary schoolchildren: A randomized controlled trial,” PubMed, 13 December 2015. [Online]. Available: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26724833/.

[11] W. Suzuki, “The brain-changing benefits of exercise,” TED Talk, 21 March 2018. [Online]. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHY0FxzoKZE.