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Strategies - Fred Harburg

Published May 2009

Mental Muscle Power

  

  Fred Harburg

Recent findings in neuroscience indicate that those with the fittest bodies also are the ones with the best brains. There is a credible and growing body of information showing that exercise can make learners significantly better at learning.

For years, we accepted the myth that we are born with a finite number of brain cells and that after early adolescence those brain cells inevitably die and decline in number. It was thought that each passing year leaves us with fewer neurons and less mental adroitness — something your teenage children are certain to corroborate.

As it turns out, your kids are wrong if you are an exerciser. Research now shows that vigorous exercise can trigger the formation of dendrite webs. This “hippocampal adult neurogenesis” makes it possible to experience enhanced learning and memory throughout our lives. There is even evidence that exercise and its effect on the brain may slow down or prevent Alzheimer’s disease, ADHD and other cognitive disorders.

Since the time of the Greeks, many have held the scholar-athlete as the ideal. Cecil Rhodes subscribed to this notion when he established the Rhodes Scholarship for those who achieve both intellectual and physical excellence. Science now verifies what we intuitively felt.

Thirty minutes of vigorous aerobic activity provides an “oxygen advantage.” Exercisers experience up to 20 percent greater efficiency in oxygen transport to their brain cells than non-exercisers for a period up to 48 hours. But after two days without exercise, they begin deconditioning and lose the advantage unless they re-up their commitment to better brain functioning through another round on the elliptical machine.

Though the greatest benefits seem to derive from aerobic activity, your learners should not confine their exercise to cardiovascular exertion. Strength training also is beneficial to the intellect. Pumping iron or placing similar demands on the musculoskeletal system stimulates the production of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF).

In his recently published book, Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, John Ratey calls BDNF “Miracle-Gro for the brain.” Ratey’s research identifies BDNF as the substance that fuels almost all the activities associated with higher-order thought and learning.

A landmark study by the National Academy of Sciences further demonstrated that after three months of rigorous, consistent exercise, humans sprout new brain cells, overturning a century-old myth that new brain growth in aging humans was impossible. In a recent Newsweek article, Arthur Kramer, a psychologist at the University of Illinois, said: “It’s not just a matter of slowing down the aging process; it’s a matter of reversing it.”

Kramer also has demonstrated that these benefits extend to the frontal lobes of the cortex, where executive functioning occurs. This is the type of decision making, planning, synthesis and judgment that your company expects from its most sophisticated knowledge workers. Executive functioning includes the abilities that allow you to select behavior appropriate to specific circumstances, inhibit inappropriate behavior and focus on that which is most important in spite of distractions. Executive function includes processing speed, response time and working memory used to remember items, such as names and phone numbers.