Sunday, April 3, 2011

7 Mind-Enhancing Effects Of Intense Exercise

By Katherine Crawford


Perhaps one of the most overlooked aspects of exercise is the effect it has on the human brain. There is no other activity that does more to enhance your mood.

So here is how exercise optimizes your mood:

1. Multi tasking reduction: Multi tasking is a sure fire path to stress, overwhelm and decreased levels of productivity. The good news here is that exercise can counteract this by forcing you to focus on one movement at a time.

2. It can increase social bonding: Even if you don't talk to anybody and simply exercise your heart out, you are still being surrounded by people. And study after study has shown that social involvement increases immunity and mood.

3. More confidence hormones: Testosterone being the major player here, it does a great job at giving you a sense of dominance and confidence. In fact, high performers, on average, tend to have higher levels of testosterone than underperformers.

4. Enhanced core temperature: Every reaction in your body depends on temperature. As temperature increases so does the rate of reactions. Even better, blood flow to your brain increases as well. This in turn increases processing speeds.

5. Enhanced mood through opiate secretion: For maximum effect here, you want to exercise as hard as you can while maintaining proper form and technique. You see, when you exercise to the limit your body secretes the highest amount of opiates.

6. Neurotransmitter alterations: These are chemicals in your brain responsible for establishing your mood and sense of well being. By exercising on a regular basis, you can change the levels of neurotransmitters in your brain.

7. Increased self esteem: Although more of an indirect benefit, many people experience an increase in self esteem once they notice how their bodies are changing.

The bottom line is that exercise is the best way to enhance mental performance and well being. There is nothing else that comes even close!




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