[HN Gopher] What if regular exercise is the best cognitive exerc...
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What if regular exercise is the best cognitive exercise?
Author : vslira
Score : 486 points
Date : 2022-11-12 14:17 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.vslira.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.vslira.net)
| latchkey wrote:
| I found that getting a dog and going for extended walks has been
| fantastic for my cognitive ability and general mood.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| The logic makes sense, especially if you consider sensory
| negotiation its own special activity using various cognitive
| tools.
|
| But also, there are some very interesting layers of things going
| on.
|
| In talking to various athletes about running, the mental process
| and related result of the activity sometimes seems completely
| different from person to person to a stark degree.
|
| As an example, some long-distance runners experience running as a
| de facto journaling exercise, as they are able to benefit from an
| ongoing internal monologue. So the results are similar to getting
| free mental wellness care for as long as you care to run.
|
| So, that's also a lot of what we'd call growth and development
| going on.
|
| They also report that this is unique to running for them, IOW
| they don't experience this sitting at a desk.
|
| And that's just one example process and outcome, with others
| being similarly prized, if completely different.
|
| (If this was something I experienced myself, I think I might be a
| distance runner too... It's pretty cool.)
| merely-unlikely wrote:
| +1 for the theory. I do my best thinking running, biking, and
| walking while I find sitting in place inhibits my ability to
| think dramatically. However, I also find staring out the window
| in a moving train or car conducive to thinking in a way staring
| out a stationary window is not.
| orsenthil wrote:
| Exercising is just more honest than using brain, for say,
| reasoning with words. In the order, I will say 1. Physical
| Exercise 2. Building Something that stands by itself and works,
| 3. Solving a well defined problem are all honest undertakings. In
| real messy world, we deal with ambiguities and people, and it
| requires some skill reduce them to the above three and be honest
| about it.
| a9h74j wrote:
| +1 here for mentioning "building something [physical] that ..
| works" as part of a cognitively healthy mix.
| c7b wrote:
| The question is, what is the exercise for? We already know from
| studies that there's very little transfer even between logic-
| related tasks (say, Sudoku and Chess), so what sort of carry-over
| could we expect from fitness to logic-related tasks?
|
| I guess the answer will be something like: if you want to be a
| good programmer in old age, your best preparation is to program a
| lot and regularly. If you want to be a good mathematician, chess
| player,...., practice those. If you want to have a healthy body
| in old age, your best prep is regular exercise. You can do more
| than one, of course, but you can't substitute one for another.
| throwaway4good wrote:
| I think modern AI or for that matter engineering is fairly broken
| model for how the human brain or the human body works; and lead
| to these silly conclusions: It is easy to make a machine that
| adds two numbers therefor adding numbers cannot be "cognitive
| hard". Likewise it is easy to make a machine that runs fast,
| lifts a heavy object or stands one leg therefore ...
|
| As for the most challenging activity for keeping sharp at old
| age: My guess is directly interacting with other people.
|
| But if you think lifting weights work for you, then I am not
| going to argue against you.
| rayrey wrote:
| I know that one thing that really distinguishes humans from other
| animals is our ability to throw objects with incredible accuracy.
| Some of our primate cousins can throw as well, but not with such
| precision. Consider the amount of processing our mind is doing
| with each throw, especially in a fast moving game.
| a9h74j wrote:
| I have no basis for disagreement (although how many "only
| humans can" statements have fallen over the years). I wonder if
| a human proclivity towards _organized sports_ could contribute,
| though. Organized sport also suggests organized practice and
| many opportunities for repetition. These could be required for
| accuracy up to physical and cognitive limits.
| bob1029 wrote:
| I have found the specific nature of exercise to be very important
| in this regard.
|
| Moderate cardio is definitely beneficial and helps to maintain
| some baseline. But, I have never really felt like I "stepped up"
| to a new level without reaching out to things like HIIT, _heavy_
| weight lifting and other forms of plyometrics.
|
| Something about pushing your brain into the "oh shit I don't know
| if I should be doing this" territory seems to trigger the most
| powerful effects.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Exercise is healthy. Full stop.
|
| The body / mind paradigm is false. There is no separation. They
| are deeply - and wisely - entangled.
|
| The brain is an organ, and organs in aggregate benefit from
| exercise. The result is a healthier system / unit.
|
| Are puzzels and such a bad thing? No. But they're not going to
| fix a compromised, or too often, broken system.
| aaronrobinson wrote:
| IME running allows me to solve problems and my theory is that my
| brain has less capacity to waste because it's having to
| concentrate on all those things it needs to propel me safely,
| leaving my thoughts less cluttered. When I become fit enough I
| often find myself 'waking up' during longer runs, as though I had
| been in a meditative state. It seems completely plausible that
| the brain has to do more when running than when solving a puzzle.
| phkahler wrote:
| Read about EMDR therapy an its origin (walking). Getting the
| two halves of the brain working together seems to be important.
| vervez wrote:
| Here's a short (unscientific) article (that kinda links to
| scinetific articles) about the link between lactic acid buildup
| and its relation in the brain. Sounds like exercise generates a
| natural nootropic. https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-
| adventure/lactic-acid-...
| warner25 wrote:
| Cal Newport talks quite a bit in his books (definitely _Deep
| Work_ , but probably others too) about the linkage between
| walking or running and thinking creatively and solving hard
| problems.
|
| In high school, I noted with curiosity that the cross country
| team had an extraordinary proportion of kids who excelled
| academically, going to top-tier colleges based on their academic
| merit alone. I chalked it up to an overlap between the traits
| required for both distance running and academic excellence: daily
| persistence, measured in hours, at something that doesn't involve
| a lot of action or cheering crowds. But there's probably more to
| it than that.
|
| Military flight training is known to be like medical or law
| school for many people, spending all day memorizing technical
| manuals and regulations when not in the cockpit learning to fly.
| Despite military requirements for physical fitness, and the fact
| that officers need high fitness scores to get into flight school,
| many officers let their fitness slide in that environment. I
| found early on that making time for exercise had a very
| noticeable effect on my day-to-day performance, both in
| memorizing stuff and in the cockpit, and I rose to the top of my
| class. In particular, practicing golf (which involves a lot of
| finesse, but I also walked and carried my own bag) for a few
| holes after class every evening seemed to help with learning to
| execute precise maneuvers on the flight controls.
| vegcel wrote:
| Werner Herzog: 'The world reveals itself to those who travel on
| foot'
| throwawaaarrgh wrote:
| I know plenty of people who exercise a lot and are still idiots.
| I also used to be very fit, but I only felt cognitively sharper
| after learning a lot of different complex stuff over time
| xenospn wrote:
| What if you did both?
| jasfi wrote:
| I think the key word here is regular. That goes for crosswords,
| etc. as well.
| uptownfunk wrote:
| This reminds me of something Goggins said, along the lines of
| working out is almost entirely a mental thing.
