Exercise improves thinking

Q. Does exercise clear the mind and help in decision making?

A. Dr Carolyn Wilshire, School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington says yes, it does.

Several studies have shown that people who exercise regularly perform better on challenging mental tasks when compared to those who don’t.

Of course, we have to be careful not to read too much into these studies, because people who exercise regularly are likely to be healthier in the first place. If you have a chronic health condition, you may not be able to exercise as often as you’d like.

Also, people who exercise regularly are likely to eat better, and smoke and drink less.

Studies have shown that regular exercise can improve performance on mental tasks in children, adults, older adults and even those showing the early signs of Alzheimer’s disease.

All forms of regular exercise appear to be helpful, but the findings are strongest for aerobic exercises, such as fast walking, swimming and jogging. The kinds of mental tasks that most benefit from exercise are very challenging ones, or where you have to perform two tasks at once, or to switch quickly between tasks.

A small region of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex may provide the key to understanding these benefits. This region of the brain becomes activated when we need to pay attention during a mental task to do it well – when we need to make an extra special effort to succeed.

Using this brain-based measure, one recent study found that people who had done regular aerobic exercise could perform difficult mental tasks with less apparent effort than those who had only had regular stretching and toning. In other words, aerobic fitness in particular seems to help us deploy our mental resources more efficiently.

This makes sense, when we consider the way in which aerobic exercise improves our cardiovascular efficiency in general. The brain needs oxygen from the blood to function; if the cardiovascular system is healthy, the brain can function at optimum efficiency.

So, do we also make better decisions about our lives if we exercise regularly? This question hasn’t yet received a lot of scientific attention. However, regular exercise does appear to enhance our general sense of wellbeing, and this in itself may aid us in making better everyday decisions.