What happens to our brains when we exercise and how it makes us happier
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What happens to our brains when we exercise and how it makes us happier
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Re: What happens to our brains when we exercise and how it makes us happier
#2The anecdotal evidence in my personal case which supports the ideas in this blog post is overwhelming. Having started an exercise and diet regimen a few months ago, I have noticed a vast improvement not just in physical health but in mental health.
I feel brighter (not in the intelligence sense but in the photonic sense). That is, I feel like I'm pushing positive energy out into the world instead of negative energy. It has been a fairly subtle shift over the last 3 months, but in my mind it is undeniable.
Re: What happens to our brains when we exercise and how it makes us happier
#3> If you start exercising, your brain recognizes this as a moment of stress. As your heart pressure increases, the brain thinks you are either fighting the enemy or fleeing from it.
That's exaggerated. It's simply a reaction to increased level of effort. It's not always a full-fledged fight-or-flight response, unless it's a quite strenuous type of exercise.
> The first 20 minutes of moving around, if someone has been really sedentary, provide most of the health benefits. You get prolonged life, reduced disease risk — all of those things come in in the first 20 minutes of being active.
Makes sense. Exercise a little every day, even if it's some very mild form like walking. Laying down on the couch all day long is bad.
Re: What happens to our brains when we exercise and how it makes us happier
#4The one thing that makes a significant change for me is sleeping well. For me to get a good night's sleep, though, I need to exercise during the day, dim the lights at night, and to keep a consistent time of going to bed.
The biggest part of exercise = happy, for me, is the fact that I sleep well afterwards.
Re: What happens to our brains when we exercise and how it makes us happier
#5The book Spark by John Ratey is a decent read for anyone who wants to go more in-depth on this topic. The big idea that Ratey tries to get across is a reframing of exercise as something that is essential to mental health, with positive physical side-effects. There's been a lot of work recently tying exercise to increased neuroplatisity that's covered as well.
Re: What happens to our brains when we exercise and how it makes us happier
#6> If you start exercising, your brain recognizes this as a moment of stress. As your heart pressure increases, the brain thinks you are either fighting the enemy or fleeing from it. That's exaggerated. It's simply a reaction to increased level of effort. It's not always a full-fledged fight-or-flight response, unless it's a quite strenuous type of exercise. > The first 20 minutes of moving around, if someone has been…
>> all of those things come in in the first 20 minutes of being active.
> Makes sense
Does it? I'd say the last twenty minutes of exercise is what counts - it's the difficult part.
Re: What happens to our brains when we exercise and how it makes us happier
#7A year and a half ago I started doing triathlons and moved all the way up to doing a full Ironman this year. Due to the amount of training involved it's an awesome motivator to get you in shape and control your daily plan. Highly recommend it (even if just doing sprint/olympic/half distance) to anyone looking for a structured approach to staying healthy.
I also think it's a great way for entrepreneurs to exercise their minds. The full Ironman is extremely long and takes long term determination. It's not something you can simply hack together (as some people do by minimal training and walking 6-hour marathons). So in a way it allows me to go through a long term process of building up my body (i.e. a company) and make tweaks along the way to improve the performance. I can't tell you how many times I've failed along the way and get better as a result.
Although there is no real way to quantify this, I would say my ability to focus at work as drastically increased. I much more confident and happy as a result.
Curious - anyone else on HN do triathlons?
Re: What happens to our brains when we exercise and how it makes us happier
#8Good post, but I think there is too much emphasis in general on tracking and logging workouts.
I find the whole tracking and logging weights, reps and feelings while working out to be daunting and pointless. Maybe it's because I am not a "I'm going to start working out and dieting" type person, rather I just live a healthy lifestyle by design. I don't "diet", I just try to eat healthy in general. I don't have a "work out routine", I just try to be physical every day. It makes the whole exercise process more a part of my natural life, rather than something I have to schedule.
I enjoy going to the gym and getting a good workout, doing whatever I feel like at the moment. The important part to me is working up a sweat and getting my heart pumping, not how many reps with a certain weight I did. I can see if you have a goal of weight loss or increasing your strength to a certain level that can be measured by numbers, but if you are aiming for general health, why do you need to keep a detailed log? Just try to exercise everyday, regardless of what that includes.
If you do keep a detailed log of your workouts, what kind of actionable data does that information provide you? Do you refer back to it daily, weekly, monthly and try to optimize your workouts based on your previous history? If so, how?
Re: What happens to our brains when we exercise and how it makes us happier
#9Good post, but I think there is too much emphasis in general on tracking and logging workouts. I find the whole tracking and logging weights, reps and feelings while working out to be daunting and pointless. Maybe it's because I am not a "I'm going to start working out and dieting" type person, rather I just live a healthy lifestyle by design. I don't "diet", I just try to eat healthy in general. I don't have a "work…
I use the Fitocracy iPhone app to keep track of the weight and number of reps for each exercise. It helps me push myself to get better. For example, if I deadlifted 300lbs for 5 reps last week, then this week I shoot for 305 x 5. I find that this type of tracking is the only reliable way to make progress. Plus, it's great motivation.
Re: What happens to our brains when we exercise and how it makes us happier
#10A year and a half ago I started doing triathlons and moved all the way up to doing a full Ironman this year. Due to the amount of training involved it's an awesome motivator to get you in shape and control your daily plan. Highly recommend it (even if just doing sprint/olympic/half distance) to anyone looking for a structured approach to staying healthy. I also think it's a great way for entrepreneurs to exercise the…
I don't do triathlons because of the time commitment involved. I'm training for a marathon and that's a big enough commitment.
I still think the best way to learn to be an entrepreneur is to be an entrepreneur.
If you enjoy a specific sport or activity, enjoy it for it's own merits. Rarely do things like marathons or Ironman or sports make sense just as ways to keep in shape - unless that's the only thing that will motivate you.
So what I am saying is that sports are great on their own, no need to justify them by assuming they "build character" in other parts of your life.
My guess is that success-oriented people do triathlons, not that triathlons produce success-oriented people.