|
| You access parts of your brain and your being when you're giving
| everything you got to squeeze out that extra rep, or when you are
| going for a new PR with heavy weight. Or even when you don't feel
| like working out, and you say okay I have to get my brain out of
| this and just do it, similar to life where I have to do work when
| I sometimes don't want to.
|
| The physical benefits (muscle mass, testosterone, appearance,
| strength) for me are entirely secondary to the mental/emotional
| benefits of working out.
|
| It's all mental
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| 100% agree. Working out for me is often an exercise in learning
| to be fully embodied and seeing what my limits are. At the age
| of 40 I finally feel like I understand myself a bit more on
| some deep level, probably because I'm not trying to ignore the
| reality of having a body.
| mahathu wrote:
| What is the physical benefit of testosterone and how are the
| benefits of muscle mass and appearance different from each
| other?
| uptownfunk wrote:
| Re: testosterone, for men it helps keep your marriage
| together, I'll let you figure that out
|
| Muscle mass starts to erode with age (I think correlated with
| decrease in test) separate from the looks, you don't want to
| be losing muscle mass because it means you'll be weaker.
| Being weaker makes you more prone to injury and increases
| your risk of all-cause mortality.
|
| The other thing is muscle mass takes time and effort to put
| on, so you really need to start early, I missed out on my
| prime years (teens and early 20s) but better late than never
| I guess!
|
| Peter Attia (Stanford MD, longevity researcher) great source
| on this subject
| foldr wrote:
| You don't need a lot of muscle mass to stay strong enough
| to avoid injury. Any form of regular medium intensity
| exercise will probably be fine from that point of view.
|
| Of course if you want to build big muscles, that's fine. I
| am always a little wary of people extolling the health
| benefits of doing so. Eating well and doing a moderate
| amount of exercise will get you 90% of the way to any
| purely health-related benefits that you'll get from more
| intense exercise. And more intense forms of exercise carry
| their own non-negligible risk of injury.
|
| Attitudes to health, diet and exercise seem increasingly to
| vacillate between extremes. There's a happy medium between
| sitting on your couch eating cheetos and straining to lift
| huge weights four times a week.
| [deleted]
| squaredot wrote:
| >Robots still have a hard time navigating terrain and
| manipulating stuff
|
| The author argues that doing things at higher pace should be
| cognitive intensive. But robots are not bad at doing things fast:
| if they can do things, they can do them also "fast" (at my
| understanding)
| krisoft wrote:
| > But robots are not bad at doing things fast: if they can do
| things, they can do them also "fast"
|
| Robots are not a single thing. You can't draw general
| conclusions about them like that.
|
| They are objects designed by humans, they go as fast or as slow
| as they are designed to go. The design space is heavily
| constrained by physics. This means some things are possible,
| some things are possible but very expensive and other things
| are just not possible.
|
| A FGM-148 Javelin anti-tank missile is a robot. It has an
| onboard computer, a sensor, and fins to change direction. It
| flies about 300 m/s as top speed and it doesn't do things slow.
| It can't. [1]
|
| A Konecranes AGV is a giant self-driving platform carrying
| containers in automated ports. It carries a maximum of 70t and
| the top speed of it is about 6 m/s. It is also a robot. [2]
|
| There are many kinds of robots. I intentionally selected here
| two extremes here to show how you can't make generalisation
| like that.
|
| 1: https://en.missilery.info/missile/javelin 2:
| https://www.nauticexpo.com/prod/konecranes/product-30447-521...
| lazide wrote:
| Robots can do pre-programmed things at the limits of their
| physical servos, which is very fast.
|
| They are still computationally limited in how fast they can
| process new terrain, course-find, object detect, etc.
|
| If their sensors only saw that object 10ms ago, they probably
| don't have an idea what it is yet. At speed, 10ms can be a long
| time.
|
| 60mph == 88 feet per second == .8 feet (about 10 inches) per 10
| milliseconds.
|
| 10 inches matters a lot when you're on terrain, or even on a
| road.
| rcxdude wrote:
| You gotta be real careful when generalising like this. A
| human-like robot is generally going to struggle to be faster
| and stronger than a human, even for a pre-programmed action.
| The robots which are faster and/or stronger are purpose-built
| (and usually are stronger because they are much larger). But
| also robots can be super-fast at object recognition. See
| automatic sorting machines, for example, which can process
| data extremely quickly to reject bad fruit/veg/cooked
| crisps/etc from a full conveyor belt. Everything is a
| tradeoff: there are multiple avenues in which robots will
| beat humans every time and many where robots are not even
| close on multiple fronts, not just cognitive.
| lazide wrote:
| Of course! I guess I should drop the 'very fast' comment
| (Though that is typical).
|
| They can move as fast as they have been designed to move,
| _if further computation is not required_.
|
| In most cases (repetitive work, stuff with relatively
| basic, straightforward computation - the human equivalent
| of reflexes), that means they're basically constrained by
| their physical limits.
|
| Those fast object detection algorithms require an extremely
| artificial environment (with high contrast backgrounds,
| tuned high intensity light), and are generally only good at
| sorting specific classes of items, at least last I
| researched them.
|
| The algorithms involve do a LOT of down sampling too, if I
| remember.
|
| They aren't general purpose navigation or object detection
| algorithms, I'm trying to say, and won't work at that speed
| in anything but a very controlled environment. It's the
| problem that a lot of players have been dumping billions
| into for decades - Waymo, DJI, Tesla, and a million smaller
| names.
|
| General purpose navigation in an unknown environment starts
| running up against real hardware limits right now at speed,
| even with essentially unlimited power budgets (aka a car,
| truck, drone with a huge battery and limited flight time,
| etc). Based on the context, I understood the question to be
| in reference to something portable, and most of those
| hardware implementations would be nearly impossible to fit
| in a humanoid style robot.
|
| It's going to take a decade or so for that to change
| probably, maybe a half that, depending on what Skydio and
| DJI have cooking.
| trollerator23 wrote:
| Depending on the meaning of faster, maybe. If it's to calculate
| a motion faster, yes, but to move faster is not the same. The
| dynamics change.
