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Acute aerobic exercise to recover from mental exhaustion

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

51–60 of 132 posts

Re: Acute aerobic exercise to recover from mental exhaustion

#51

Just browsed through the Abstract. Some unrelated thoughts: I think the issue that most people won't gather up the will to do aerobic exercise after they are mentally exhausted -- even that they know it works to some extent. Following this, I believe, without scientific proof, that genius (or others who can contribute significantly more than other people) have their mind wired completely different from other people.…

There's an author I follow who shared the basic techniques of Western cultivation schools with respect to will on his blog.

https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/tag/will

I suppose it might be a question of whether having enough willpower to start the exercises disqualifies one from being 'weak minded'

Re: Acute aerobic exercise to recover from mental exhaustion

#53

I 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…

Filming with a small crew is more active than sitting in a chair, but only barely, I'd say. There's more standing, at least.

Most of the time you're waiting near the spot where you need to be, or staying perfectly still, or moving but only very slowly.

Film work (even small-scale local stuff) can be really fun but 90+% of the physical activity will be goofing off, for most of the people involved in most shoots. And of course most of the work before and after filming is sitting in front of a screen, like any other office job.

Re: Acute aerobic exercise to recover from mental exhaustion

#55

Entirely anecdotal, but a lot of professional endurance sports athletes / ultra distance athletes are also high performing PhD candidates/professors/academics. It's kind of weird - if you watch the documentary about the Barkley Marathons, the winners are usually some kind of math/engineering PhD candidate. Another anecdote - As a kid I was "hyperactive" and struggled a lot in school until my freshman year. Coincident…

there's something about walking that also lives in the abstract world of ideas *you walk through a partially lit map of unknowns and ideas) ? that and increased blood flow to your head ? maybe hunting was the original and only problem solving instance that caused CNS to develop.

Re: Acute aerobic exercise to recover from mental exhaustion

#56

One of the single biggest errors I’ve had to unlearn being taught in my life is that “exercise is for the body and mainly for athletes” instead of (or perhaps along with) “exercise is also for the mind if you’re a nerd” ;) (Naturally, the mind is part of the body, but the mental benefits are drastically under-emphasized!) Morning exercise a few times a week (at Orangetheory, in my case) lead to fairly large productiv…

As the Roman poet Juvenal once wrote: "Mens sana in corpore sano" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_sana_in_corpore_sano

Gods of the Copybook Headers. (edit: Head ings, of course)

They may be old fuddy-duddies, but damned if they aren't right more often than not. Even when we'd rather they weren't.

Re: Acute aerobic exercise to recover from mental exhaustion

#58

Personal 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.

I used to go outside of my office and sprint as fast as I could for as long as I could, then cool down with a walk around the block. Then I switched jobs and everyone could see me if I did this so I got embarrassed and stopped. I feel like it really helped, maybe I need to get back into the habit, especially since I’m working from home.

Re: Acute aerobic exercise to recover from mental exhaustion

#59
post #48

The keyword there is "aerobic". Weight lifting is not aerobic, it is anaerobic. If you run/cycle/etc beyond your lactate threshold heartrate, you've now switched from aerobic to anaerobic. Easy to google for more info if this seems interesting/important to you, just a "heads up" to the concept.

> Weight lifting is not aerobic, it is anaerobic.

Heavy low repetition lifting is anaerobic, but around 15-20+ repetitions with lighter weights it becomes aerobic.

Re: Acute aerobic exercise to recover from mental exhaustion

#60
post #57

Just want to add to this thread: Walking. Just take a walk no need for something special! If we are talking a workout routine then that's different, but if it's just a mental reset after a challenging couple hours of work then go on a 15 min walk!

Pre Covid my entire team would go on walks once a day, even when it was cold out. I really miss those 15-20 minute excursions, I feel like we all really bonded during our walks and it was a good opportunity to hash out weird things about work and complexity since we had nothing better to do than pick each other’s brains.
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