Let science convince you to exercise in 4 Minutes

Need motivation to exercise more? Do you want real facts to convince you to start working out already? Then this article is for, it will be worth your 4 minutes.

Exercise makes you a better student

“Devoting more than 4 h per week to scheduled exercise significantly increased the odds of reaching the official and discretionary sufficiency in both Language and Mathematics.”

That is one just one of the findings of a study by the Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology at the University of Chile, conducted in March 2014. 4 hours of exercise per week significantly increased the probability of improving in school, both in Language and Mathematics subjects.

Meanwhile moderate engagement of 2– to 4 hours per week only improved the odds of reaching the discretionary sufficiency standard.

It was found that in Language, students exercising 4 hours and more per week were two times more likely to reach the sufficiency standard than those exercising less than 2 h.

In Maths, the odds of reaching the sufficiency standard were significantly higher in physically active students.

This even applies to entire schools, where students at schools that allocate the most time to scheduled exercise are significantly better in Language and Maths. This suggests some interesting things:

• Academic levels and health-related behaviors are linked
• School health programs have positive effects on education
• Exercise seems to benefit Language skills more so than Maths
• Exercising even just 2 hours per week will likely make you a better student
• Exercising at least 4 hours a week regularly makes you smarter

The study does not show exactly why the students and the overall level of education improves with the level of regular exercise. We can however guess that it has to do with brain functionality, the ability to learn and remember things and overall vitality. Exercise could benefit all those areas, which also ties in with the next point.

Exercise makes you smarter

Another study conducted by the Beckman Institute and Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois in 2007 suggests that:

• Exercise enhances cognitive vitality in multiple ways
• Exercise training positively influences cognition

Exercise also has generally broad effects on a variety of perceptual and cognitive processes. But the effects and benefits are generally larger for executive control processes like planning, scheduling, working memory, dealing with distraction and multi-tasking.

What is interesting about this is that those processes generally substantially decline over adult lifespan, meaning that exercise could be even more beneficial in these areas.

A study by the Institute of Circulatory Research and Sports Medicine at the German “Sporthochschule Cologne” found that physical activity benefits

• brain volume
• brain activity, such as cognitive abilities

Studies suggest that sport and exercise has the potential to improve acute and chronical cognitive abilities and other executive functions, as well as optimizing memory abilities and learning processes.

Physical activity leads to structural adaption processes, there is also a positive correlation between the niveau of activity and the general brain volume.

Contrary to popular belief, those processes are also not all that slow. The adaption process even expands to areas of the brain that have nothing to do with motoric processes.

Exercise just overall improves your brain. It enhances cognitive vitality and cognition overall and it improves executive control processes. This is especially interesting as those are the processes that decline the most as we age. It also benefits brain volume and activity.

All this suggests exercise is good for you and your brain and in turn makes you smarter.

Exercising protects your brain from illness

The study conducted at the University of Illinois also found that exercise not only reduces the risk of disease, but also improves molecular and cellular structure of the brain and its functionality.

The researchers in Cologne found similar results. They suggest regular exercise has neuroprotective effects. It protects the brain from developing neurodegenerative illnesses.

This again shows that not only does exercise improve the structure and functionality of the brain, benefiting it in many areas. It also protects the brain from future neurodegenerative illnesses and disease.

Exercise possibly has positive effects on illnesses of the brain that are already active, but that is not what the above studies focused on. But what they definitely suggest is that exercise helps prevent mental diseases from occurring in the future.

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