Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Training exercise boosts brain power, Johns Hopkins researchers say

hub.jhu.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 147 posts

Re: Training exercise boosts brain power, Johns Hopkins researchers say

#41

Post by bradlys »

noir_lord wrote: post #26
taeric wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amusingly, I would not be surprised to find some people need both. In particular, exercise is boring. Very very boring. Anything that can help with concentration during boring tasks is useful. Obviously, that is my experience. Ymmv

> In particular, exercise is boring. Very very boring. I regularly spend 2-4hrs on a road bike and I've never found it boring and I have a low boredom threshold generally (outside of programming). It's just a case of finding your niche.

I couldn't do it. I've ridden my road bike for about 2 hours at a time at various points in life (outside of just commuting daily) and I just get bored out of my mind. I get bored biking to and from work. I take routes with a lot more traffic now because it keeps me more mentally engaged with not getting killed and I find myself less focused on the physical discomfort.

Re: Training exercise boosts brain power, Johns Hopkins researchers say

#42

Post by mamon »

tgb wrote: post #21
taeric wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amusingly, I would not be surprised to find some people need both. In particular, exercise is boring. Very very boring. Anything that can help with concentration during boring tasks is useful. Obviously, that is my experience. Ymmv

I used to think that running was boring and that I'd do more of it if it were less boring. At the time I was running on a treadmill while watching a TV show. But every time I hit the end of my run and went into the 5 minute cooldown, I'd find myself becoming engrossed in the show and not want to end. The difference? I wasn't exercising as hard any more. I was getting tired, not bored. Now I run outside for sometimes…

One great alternative to running are team sports like soccer or basketball. You can get cardiovascular excercise similar to HIIT training, while also having fun. The downside being that injuries can happen more often than during jogging.

Re: Training exercise boosts brain power, Johns Hopkins researchers say

#43

Post by hinkley »

noir_lord wrote: post #26
taeric wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amusingly, I would not be surprised to find some people need both. In particular, exercise is boring. Very very boring. Anything that can help with concentration during boring tasks is useful. Obviously, that is my experience. Ymmv

> In particular, exercise is boring. Very very boring. I regularly spend 2-4hrs on a road bike and I've never found it boring and I have a low boredom threshold generally (outside of programming). It's just a case of finding your niche.

I did when I was younger and my theory is that one of the reasons some people have trouble with endurance exercise is the same reason they can't do yoga or meditation. It's just too much time alone with your own thoughts and it's scary for some people.

I'm not convinced that it's the actual running that's predominantly responsible for the neurogenisis (although we know that exercise causes an uptick in HGH so it's plausible). It may just be that much time with nothing else to do but think. Essentially it's walking meditation.

Re: Training exercise boosts brain power, Johns Hopkins researchers say

#44

Post by mohn »

Kiro wrote: post #24
gorpomon wrote: post #8

This is actually a really common improv warm up. The group that's about to perform circles up, and one person says a word to someone else in the circle. That second person then passes the word to someone else, and so on. Eventually, after around 50 words, someone spontaneously passes what was said to them back and you start trying to go back down. The benefits are many, everyone practices focusing, listening and trus…

I don't understand. Isn't it just the same word you started off with? Actually, I probably misunderstand since it sounds like the whisper game but with public passings which obviously would make no sense.

I haven't played this game myself, but from the description I suspect that "passes the word to someone else" should have been "comes up with and passes a different word to someone else". You end up with a stack of words where no two adjacent words are the same. Players might also try to avoid adding non-adjacent duplicate words to the stack.

Eventually, someone decides it's time to start popping backward through the stack. They respond with the same word that they were just passed and the group tries to remember the right words to continue popping back down the stack, one person and word at a time. This gets harder "near the bottom" of the stack because it's been longer since those words were spoken.

Re: Training exercise boosts brain power, Johns Hopkins researchers say

#45

Post by falcolas »

taeric wrote: post #16
pdog wrote: post #14

Do you know the best exercise for your brain? Actual exercise. Running increases neurogenesis[1] more than anything else. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/04/well/move/for-your-brains...

Amusingly, I would not be surprised to find some people need both. In particular, exercise is boring. Very very boring. Anything that can help with concentration during boring tasks is useful. Obviously, that is my experience. Ymmv

Boring and painful. Seems about right.

Boring, because you frequently have to do something in addition to exercising to make the time spent exercising interesting. See the myriad of sibling comments.

Painful, because my exercise as a youth (competitive swimming) badly damaged most of my major joints, making anything but the lightest of impact workouts painful (which leads, sadly, back to point 1).

Re: Training exercise boosts brain power, Johns Hopkins researchers say

#46

Post by dhimes »

Kiro wrote: post #24
gorpomon wrote: post #8

This is actually a really common improv warm up. The group that's about to perform circles up, and one person says a word to someone else in the circle. That second person then passes the word to someone else, and so on. Eventually, after around 50 words, someone spontaneously passes what was said to them back and you start trying to go back down. The benefits are many, everyone practices focusing, listening and trus…

I don't understand. Isn't it just the same word you started off with? Actually, I probably misunderstand since it sounds like the whisper game but with public passings which obviously would make no sense.

Sounds like they make several rounds, each with a different word (not OP, just guessing).

Re: Training exercise boosts brain power, Johns Hopkins researchers say

#49

Post by nugga »

taeric wrote: post #16
pdog wrote: post #14

Do you know the best exercise for your brain? Actual exercise. Running increases neurogenesis[1] more than anything else. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/04/well/move/for-your-brains...

Amusingly, I would not be surprised to find some people need both. In particular, exercise is boring. Very very boring. Anything that can help with concentration during boring tasks is useful. Obviously, that is my experience. Ymmv

It is only boring if you have a restless mind that wants to constantly preoccupy itself with distractions and run away from the slightest discomfort instead of being here and now. With some ZEN focus any activity can be interesting when done with full awareness. Sorry couldn't resist. Carry on.

Re: Training exercise boosts brain power, Johns Hopkins researchers say

#50

Post by dhimes »

mohn wrote: post #44
Kiro wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand. Isn't it just the same word you started off with? Actually, I probably misunderstand since it sounds like the whisper game but with public passings which obviously would make no sense.

I haven't played this game myself, but from the description I suspect that "passes the word to someone else" should have been "comes up with and passes a different word to someone else". You end up with a stack of words where no two adjacent words are the same. Players might also try to avoid adding non-adjacent duplicate words to the stack. Eventually, someone decides it's time to start popping backward through the…

But this way you would only hear one word- the one that was passed to you. Unless it went through several rounds, in which case everybody would have their own stack.
Post reply on HN