Acute aerobic exercise to recover from mental exhaustion
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Acute aerobic exercise to recover from mental exhaustion
1–10 of 132 posts
Re: Acute aerobic exercise to recover from mental exhaustion
#2Personal Anecdote: when I was in an office (before current WFH) and I was mentally exhausted I would go down to the gym, slam slam balls into the floor for 2 minutes without stopping, maybe take a 30 second cold shower, then return to work. Super refreshing and I was gone from my desk a grand total of like 8 minutes.
Re: Acute aerobic exercise to recover from mental exhaustion
#3Is it about NIH syndrome?
Re: Acute aerobic exercise to recover from mental exhaustion
#430 min at 65-75% of individual V˙O2peak is not a joke.
Re: Acute aerobic exercise to recover from mental exhaustion
#530 minutes of aerobic exercise for 1 hour of mental work is what was assessed. Does it have the same benefits if we have 8 hours of mental work instead?
Re: Acute aerobic exercise to recover from mental exhaustion
#6I often think the the imbalance between mental effort and physical effort in modern office jobs causes a lot of problems.
Some of my happiest days were when I trained boxing and weights 2 hours six times a week. It's hard to be depressed or anxious when you are physically exhausted and the feeling of physical strength just makes you feel better. Working out to the point of exhaustion feels like a "reset" for body and mind.
Eating is another thing. When I hike the whole day or backpack for days my eating gets naturally balanced without effort. I eat what I need and that's it. When I work for 10 hours a day at a desk I start craving junk food and have to be careful not to put on weight. And not moving much is physically exhausting. I think that's because in the past usually when you had a lot of mental stress you were under physical threat (e.g. chased by a predator or enemy) and therefore probably needed physical energy. So we react to the typical modern workplace stress by wanting more energy but we never use it.
Any ideas for a career that balances physical and mental effort better (and pays well)? A few years ago I worked near a place where they shot a lot of movie scenes and film production seemed pretty attractive. They spend a lot of time in the office planning things but then they go out for extended periods of time and do the actual shoot.
Re: Acute aerobic exercise to recover from mental exhaustion
#7> While widespread strategies to recover from mental exhaustion (i.e., watching TV) are non-effective,
I worked for a startup from 2015 to 2017.
During that time I'd sometimes work 10-14 hours for 2-3 days in a row.
When I was tired after lunch I'd just tell my colleagues I was tired and would take a gaming break and then go play 1 or 2 maps of CS:GO in casual mode before working 5-7 hours more after the brain fog had lifted. It actually worked very well back then.
Not exactly the same as TV since was very active and not relaxing but I feel it was worth mentioning since to counter the idea that only physical exercise can work.
Later I figured out that if I just drop breakfast I don't get hit by brain fog after lunch. This is funny since every health specialist have always told how important a correct breakfast is to stay sharp during the day.
During the pandemic I tried this again but stopped it since now it seems 20 minutes of gaming just wastes 40 minutes of my day. There are some obvious between now and then but I have no clear idea which of them are responsible for why it worked back then but not now. (During the pandemic I worked from home, I also don't eat breakfast mot days and I am older now.)
Re: Acute aerobic exercise to recover from mental exhaustion
#830 minutes of aerobic exercise for 1 hour of mental work is what was assessed. Does it have the same benefits if we have 8 hours of mental work instead?
What, you don't have time to exercise for four hours a day? /s
Re: Acute aerobic exercise to recover from mental exhaustion
#9Assuming that the article's conclusions are sound, I wonder what think/exercise schedule would maximize a developer's productivity.
(I'm not assuming that a single schedule is applicable to all circumstances or persons.)
Re: Acute aerobic exercise to recover from mental exhaustion
#10I can totally relate to this, working from home and having an exercise bike has done wonderful things for my work. One thing I'm curious of (and might be tackled in a follow-up) is if shorter bursts of exercise (perhaps more intense) are just as effective?
In their experiment they find that 30 minutes of moderate exercise is effective. I'd be curious to compare that with for example 10 minutes of high intensity exercise?