There are many benefits to training first thing in the morning: we wake up fully, have fewer interruptions, and sleep better at night. A recent study it ensures that we can also be more productive at work, for which our boss will be forever grateful. It has been published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, and they claim that morning exercise helps your brain work better throughout the day, even if you are forced to sit for 8 hours straight.
How does exercise influence brain function?
The study was calledBrain Breaks“, and was led by the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute and the University of Western Australia. We analyzed how exercise time affected cognitive performance in 65 healthy adults between the ages of 55 and 80.
The participants were divided into three groups:
- Group 1: They sat and did not do any exercise for 8 hours a day.
- Group 2: They sat for an hour and then went to exercise for 30 minutes. They then sat down again for 6 hours straight.
- Group 3: sat for an hour, exercised for 30 minutes, and then got up every 30 minutes to walk 3 minutes throughout the day.
To find out how training or lack of it affected the participants' brain function, the researchers gave them a series of cognitive performance tests and measured their levels of a brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). This is a protein that has a fundamental role in the survival and growth of brain cells.
It was found that the training session in the morning (even the short one) had interesting results. Everyone who trained in the morning got better results on tests of executive function (decision making, attention, organization, planning and prioritization), compared to the completely sedentary group.
Is it important to be active during the day?
The group that took active breaks by walking for 3 minutes obtained extra brain stimuli, which outperformed the other two groups on memory tests.
It was also observed that the two groups that trained in the morning increased their BDNF levels and remained high for the following 8 hours of the day; instead, the sedentary group decreased them.
«This study highlights how relatively simple changes to your daily routine could have a significant benefit for cognitive health.said study author Michael Wheeler. «It also reveals that one day we will be able to do specific exercises to improve specific cognitive abilities such as memory or learning. While these particular results are for adults ages 55-80 and older, it gives us reason to suspect that for those under 55, a combined effect of exercise and rest may also be achieved.«.