“Thinking sport”- The last post hinted at the idea that short bursts of high intensity movement may be useful in boosting thinking ability. That is, in terms of ‘return of investment’, bouts of high intensity movement will not only improve strength and power as well as a host of other desirable physical factors, but also your ability to process information quickly and accurately (thinking power!), to remember things that have happened, to structure your thinking and to apply your learning and thinking. For more on how to design your workout for maximum benefit, see the bullet points below.
I also mentioned that moving positively affects mood. This is a result of a boost of endorphins (or happy hormones) that are released when moving. In the past, this type of effect has mainly been associated with longer sessions of aerobic exercise. Feelings of euphoria or what has been called the runner’s high sometimes follow long aerobic sessions. More recent discoveries show that short bursts of activity can also lead to mood boosting effects – good news for everybody who is short of time or finds it hard to motivate themselves for longer movement sessions.
Now, I think everybody can do with a little mood boost, right? What is more, is that when you are under a large amount of stress, or you are living with long-term low mood or anxiety – or both – the positive effect of high intensity movement is even stronger. This is because any movement, but particularly high intensity movement, makes the brain more receptive to happy hormones. It is almost like movement adds more post boxes into your brain at which love letters can be posted. Intense bouts of exercise also make the brain more sensitive for the effects of proteins that stimulate growth and repair of different areas of the brain that work differently in prolonged low mood.
For all people in a hurry, here is a quick guide to structuring shorter movement sessions to increase the happy effect:
- Each bout of high intensity exercise should be between 5-150 seconds long
- These bouts should be separated by short rest or active recovery periods
- Intense bouts should leave you unable to speak more than one word at a time and feel like near maximum effort
- The total amount of time spent in high intensity bouts needs to be around 15 minutes per session
- Three sessions per week
- Include a good warm-up to avoid injury.
If you are keen to learn more about how thinking improves movement and moving improves thinking over the next month, keep an eye on this spot, follow me or subscribe to the blogpost.
References (for the extra keen)
Saanijoki et al. (2018)
Zwilling et al. (2020)