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Aerobic exercise is good for the brain; easy wins for behaviour change

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Re: Aerobic exercise is good for the brain; easy wins for behaviour change

#61

Post by dymk »

decafninja wrote: post #8
lagniappe wrote: post #6

Exercise just makes me feel good. To me, that's enough. Its not about a routine, or how I look, it's eustress.

I'm the opposite - exercise makes me feel terrible both physically (exhausting) and mentally (boredom), both during and after. I've never experienced "runner's high" or the similar feeling some people describe from lifting weights. If it wasn't for the health and aesthetic benefits, I'd choose to never to exercise again.

Do you like moving in general? Find a ninja warrior training gym or a trampoline park.

Re: Aerobic exercise is good for the brain; easy wins for behaviour change

#62

Post by enoch_r »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #2

...in the elderly. And across all tasks it's only half a standard deviation, meaning the result is far from significant. There are lots of good studies on positive effects of exercise in all sorts of ages and populations, but this is not one of them. Edit: Jesus, this thread is proof than HN techies think they know math but actually have no clue about statistics. They are easy prey for this kind of journalism.

> And across all tasks it's only half a standard deviation, meaning the result is far from significant.

I can't read the original article because it's paywalled, but assuming that the original claim is correct ("increased performance by approximately .5 of a standard deviation across all tasks tested") and that by "significant" you mean "statistically significant" then you are spectacularly and confidently wrong.

Imagine we have a normal distribution of IQs around 100 with a standard deviation of 15.

Imagine there were some intervention which resulted in a uniform increase in IQ by half a standard deviation across the board. Perhaps the intervention is "literally add 7.5 points to every single score in the treatment group."

You seem to be asserting that because the effect size is "only" half a standard deviation, we have no way of determining whether or not the intervention actually increased scores, no matter how much data is collected. We could collect 100 million IQ scores in the control group, and 100 million IQ scores in the "treatment" group, and see that the average score in the control group is 100 and the average score in the treatment group is 107.5, and we'd have to say "nope, the null hypothesis looks completely plausible here, because the effect size was just half a standard deviation."

Does that seem like a reasonable claim?

Re: Aerobic exercise is good for the brain; easy wins for behaviour change

#63

Post by [deleted] »

decafninja wrote: post #8
lagniappe wrote: post #6

Exercise just makes me feel good. To me, that's enough. Its not about a routine, or how I look, it's eustress.

I'm the opposite - exercise makes me feel terrible both physically (exhausting) and mentally (boredom), both during and after. I've never experienced "runner's high" or the similar feeling some people describe from lifting weights. If it wasn't for the health and aesthetic benefits, I'd choose to never to exercise again.

[deleted]

Re: Aerobic exercise is good for the brain; easy wins for behaviour change

#65

Post by bitcurious »

kortex wrote: post #19

> Maximal effects were found for tasks related to executive functions, (i.e., aspects of higher cognition principally associated with the functions of prefrontal cortex). Oh good, exactly what I'm looking for. If only the executive dysfunction didn't mess with my ability to form any kind of stable exercise routine.

I can’t articulate this as a how-to, but I’ve found that I can occasionally rewrite some low-level assumptions about myself in such a way that let me accomplish stuff. Like I convinced myself that working out every day isn’t a choice, it’s a default. It’s how I am. This means that the choice is to not work out, and that’s kind of lame, so no choice == working out.

Re: Aerobic exercise is good for the brain; easy wins for behaviour change

#66

Post by metabagel »

phatskat wrote: post #43
pc86 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. I'm more describing making this important enough to you that you start looking for places to slot it into your day. Yes, a routine will likely form out of that but I think it's secondary to getting you to want to do the thing, which is harder (at least for me).

> I'm more describing making this important enough to you that you start looking for places to slot it into your day I get where you’re coming from, and I think you’re missing the point. Executive dysfunction (for me at least) means I can “want to do the thing” a LOT, heck I can even have the motivation, but getting my brain and body to actually do the damn thing can feel insurmountable. There are certainly ways to w…

One approach is to put your body on auto-pilot. Just do the thing for 5 minutes or whatever, without consideration for whether you want to or not. The desire and will will typically develop over time.

Get an easy win.

Re: Aerobic exercise is good for the brain; easy wins for behaviour change

#67

Post by striking »

bitcurious wrote: post #65
kortex wrote: post #19

> Maximal effects were found for tasks related to executive functions, (i.e., aspects of higher cognition principally associated with the functions of prefrontal cortex). Oh good, exactly what I'm looking for. If only the executive dysfunction didn't mess with my ability to form any kind of stable exercise routine.

I can’t articulate this as a how-to, but I’ve found that I can occasionally rewrite some low-level assumptions about myself in such a way that let me accomplish stuff. Like I convinced myself that working out every day isn’t a choice, it’s a default. It’s how I am. This means that the choice is to not work out, and that’s kind of lame, so no choice == working out.

Atomic Habits phrases this more or less as telling yourself e.g. "you are a runner" and then every time you could work out is an opportunity to prove it to yourself.

Re: Aerobic exercise is good for the brain; easy wins for behaviour change

#68

Post by 1123581321 »

dymk wrote: post #48
pc86 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't say this to sound dismissive, which I think is all too common in discussions like this. If we're talking about aerobic exercise, you don't need to "form" anything. It's a monostructural movement. Buy a treadmill and jog on it for 20 minutes when you wake up. Buy a rower and do 5k every morning, or evening, or over lunch. Get a stationary bike and do 10 minutes on that whenever you remember to do it. This isn'…

This is a misunderstanding of what executive dysfunction means; somebody with executive function problems is not going to buy a treadmill much less use it every day.

How about a walk around the block once a month?

I struggle with executive dysfunction; when people describe a more aggressive routine than I could manage, I just mentally translate the numbers and level of consistency into what's achievable rather than berate them. Their point was: start with what's possible for you and go from there, because you don't need to achieve a certain threshold of activity or knowledge for the exercise to benefit you.

Re: Aerobic exercise is good for the brain; easy wins for behaviour change

#69

Post by tsimionescu »

beepbooptheory wrote: post #36
kortex wrote: post #19

> Maximal effects were found for tasks related to executive functions, (i.e., aspects of higher cognition principally associated with the functions of prefrontal cortex). Oh good, exactly what I'm looking for. If only the executive dysfunction didn't mess with my ability to form any kind of stable exercise routine.

I don't have executive function disorder, but I have found the best thing for me is just, simply, running. You can reduce the friction getting from A to B a lot if from the beginning you resolve to be minimalist about it. Just buy shoes (don't think too much about it, go to running store and get fitted) and shorts, and... thats it. Don't try to get any other products, and don't even worry too much about how you do it…

This may work for some people, but not others. For me, nothing is as unpleasant as running. Back when I tried to forcd myself to do it as part of my gym routine, I was actively dreading it the moment I woke up, after a week or two. It took all my willpower every time to run another minute, another 100m, etc. No other exercise I tried is as unpleasant and demotivating to me.

Re: Aerobic exercise is good for the brain; easy wins for behaviour change

#70

Post by amanaplanacanal »

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #50
Der_Einzige wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure that HN skews far fatter than average, which is insane to think about since the average tech bro is far LESS fat than the average person. I imagine the average HN user to look like Richard Stallman.

Why do you think HN skews fatter than average?

They must have taken a random sample.
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