HOW EXERCISE AFFECTS THE BRAIN: DOES TRAINING MAKE YOU SMARTER?
After many hours of running, rowing and moving, wouldn’t it be encouraging to know that we are also exercising our minds at the same time? Did you know that physical exercise can improve your mood, but also your memory and your concentration?
So what exactly is happening to our brain while we are exercising? We asked sports medicine professional and brain health entrepreneur Teemu Vornanen to answer our question. It will provide us with scientific information on how exercise affects the brain and what we can do to improve our cognitive functions.
WHAT HAPPENS TO THE BRAIN WHEN WE EXERCISE?
When we exercise our blood flow increases and we often feel more positive. In addition to these bodily sensations, studies have shown that exercise unconsciously affects our brains in much more than that.
Let’s start with a few of the key areas, to give you an idea of the big picture. First, your brain is like plastic, meaning every stimulating factor can mold and reshape your brain throughout your life. At the neurobiological level, this rewiring comes from neurogenesis (the creation of new neurons/nerve cells) and neuroplasticity (the growth and improvement of neural networks).
How are these processes affected by exercise? Scientists are primarily interested in four different levels of change that occur in the brain.
1) Molecular and cellular changes are the key mechanism that mediates a wide range of neurotrophic (growth) factors. These include:
- Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF): a protein that promotes the growth of neurons. It’s the brain’s natural fertilizer, responsible for your learning, memory and mental health.
- Insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1): a protein that works with BDNF in learning processes. It also works with insulin to deliver glucose (sugar) to the brain.
- Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF): a protein that stimulates the formation of blood vessels. This is a process called angiogenesis, which is important because new cells need new blood vessels.
2) Neurotransmitters are the body’s chemical messengers. Without these molecules, no message would be transported from one cell to another. The main ones are:
- Serotonin – is the mood molecule. It also improves your cognitive functions, your reward process, your learning and your memory.
- Dopamine – is the molecule of motivation, the one that encourages us to repeat rewarding experiences.
- Norepinephrine – this molecule responds to stress. It works with adrenaline to increase heart rate and maintain good blood circulation.
When we exercise, these neurotransmitters are all released immediately, thereby regulating our mood, sharpening our attention and improving our learning.
3) Functional and structural brain changes occur when we exercise, affecting the morphology (shape and structure) and connectivity of our brain. This mainly happens in two key parts of the brain:
- Prefrontal Cortex – located in the frontal lobe, this area of the brain is used to make decisions but also to express our personality.
- Hippocampus – located in the temporal lobe, this area of the brain is where we store new information that will be memories.
Physical activity increases the volume of gray matter in these two areas of the brain – their size increases and their connection with other parts is strengthened. They help us manage stress and our emotions, so the better they work, the more effectively we can manage those feelings. Exercise also helps deliver more oxygen and nutrients to these areas and improves waste disposal.
4) Socio-emotional changes occur when we exercise, affecting our mood, as well as our cognitive functions, including memory, attention, and decision-making.
In addition to directly affecting the brain, exercise also reduces risk factors such as hypertension and insulin resistance – components of metabolic syndrome that converge to increase the risk of brain dysfunction and neurodegeneration.
From all of these different processes, you can determine how exercise affects the brain in different ways.
ARE THERE ANY EXERCISES THAT SPECIFICALLY IMPROVE BRAIN FUNCTIONALITY? CAN WE TRAIN OUR BRAIN?
Absolutely. Exercise is essentially medicine for the mind. Working your body will also stimulate it.
The best type of exercise for your brain is the one you enjoy because fun is the most important factor. Even a 30-minute walk every day is good for your brain.
Regular aerobic exercise (endurance effort) is good for your brain because an increased level of intensity causes more growth factors and neurochemicals to appear. This will have a positive impact on your stress level, your learning and your memory.
HIIT is a great option for exercising your brain, as it has been shown to provide other benefits over low-intensity aerobic exercise, such as increased endothelial function (Petrick et al. 2020).
Resistance training could also be very beneficial, if performed correctly. Studies (Herold et al. 2019) have shown that it enables significant functional changes in the brain, particularly in the frontal lobe, which are accompanied by improvements in executive functions.
Free-form forms of exercise, such as hip-hop or skateboarding, could be particularly beneficial for the brain. For what ? Because of its commitment but also because it is an activity that allows your brain to be creative.
Any form of movement, of physical activity, is beneficial. High-intensity moves are better – whether it’s cycling, boxing or even salsa dancing. A combination of exercises, which includes some form of high-intensity movement two or three times a week, will give you the best results overall. Variety is key – exercise that makes you sweat is best, but it doesn’t have to be every day.
ARE THERE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SHORT TERM AND LONG TERM EXERCISE EFFECTS ON THE BRAIN?
Most of the benefits detailed above are the result of long-term regular exercise – which requires weeks or months of practice.
Will a little exercise have any effect? Yes. Information processing, attention, working memory, problem solving, decision making – all improve for up to two hours after exercise.
Creativity could also increase immediately after exercise (Frith et al. 2019), has anecdotal evidence that great minds such as Nietzsche and Einstein also support. Going for a walk is a great way to think. Even two minutes of exercise can immediately improve your attention and learning (Blomstrand & Engvall 2020).
DOES EXERCISE MAKE YOU SMARTER? IMPROVE YOUR MEMORY OR CONCENTRATION?
Exercise probably doesn’t make you smarter because it’s genetic, but it does help you preserve cognitive function over time. Cognitive decline accelerates rapidly with age, and the best way to protect our brain health is to be physically active. As seen above, our brains are plastic throughout our lives, so exercise is good for the brain, whatever your age.
What about sports exercise before a learning task? (Training, courses…) It has been shown that doing sports before this event will help you remember this information later. So how about using a sports break right before you learn something new and difficult? Exercise is like a “concentration injection”. Imagine if you could get the same benefits from a can of soda? It’s something we can all use in our lives.
DOES SPORT HAVE “NEGATIVE” EFFECTS ON THE BRAIN?
Enough is enough. You don’t want to chronically stress your body by overdoing it. There is a limit where too much exercise is no longer useful.
If you were to run a marathon, your cortisol levels could stay high, which in turn could temporarily shut down your memory functions.
For some intense exercises, there will be different effects on the brain at different times after your workout. For example, immediately after doing HIIT, you will likely feel exhausted. It may not be so good for thinking and learning right after your sports activity. It’s best to do low-intensity training right before, as well as right after, a learning task. However, a study (van Dongen et al. 2023) demonstrated that if you train intensely, not right after, but four hours after a learning session, your learning results are actually improved.