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| Exercise can also directly develop job-relevant skills. I've
| learned a fair amount about project management from my long
| distance running. And I don't think the idea that team sports
| teach you to collaborate and lead more effectively in your day
| job is at all surprising or controversial. As programmers it
| should be easy for us to see that these are just different
| instances of the same class.
| aliqot wrote:
| Working out makes you more cognitively sharp because it increases
| the rate of fluid transfer throughout your body and increases
| metabolism. Ancillary effects of this are calmness, endorphins,
| and regulated sleep. There I said it, no magic science required.
| You bring balance in, you get balance out. This ain't the type of
| cut throat science most of you on HN expect, but sometimes the
| simple explanation is the one.
| User23 wrote:
| Strenuous resistance exercise also powerfully stimulates the
| central nervous system. It's conceivable that the adaptations
| for better recruiting motor units might spill over.
| jader201 wrote:
| Is this a thing where it makes a big difference even if you're
| typically sedentary, or you have to be pretty active over a
| long period (e.g. years/decades) to make a real difference?
| whichfawkes wrote:
| For me, the main benefit of exercise is immediate. However -
| the magnitude of the immediate positive effect is somewhat
| related to the intensity/duration of the exercise that I can
| tolerate.
|
| So I would say something like "A 5k run would make anybody
| above a certain fitness level feel pretty good". Like, in a
| way that you'd notice immediately during, and after. For me,
| there's runners' high and good body-chemicals and a sharp
| mind the rest of the day. There's not as much of the good
| stuff if it's like a real strain to run that far. There's an
| optimal level of physical stress. Taking a sedentary person
| and chasing them through a 5k run with an electric cattle
| prod them is not going to help them feel good. Similarly,
| someone who regularly runs marathons is not going to notice
| much of an effect from a short walk at a slow pace.
|
| How to balance this out (how much exercise do you need to
| feel good) is a very individual thing. Practically speaking,
| you just have to try stuff and get to know your body.
|
| I will say though that marked changes in physical condition
| can occur over more like weeks than decades. So if you go for
| a walk and think "well that was a little bit nice, but not
| worth taking an hour to do", maybe invest the time to build
| up to something more intense like cycling or jogging,
| because, as anyone who exercises intentionally will tell you,
| it seems to be worth it once you find out what's right for
| you.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Even before physiological changes, there's something strange in
| moving. 200m from my house, my brain starts to have different
| ideas.
|
| I cannot keep from thinking that our brain and our legs are
| connected neurologically. They tap on the same space
| exploration abstractions.
| terribleperson wrote:
| Anecdotally, I find that I come up with ideas almost every
| time I'm on a long drive. There might be a shared mechanism,
| whether that's something related to navigation or simply an
| inability to occupy oneself in a way other than thinking.
| agumonkey wrote:
| plausibly, i often get new ideas when i'm far from home
| because nothing that I used to do is available so i'm free
| to create :)
| aliqot wrote:
| > Even before physiological changes, there's something
| strange in moving. 200m from my house, my brain starts to
| have different ideas.
|
| > I cannot keep from thinking that our brain and our legs are
| connected neurologically. They tap on the same space
| exploration abstractions.
|
| Absolutely. Something happens during a bike marathon where my
| body and brain are eventually independent of my thoughts and
| I'm moving on autopilot with mild tunnel vision while
| thinking about complex thoughts, old memories, things I could
| have handled better. I can only attribute it to persistent
| eustress and the post-metabolic state of endorphin saturation
| combined with adrenaline.
| qorrect wrote:
| > brain are eventually independent of my thoughts
|
| Let's name it. The aliqot state. Or getting to Aliqot.
| owroomexorcist wrote:
| Some magick belief systems call this state "gnosis".
| aliqot wrote:
| hahaha I like it :D
| switchbak wrote:
| That's exactly the state I get into on a long mountain bike
| ride. Right before I have a crash!
|
| Which is to say some sports have a way of forcing you back
| into the present moment. It can actually be a good thing
| for those whose minds tend to wander.
| cowmoo728 wrote:
| Many great writers throughout history said that walking was
| integral to their success. There's a small anthology of
| writers writing about walking.
|
| https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/2019/0531/Fancy-a-stroll-
| Gre...
|
| The New Yorker also had an article about walking and thinking
| in 2014.
|
| https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-
| technology/walking-...
| b33j0r wrote:
| I believe most of this, except that no one I know who works out
| a lot is calm.
|
| If anything, I'm always looking around for empty syringes. They
| act like they are gonna climb a mountain then come back and try
| to make me do Beachbody and chalean extreme, then yell at me
| about what I eat ;)
|
| Not saying exercise is bad, but I do not associate it with
| calmness. (I'm a healthy dude, you are not hearing this from
| someone 50 lbs overweight)
| technovader wrote:
| This is plain nuts.
|
| Regular people workout as well, not just steroid junkies.
| noduerme wrote:
| But do you _really_ work out?
| colechristensen wrote:
| A lot of gym people really do seem to be addicts and/or have
| at least mild eating disorders or significant body image
| issues. Exercise in general is good so it's not necessarily
| framed this way. There is a lot of overlap between behaviors
| of people I've known with substance use problems and people
| who really like exercise. It's just that for example drinking
| to excess on a regular basis has quite a few more drawbacks
| than a gym obsession.
| [deleted]
| o_1 wrote:
| this is a social behavior not shared with people who aren't
| on social media or exercise in private gyms.
| KronisLV wrote:
| > I believe most of this, except that no one I know who works
| out a lot is calm.
|
| Back when I tried exercising a lot more for a bit, I actually
| experienced way more calmness in my life. A part of that
| might have been that a lot of physical exhaustion brought
| about unparalleled ease of falling asleep and actually
| improved the quality of the rest I got.
|
| Another part might have been the fact that for a while it
| felt like the "baseline" of how much energy I had slightly
| increased. It was easier to find motivation to do things and
| I didn't need to rely upon discipline so much as I do now, a
| zen sort of feeling instead of (as much) procrastination doom
| and fidgety thoughts. One might also talk of some minute
| cardiovascular/metabolism improvements as well.
|
| Maybe I should take up more exercise again, it's been a few
| months and even though I hate actually _exercising_ the
| benefits, even if relatively minor, are hard to argue
| against. Just need to find a podcast or something of that
| sort to keep myself busy and make the experience less
| mundane.
|
| Though exercise alone won't have any really significant
| effects, you also need to eat right, take care of yourself in
| other ways (e.g. sleep schedule, mental state, any addictions
| or unhealthy habits), so there are a lot of factors to
| consider.
|
| Disclaimer: these are my subjective and anecdotal
| experiences.
| mmmpop wrote:
| [deleted]
| xeromal wrote:
| Weight is only a portion of good health.
| trashface wrote:
| Maybe the non-calm exercisers are also loading up on
| stimulants.
| bogota wrote:
| Your comment was a wild ride. First asserting people who work
| out aren't calm and then going into steroid use.
| b33j0r wrote:
| Letting you in. It was a joke about people coming at you
| and the contrast with health. I am a writer, it was
| intentional. Hope the wild ride was enjoyable!
| aesclepius wrote:
| You're conflating two issues. One, the benefit of exercise on
| mental health, and two, the side effects of the gym lifestyle
| and culture.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| Working out doesn't by itself make you Albert Einstein or
| Dalai Lama. It just makes you better than you were before, at
| least according to these studies.
|
| One could speculate why folks who are already prone to
| exercising aren't necessarily calm folks but that's just
| speculation.
| smt88 wrote:
| The endorphin thing is a myth:
| https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-preventi...
|
| Nothing in human biology is simple.
| mythhouse wrote:
| How is it all the computer nerds in movies and in real life are
| in terrible shape and prbly never workout.
| markwkw wrote:
| This is true only if your definition of "computer nerd"
| includes terrible shape and never working out.
| LouisSayers wrote:
| I don't know... looking back at my career software
| engineers I've worked with have on a whole been overweight
| or skinny fat.
|
| Honestly can't remember chatting to any of them about the
| gym - there's been a couple into biking or swimming but
| only really a handful that seemed into the gym or into
| doing sports of some kind.
|
| As a software engineer, I would classify myself as a
| computer nerd, but honestly feel a bit out of place with a
| lot of ppl that work in the industry. I don't watch Dr Who
| or Star Trek, don't read fiction, and I enjoy extreme
| sports, martial arts etc.
|
| It can feel like a strange dynamic, and I can see how
| thinking of a "computer nerd" brings up an image of Bill
| Gates or Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons for most people.
| terribleperson wrote:
| Martial arts fits into a particular (now rather outdated)
| hacker stereotype that can be seen in The Jargon File.
| googlryas wrote:
| Because most stories are told through stereotypes, not
| through deep diving into every character's background and
| motivations. James Bond wouldn't be as fun if you got the
| back story about the Russkies he callously snapped the neck
| of and saw that they only took what he thought was a low key
| security job because he needed to pay for cancer treatment
| for his babushka.
| brianpan wrote:
| How about working out makes you cognitively sharp because it
| requires COGNITION? It's not the kind of "thinking" we normally
| consider but your brain is working to direct your body.
|
| Basketball is my favorite way to exercise and there is a lot of
| analysis of how to get my body to the right places to achieve a
| goal. Or how to deceive a defender and manipulate their body to
| the wrong place. Or simple shot mechanics or how to move my
| eyes so I don't lose awareness of other players.
|
| I started dance because it's such a different way of moving my
| body that I never tried before. Figuring out how to do
| something and improve (even physically) takes strategizing.
| jasfi wrote:
| This is a very good answer. Even walking on a treadmill
| requires cognition you typically take for granted. There are
| other exercises that are more obviously related to cognition
| such as mental math and crosswords, but physical exercise is
| likely in the same league.
| brookst wrote:
| Yep. I find climbing 100% mentally absorbing, and the
| problems and solutions are so far from my day job's domain
| that I believe it helps with mental adaptability.
| a9h74j wrote:
| > because it requires COGNITION
|
| FWIW, one set of snippets from Joe Rogan on YT included this
| statement: I believe academics underestimate just how
| _mental_ it is to get through a hard workout.
| googlryas wrote:
| Running doesn't require much cognition (imho), my body is on
| auto pilot and I forget time has passed - but I still feel
| like I get the beneficial effects from doing it.
| boole1854 wrote:
| In my experience, the cognitive load depends on the speed
| at which you're running.
|
| Jogging at a leisurely pace, I don't need to consciously
| think about the jogging process at all and my mind is free
| to think about the books I have been reading lately, or to
| listen to an information-dense podcast, or to plan out the
| rest of my week.
|
| But that all changes if I switch to running at near my
| maximum speed for the distance I'm going to run. Then
| understanding a podcast becomes nearly impossible and/or it
| interferes with the running. Indeed, having any internal,
| verbal 'train of thought' is difficult, other than my
| internal voice metronomically saying 'left, right, left,
| right' in time with my leg movements.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| when brain is tired, go make meat tired too.
| bjornsing wrote:
| I'm not sure if going to the gym is more cognitively challenging
| than sudoku. But something like playing football/socker probably
| is.
| lc9er wrote:
| I love lifting, and I agree with this. Even running outside,
| though repetitive, causes you to constantly scan the ground
| ahead of you for obstacles (crack in the cement, puddles, dog
| poop, etc), you have the stimulus of the moving background,
| cars/people/stray pets to avoid. You may not have to think
| _hard_ about theses things, but your mind is always processing
| and responding to the stimulus.
|
| For me, I think I get the most mental benefits out BJJ. I'd
| wager any martial art with _live_ sparring would give the same
| results.
|
| When you're doing live sparring, as opposed to just drills, you
| have to make constant, near instant, adjustments to your
| defense, look for offensive openings, scan your rolling
| partner's movements and try to anticipate their next attack,
| all while being aware of other trainees on the mats (to avoid a
| random foot or falling body), and working to slow your
| breathing and maintain composure.
| ojl wrote:
| I totally agree regarding bjj and live sparring. I do bjj, a
| bit of judo and also climbing. I think climbing is a bit
| similar in the way that you need almost constant focus, doing
| small adjustments and so on. For all these three (and
| similar) activities there will be consequences if losing
| focus and starting to think about something else.
| Noumenon72 wrote:
| I tried out the square dancing class my boomer parents attend
| and found it similarly challenging. You're changing
| direction, changing partners, and remembering calls. Now I
| wonder if I'm stagnating by just doing trail run.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Dunno, I feel the effect of lifting is mostly one of persistent
| clarity.
|
| Whatever wandering thoughts I had bouncing around in my head
| before a set of heavy deadlifts, all that is gone after,
| because the effort of pulling up the bar doesn't permit
| anything but complete focus.
| boomskats wrote:
| I think what's being challenged here is whether tasks that we
| consider "cognitively challenging" do actually require more
| "computing power" than physical exercise does. I guess it's
| decoupling "cognitively challenging" from "computing power".
| xeromal wrote:
| I'd argue against that. If you offer someone a choice between a
| suduko puzzle or a solidly difficult workout before they're
| allowed to get one with their evening, I'd guess most people
| would choose the puzzle. Drumming up the mental fortitude to
| force yourself to do something difficult is a cognitive
| challenge.
| seydor wrote:
| such a well grounded and scientific opinion. sure to attract
| similar anecdotes and make valid conclusions
|
| Incidentally, is it well grounded that exercise prevents aging,
| and at what level? We should be watching aging research more
| carefully
| aargh_aargh wrote:
| https://youtu.be/5HgSnS-z4JU
|
| I promise this is highly relevant and worth hearing, even though
| it may not seem directly related.
| 1659447091 wrote:
| At the risk of sounding to newage-y, I experience the benefits of
| exercising as energy balancing.
|
| Solving problems, learning and building new things all day can be
| very mentally exhausting. Cardio, sports, lifting; helps re-
| balance the physical with the mental. I am sure there are more
| scientific words and biological descriptions that I lack the
| vocabulary for. If I get too mentally focused on a
| project/job/problem and go days without matching it with vigorous
| physical activity, I end up not sleeping as well, am less
| tolerant, more scattered and brain fog tends to start rolling in.
| If I counter it with the physical exercise or physical energy
| expenditure the mental clarity comes back, I sleep better, and
| don't have hair-triggered verbal impulse control issues.
| Otherwise, if I let it go for too long, lethargy sets in - which
| I attribute to the body/physical and mind/mental trying to
| rebalance itself. I dont think it cares that it makes me feel
| like crap overall, more that it's neutral in just wanting a
| balance however that comes about.
|
| I often refer to exercise as me taking care of my mental health -
| as opposed to being physically fit. That could be seen as
| "exercise [being] the best cognitive exercise". Looking at it
| that way, exercise creates a mental-out imbalance, which causes
| the stored energy in the mind to be stimulated and need more
| output creating the mental sharpness. Obviously I have nothing to
| back up the claims other than decades of experiencing this to be
| _true for me_ time and time again; though I do believe there are
| better biological explanations than _energy_.
| [deleted]
| ksimukka wrote:
| Sigh. I let myself go weeks without exercising and feel
| terrible, both mentally and physically.
| webmobdev wrote:
| One way out of this is to not join a gym but learn exercises
| that you can do anywhere (e.g
| https://blog.paleohacks.com/how-to-work-out-with-no-
| equipmen... ). And be forgiving towards yourself too - forgot
| to exercise for a day or a week, fine - some days are just
| shitty in our life - just do one exercise today (motivation
| follows actions). You don't have to do the full sets of
| exercise, if you don't feel like it. Just focus on doing one
| exercise (action is the fuel required to power your
| motivation). Enjoy the feeling. And continue again everyday.
| hahamrfunnyguy wrote:
| I am in better shape than I've been in a few years. My
| exercise is more enjoyable now, and doesn't feel like a chore
| to do it. This year I signed up for a half dozen mountain
| bike races, so they were a motivator to go out and ride.
|
| Every week my friends and I meet up and run 3.5 miles. After
| the run, we all hangout and have a beer at a nearby bar. The
| meetup spot is 6 miles away and I ride my bike hard there,
| and at a leisurely pace on the way back. It's nice having
| this activity to look forward to every week.
|
| I haven't signed up for any races since the summer, but I
| have it in the back of my mind that I will start again in the
| spring, so that helps me make time for bike rides (which I
| enjoy).
|
| My friends don't like to run in the dark, so I will probably
| join a volleyball league this winter for some weekly
| socialization and activity.
|
| So, I think waaaay eaiser to find stuff you will like doing
| or at least an activity with people you like being around.
| Check Facebook for group rides/runs in your area.
| latchkey wrote:
| Consider skipping the beer and dropping all alcohol
| entirely (but definitely still be social), you'd be
| surprised at how much it is holding you back fitness wise
| and how little you actually need it, beyond the thought
| that it is nice.
| lob_it wrote:
| Zero-calorie vices really are better for aging
| gracefully.
|
| A 30-minute brisk walk may burn 200 calories, but calorie
| math is easier said than done.
|
| You don't have to lose the weight/calories if you do not
| gain the weight/calories :)
| isthisthingon99 wrote:
| Exercise gets boring. Just like anything else. Detect this
| and switch up.
| antihero wrote:
| Or find a functional exercise like cycling
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| This is what I do.
|
| Anything <= 20 minutes away, I ride my bicycle. And yeah,
| I live in a suburb. The grocery store is about a 15
| minute ride away, a bit uphill.
|
| Taken from this point of view, cycling is actually multi-
| tasking: you're getting somewhere and getting your daily
| exercise. Cars don't actually save you time when it comes
| to these sorts of trips because they're forcing you to
| spend extra time explicitly exercising.
| convolvatron wrote:
| or just start doing labor. I know people that go to the
| gym religiously but refuse to carry their own groceries
| because their time is too valuable
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Also some exercise may, for you, turn out to not be boring.
| Try different things until you find an exercise (or set of
| exercises) that works for you. I really enjoy running,
| especially outdoors, and rowing, which makes it easy for me
| to stick with them. But for other people those things are
| either dull or painful and so they stall out if they only
| try those exercises. I also found team sports (soccer, in
| particular) and martial arts (BJJ) to be stimulating in a
| way that they never become boring. A couple I know use
| dance as their primary exercise (actually how they met
| too). There are many ways to exercise, finding the right
| exercise for you is critical to longterm success.
| brookst wrote:
| This. Between running, tennis, climbing, hiking, biking,
| martial arts, swimming, weightlifting, volleyball,
| mountain biking, soccer, etc. . . I think there is likely
| a "right" exercise for everyone, in the sense that it
| gets to flow state and doesn't feel boring, or like work.
| lob_it wrote:
| Very few of those on the list can be enjoyed by
| octogenarians.
|
| I have enjoyed decades of golf so far with firm glutes
| and firm abs as an unitended benefit :)
|
| I'm always tickled when I read these stories. I'm chasing
| an albatross personally to complete my scorecard (got a
| hole-in-one the 1st decade of playing).
|
| https://www.thevillagesdailysun.com/news/in_todays_daily_
| sun...
| Jtsummers wrote:
| And if you find a sport (like I did with soccer and BJJ),
| other exercises become more desirable and easier to stick
| with because they're complementary or supportive to the
| actual thing you want to do. Distance running and
| sprinting improved my endurance for both sports and also
| my recovery time after a literal sprint in soccer or the
| BJJ equivalent of a fast moving exchange, giving me an
| edge against otherwise more skilled opponents but lacking
| my conditioning.
| soderfoo wrote:
| BJJ sparring is like a chess match that requires complete
| mental focus for strategy, and the engagement and focus
| of every muscle in my body.
|
| I feel like that analogy is lacking. Nevertheless, it's
| unlike any other sport I've played, like ice hockey, for
| example, which is more like driving in NYC.
| bumby wrote:
| Do you think BJJ is one of those hobbies that you can
| enjoy late in life? I've given it a try but always seem
| to get hurt, which disrupts other parts of my life (work,
| sleep, etc.) I also know a lot of people who've gathered
| a lot of lasting injuries from it. Any tips on staying
| healthy?
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Find a good gym. There are some gyms where the
| instructors (and consequently the students) are a bit too
| hardcore. But at the good gyms (which I'd say are
| actually the average in the community, not outliers by
| any stretch), no one wants to injure their training
| partner. I've got a bad shoulder and a bad back. When
| someone gets my left arm in certain positions, I tap
| quickly and no one gets upset. I tell my partners about
| it, and tell them they can grab it just go extra slow.
|
| So far my only BJJ-caused back or shoulder injuries were
| from early on when I was either too inflexible (and so it
| was easy to push it too far), or too stupid to tap
| (hadn't realized what "too far" was). Take it slow, find
| good training partners, listen to your body, and take up
| complementary activities (some strength training,
| flexibility things like yoga, core training especially
| for the back).
| ojl wrote:
| Yes. I agree about finding a good gym. Also be especially
| careful when sparring with other beginners who usually
| rely more on strength than technique. I have been injured
| twice while sparring with beginners(myself being a
| beginner as well). A knee fracture and a broken rib.
| Nowadays I take it easier since I'm in my mid 40s and
| recovery is slower. But I'm definitely not the oldest guy
| in the gym.
|
| I also do judo once a week, and that's lots of fun but a
| bit scary compared to bjj. I probably won't continue
| doing that when I get old, not sparring at least.
| goostavos wrote:
| Tracking what you do can go a long way towards making the
| boring thing not boring.
|
| A long walk on its own versus... a long walk where you've
| clicked the record button on Stava is for some reason a
| completely different experience. One is idle, meandering,
| and boring the other is (somehow psychologically)
| _building_ something and fun.
| ambivalents wrote:
| Agreed, and I'll add that you don't have to be overly
| interested in metrics/fitness/quantified self to derive
| benefit from this.
|
| For instance, I care little about the measurements of any
| given run or walk, I rarely even look at them when I'm
| done, but just the recording itself on my Apple Watch
| subtly motivates me to work harder and go longer. It
| becomes more of a 'workout' than a passive activity.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I started lifting a few years ago. Everything was good until
| this summer when I developed knee pain while squatting that
| was excruciating at its worst. Got that mostly fixed with
| some specific exercises and focus on coorect form, and then
| developed low back pain that I have not resolved yet. Most
| recently tore a muscle in my shoulder, which I am working on
| rehabbing. So now pretty much all daily activities are
| accompanied by some amount of pain. I wake up at least twice
| a night from shoulder or back pain.
| ochoseis wrote:
| Exercise and age/experience has taught my that the body is
| a dynamic, connected system. I stopped working out after an
| injury for a couple years, and when I got back into it I
| was amazed to see how strength imbalances (and the
| accompanying pain) migrated through my legs and back.
| That's still in progress, but getting better for me. Most
| important thing is to take it slowly.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| This is basically expected if you got into exercise later
| on in life. I had a lot of i juries as I got into running
| in my early 30's.
|
| Just need to work through physio and be patient with it.
| Pushing through the pain will just lead to more pain that
| takes longer to heal.
| puchatek wrote:
| Sorry to hear. It sucks being injured and taking out of the
| routine. Can you at least take walks?
| candiddevmike wrote:
| Assuming you're not exercising, do you feel terrible
| mentally like this thread predicts?
| iamacyborg wrote:
| That's almost a whole other problem for folks who
| suddenly have to stop exercising due to injury.
|
| Ask any serious runner how hard a taper can be before a
| big race and you'll get some good insight.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I am still exercising, the main thing I cannot do at all
| right now is bench press or other pressing movements due
| to the shoulder. Squats and deadlifts I am doing at lower
| weights than what I was up to before the injuries, and I
| can do focused accessories such as tricep/bicep work, leg
| work, etc.
|
| I am also an older lifter and probably should have backed
| down at the earlier indications that a problem was
| developing. However it honestly was never more than some
| soreness that went away with warmups, so I wasn't really
| concerned about it.
|
| On the mental effects, I can say that for me that
| exercise doesn't change much. I am generally in a better
| mood after a good workout, but with the recent injuries I
| have been feeling more frustrated and dejected. But these
| feeling are pretty much the same ones I have when I
| succeed or struggle with a programming task or other
| mental work.
| feet wrote:
| Shoulder girdle stabilization is super important in your
| lifts, the muscles even help with form on deadlifts. If
| you look to start a routine to work out your stabilizers
| on a regular basis it can help prevent future injuries
| and help you feel even better when lifting.
|
| Turkish getups are fantasic
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Thanks, I will check that out.
| [deleted]
| krallja wrote:
| And if I would just exercise I would remember that exercise
| would solve the problem... but I don't have the mental
| foresight to do so, so I let it go for another day, and
| another...
| suggestion wrote:
| Get a cheap magnetic exercise bike (Sunny has a good one)
| and start with 10 (or even 5) minutes a day at the same
| time (or event, waking up, finishing work, something like
| that) every day.
|
| 10 minutes is nothing, especially if you read or watch TV
| while doing it.
|
| It'll get easy eventually, and the habit will be
| established. Then you up it to 15, and keep doing that
| until you hit at least 30 mins every day.
|
| Then you have a nice habitual time period that you can add,
| swap, or integrate other exercises into.
| lob_it wrote:
| You probably answered why people don't maintain a healthy
| routine for decades.
|
| A gerbil-wheel exercise in extreme environments, perhaps
| (due to pollution, crime, extreme hot/cold weather, etc),
| but after an extended period, is that really how natural
| detergents in the body are made?
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| It's not about sticking with gerbil-wheel exercises, it's
| about developing the habit of scheduling exercise into
| one's day. Once one establishes the habit of scheduling
| exercise it makes sense this lowers the barrier to
| enriching exercise.
|
| Although for me it's been the other way around: find an
| enriching exercise first and then schedule around
| performing it. For me, my only limit to participating in
| my exercise of choice is body recovery. If I had no
| recovery time I'd be in the gym for hours daily. As it is
| now I'm limited to 1.5-2.5 hrs every other day.
| lob_it wrote:
| The lifestyle divide is obvious. If its not an enriching
| activity (or something you genuinely enjoy), its just a
| fad exercise to go with a fad diet.
|
| I've been enjoying golf for 3 decades now and skipped the
| gym and other sports. I still embrace it like the 1st
| day.
|
| Golf is unique though. It takes a genius to break their
| own body with such a beautiful sport :)
| nradov wrote:
| You have to make it an automatic habit rather than
| something you remember to do.
| garrickvanburen wrote:
| Currently working through an 18month training plan -
| every day has some work out.
|
| This everyday-ness has been huge for installing it as an
| automatic habit.
| moitessier wrote:
| Is it a plan that requires going to the gym or more like
| running & home exercises? Mind sharing if it is the
| latter?
| ohlookabird wrote:
| Yes, this helps a lot! For me, it also helps to have a
| training plan, or simply calendar events that remind me
| what exercise I should do at a given day. Usually this
| allows me to trick my mind and avoids the decision
| whether or not I should exercise and I will "stupidly" do
| what the calendar says. This made it much easier to
| develop a habit.
| ButterWashed wrote:
| I agree with this. I hate exercise so I go into the
| office a few days a week and I cycle to get there and
| back which is roughly 10 miles in total. Without that
| commute I'd be too tempted to do nothing by way of
| exercise.
| ebjaas_2022 wrote:
| I think you just have to make yourself do it for a
| prolonged period of time, all the while making sure that
| you do not overexert yourself. Make it pleasant on every
| occasion, and lower the intensity once it starts feeling
| like a struggle. There are theories on how long it takes to
| establish a new habit. The numbers may vary, but I'd say if
| you can keep at it for around three months, it should be
| possible, for anyone really, to establish regular exercise
| as a habit that you both enjoy and look forward to, rather
| than something that you dread or put off.
| klipt wrote:
| Just set multiple reminders on your phone throughout the
| day to get up and do a little bit of exercise. A five
| minute walk, two minutes of jumping jacks, and three push-
| ups are better than nothing.
| mtalantikite wrote:
| Having a schedule really helps. For years I've just
| promised myself that I'd work on my physical practices at
| least 4x per week -- if I've gotten to Wednesday and I
| haven't done anything, that means Wednesday Thursday Friday
| and Saturday I need to do something. And because you need
| rest days, you end up just planning to spread things out.
| Stick to it for a few months and all of a sudden it's been
| years and you can't imagine not doing it.
|
| Just make sure it's a thing you really enjoy, and think of
| it more as practicing getting really good at something
| rather than a chore.
| tsol wrote:
| Habits are everything. If you make it something you can to
| make yourself do, it'll always be hard. Make it a daily or
| weekly activity. Start slow, and just make it routine.
| Then, after you're used to it you can increase the
| intensity.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> I experience the benefits of exercising as energy balancing.
|
| I find that a lot of fringe stuff like that can be reframed
| into other fringe or even more "normal" terminology. Which
| words or metaphors one uses are simply what clicks for them. If
| "energy balance" is the word that feels right to you, use it.
| ;-)
| Loveaway wrote:
| I've heard there's literally some kind of electric charge
| going on, and your muscles play an important role in this.
| They might act as storage of sorts, but you need to exercise
| eventually so they can discharge, otherwise you get to the
| point where things can't function properly. Heart is supposed
| have crucial part in generating electrical fields too. Not
| much info on that topic so take it with a grain of salt.
| grzes wrote:
| i have exactly the same feelings/experiences. i started to ride
| a bike when pandemic begun and it really improved my comfort of
| living and ovearll "mental" attitude. its really not about
| fitness but more like a therapy for a brain to reset. its best
| to ridea in areas where you can be close to the nature as the
| presence of nature also contributes
| datavirtue wrote:
| If you are running or cycling it is VERY important to stretch
| extensively afterward. Perfectly "healthy" and trim cyclists
| and runners can end up with back problems that lead to all
| sorts of health problems because they have not stretched the
| legs and core regulalry. Ham strings tighten up like steel
| cords and can ruin your back...especially if you sit for
| significant periods of time each day. I have learned this the
| hard way.
| mythhouse wrote:
| > I often refer to exercise as me taking care of my mental
| health - as opposed to being physically fit.
|
| Same. I don't care about my physical health all that much but
| my friends/family think i am some sort of health fanatic. It is
| the only thing that has gotten me through tough times, its my
| escape.
| blaser-waffle wrote:
| I'll join the group of folks saying "same". 60 minutes at the
| gym, doing some light running, 3-5km, plus some weights isn't
| crazy.
|
| More about change of scenery, getting out, and tearing myself
| away from social / personal / work entanglements. Just me vs
| the iron.
| madiator wrote:
| I don't get why you don't care about your physical health.
| You got one body for the rest of your life..
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| They might mean it's not a primary motivator.
|
| That's how I felt when I was younger and had a seemingly
| perfect bill of health regardless of exercise.
|
| High blood pressure in my 30s changed some priorities.
| ahMath8 wrote:
| bee_rider wrote:
| I suspect the "all that much" is doing a lot of work here.
| I think I get it. Like, as long as my body is not
| malfunctioning or heading for a long-term catastrophe, I'm
| not motivated to improve it.
| nradov wrote:
| Malfunctions can be difficult to detect, if you're not
| paying close attention to your body. Our bodies have
| evolved to maintain homeostasis within a tight range, and
| can compensate for quite a lot of hidden pathology. Until
| you reach a threshold and decompensate, at which
| everything goes to hell and at that point it's too late
| to really fix.
| hamreh0076 wrote:
| tsol wrote:
| Same here. I do cold showers, sauna, eat fiber every day,
| almost religiously take supplements, and exercise most days.
| People think I'm a health fanatic type but really I just feel
| awful normally, and when I do all of this I feel okay. It's
| just to keep myself mentally okay. I have a theory that's why
| depression and anxiety are so common in humanity-- in general
| they force people to keep improving(until they don't).
| version_five wrote:
| I'm similar and ironically I think having exercise as a
| coping mechanism, if you like, is actually a way better
| motivator than for health reasons, and makes it easier to
| stick with. I think if people could get into a routine of
| exercising for mental relaxation, and see the benefits that
| way, it would make it more attractive.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| When I was most stressed and semi-burned out during my career I
| found that martial arts was the best way to decompress.
|
| I especially preferred the kinds that heavily relied on
| sparring with partners during the class. It's _really_ hard to
| ruminate on everything you didn't get done today when the
| person opposite you will punch/kick you if your concentration
| falters =)
|
| It's similarly hard to start overthinking when you're too tired
| to think, HIIT-style circuit training in a group worked pretty
| well.
|
| Nowadays I'm a bit less stressed and can manage it better -
| just a walk in the nature and newageyly "being in the moment"
| is enough, no need for the extremes of youth =)
| anonymousDan wrote:
| Which martial arts specifically do you recommend?
| adrian_b wrote:
| There are 2 ways of practicing martial arts for health.
|
| One way is to practice alone, at home, by doing some solo
| forms (a.k.a. kata) taken from the large existing number of
| Okinawan or Chinese origin, with or without weapons, and/or
| by hitting dummies or punching bags.
|
| This way has the advantage of minimal cost, down to zero,
| depending on whether you buy some training equipment and
| weapons or not, and you can practice without following a
| schedule, whenever you have time or you are in the mood.
|
| Practicing solo is easy if you have some prior experience
| of doing proper training sessions in some martial art. Even
| without experience, if the purpose is only practicing for
| health and not becoming skilled in real fighting, some
| instructional videos can be good enough for learning how to
| train.
|
| The second way is to practice with a sparring partner.
| Sometimes this might be possible to do with a friend, if
| you happen to have an appropriate space, but this is quite
| unlikely, so you normally have to go regularly to some
| martial arts training hall or club.
|
| In this case the choice of the martial art may be
| determined less by some intrinsic qualities, but more by
| what martial art training place happens to exist close
| enough to your home, to avoid wasting time with
| transportation.
|
| Moreover, especially when practicing for health purposes,
| it may be less important which is the origin of the martial
| art, but much more important is how competent is the
| instructor that happens to teach at the club that you find
| near you.
|
| Unfortunately, for a beginner it is difficult to
| distinguish competent instructors from incompetent
| instructors, but after some experience the differences will
| become evident.
|
| Which martial art is more appropriate depends also on the
| age. For someone older, a training that puts less emphasis
| on striking/kicking, but more on throwing and breaking
| falls, e.g. aikido/judo/jujutsu, is more appropriate. Also
| training with weapons can be appropriate for older people,
| as in that case the weapons are not used against humans,
| unless they wear protective gear.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > For someone older, a training that puts less emphasis
| on striking/kicking, but more on throwing and breaking
| falls, e.g. aikido/judo/jujutsu,
|
| I am by no means an expert but as someone who is typing
| on a keyboard for income, aikido has way to much emphasis
| on wrist straining.
| mtalantikite wrote:
| Not OP, but I've taken up training Muay Thai and it's a lot
| of fun. It can look pretty intimidating from the outside,
| but everyone I've met at the gyms here in Brooklyn have
| been super welcoming and kind.
|
| I also have had a long standing, 5x per week yoga practice
| which is a great way to strengthen and open the body. I'd
| look for a yoga school that mentions ashtanga if you're
| looking for something more intensive, it's a challenging
| practice.
| djitz wrote:
| Pretty much everyone I've ever met who actually knew how
| to fight well was very friendly and kind. Traveling and
| showing up at random MMA or BJJ schools is almost always
| a fantastic experience.
|
| Subjecting the ego to much needed reality checks makes
| for some nice folks.
| akiselev wrote:
| Seconded. I worked with a professional MMA team while
| they appeared on _The Ultimate Fighter_ and met a lot of
| fighters who came to their gym to train, even spent some
| time living in a communal house with some of them. All
| but one of them would be in the running for the "nicest
| person I ever met" award.
| wiz21c wrote:
| Same stuff here. I practice tai chi and as you may know
| practicioners usually work in group. Keeping in sync with the
| others is 100% part of the practice and is impossible to do
| if one is not really concentrated on its surroudings. There's
| no way you might think about something else while doing it
| :-) (and I don't even talk about the sheer amount of
| proprioception you have to use to do the movements correctly)
| bitexploder wrote:
| I have been kind of deep down these rabbit holes of how it
| works physically. It comes down to some kind of simple
| principles. Exercise gives your brain more blood. Lifting puts
| static pressure and conditions vessels and such. Many pro-
| brain-health hormones get released. The physical actions force
| a degree of indirect distraction that lets your sub-conscious
| work as well. These things all combine to promote brain health
| and problem solving. The brain uses a ton of energy so the
| blood flow just keeps it well fed.
|
| E: it also makes sure junk from metabolic processes are cleaned
| up etc.
| jdpigeon wrote:
| There was a rather compelling pathway proposed years ago:
| skeletal muscle activation leads to the secretion of a
| protein in the blood called Irisin. This protein then crosses
| the blood-brain barrier and upregulates brain-derived
| neurotrophic factor.
| puchatek wrote:
| Yet there are always examples of extraordinary minds of
| people who either despise physical exercise it are even
| wheelchair-bound. Steven Hawkins comes to mind. Maybe those
| are just exceptions.
| cgriswald wrote:
| I see no reason to think that people don't have different
| cognitive baselines. It's not difficult to imagine two
| people having such different cognitive baselines that
| even if exercise improves the cognitive ability of one,
| it will still be lower than the cognitive ability of the
| other without exercise.
| bitexploder wrote:
| I never did turn into a super genius after a run. But I
| can focus for a few hours and if it was an easy run or
| even a hard strength training session, it is a productive
| few hours :)
| ozim wrote:
| I don't really know where it came from - but there was this
| idea that if you are smart you neglect sports - if you are
| sporty you neglect smarts.
|
| There was jocks vs nerds as a general dichotomy.
|
| Last years we find it more and more to be a false dichotomy.
|
| Just think that you can find "brasilian ju jitsu nerds" or
| software developers that work out quite a lot.
|
| Not to mention pro-gamers who are not only practicing playing
| their game - but get physical workout in their training regimen
| to really go to the top.
|
| Being physically fit IS caring about mental health there is
| nothing newage-y about it.
|
| There is no mind-body separation, mind is body whether someone
| likes it or not. If you exercise your muscles to move in a
| specific way you exercise your mind as well. That is known
| phenomenon in strength sports - one can build up muscle mass as
| much as they want but they also have to adapt neural pathways
| for strength - which is mind.
| themitigating wrote:
| I notice that if I perform a large amount of physical
| activity during the day, like playing soccer, I'm tired
| (obviously). However, the lack of energy applies to both
| physical and mental tasks.
| nwienert wrote:
| I've gone through years of working out daily to years of
| basically only walking and not exercising much.
|
| The honest truth is if I'm truly coding a lot, working out
| is a strict downgrade in my long term output holding for
| all other variables.
|
| Working out is good for you, but it's a big detriment to
| mental energy. Perhaps working out late in the day solves
| this, but then again I'm most productive as a coder late at
| night. Days where I work out in the afternoon wreck my
| night time productivity.
| Jensson wrote:
| Yeah, math and programming contest winners are usually
| very thin. Do some cardio, don't be fat, but bulking up
| is probably not optimal.
| nradov wrote:
| Lack of skeletal muscle is extremely dangerous for long-
| term health. Muscle is a key component of the endocrine
| system, acting as a sink for blood glucose and preventing
| insulin resistance (type 2 diabetes). Lack of muscle
| needed to stabilize your movements also greatly increases
| the risk of debilitating falls and other skeletal
| injuries. It's important to build up a good amount of
| muscle when you're young because hormonal changes make it
| increasingly harder as you age (unless you take anabolic
| drugs, which carry their own health risks).
|
| https://www.gabriellereece.com/muscle-as-the-cornerstone-
| of-...
|
| https://peterattiamd.com/ama27/
|
| Of course if some people want to sacrifice healthspan for
| the sake of winning math and programming contests, that
| is a choice they can make.
| AA-BA-94-2A-56 wrote:
| I'm struggling to take these comments seriously. Do you
| guys have any scientific or even anecdotal basis for
| believing that gaining muscle is detrimental to
| programming ability, or are you all just talking out of
| your asses?
|
| If there is no basis for it, please stop spreading this
| stuff. I am trying to build my programming career and
| build muscle at the same time, and I don't need people
| being prejudicial towards me because they read some
| misinformed comment on HN telling them bulking is
| detrimental to coding.
| rubicon33 wrote:
| I don't actually think this is as much of a false dichotomy
| as you believe.
|
| In my experience that separation between physical ability and
| smarts has always existed on some level. Yes of course there
| are engineers who work out, and soccer players who code, but
| I've generally seen that the best engineers do not work out
| much, and the best soccer players do not code much.
|
| Some of that may in fact just come down to time and how much
| they're spending it on their craft. At the end of the day
| though, the very brightest and most talented software devs I
| know are simply out of shape.
| ozim wrote:
| I agree that best coders don't do 2x a day workouts and
| best soccer players don't play chess 4h a day.
|
| But there is an idea where you do 3 workouts per week, do
| things each day to be productive in your trade and augment
| it with exercise to be even more productive.
| scarface74 wrote:
| I've got a really obscure personal anecdote. I have cerebral
| palsy. For all intents and purposes it's really mild. It only
| really affects my left hand and slightly my left foot.
|
| I've been an average runner at times in my life (10 minute miles
| up to 15Ks), a part time fitness instructor for slightly over a
| decade from my mid 20s to mid 30s extra.
|
| What I noticed when it came to anything highly choreographed like
| dancing or a complex fitness routine and trying to listen to the
| beat and stay on beat, even though I can physically do the moves,
| it takes me a lot longer to process choreography than most
| people. It was mentally much more challenging and tiring than
| anything I do at my day job (software development).
|
| I don't see how simple exercise could be cognitive exercise. I
| could completely zone out while running.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| Most of what your brain does is not available to consciousness.
| You can be zoned out and brain-busy. Placing your feet running
| on a rocky trail is an amazingly complex task.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Funny enough, walking on uneven terrain takes a lot of
| concentration for me - again the CP. But running on pavement
| a few miles allows me to zone out.
| bjornsing wrote:
| Interesting. How about something like soccer?
| scarface74 wrote:
| I've been "fit" at various times in my life by various
| definitions - ie a decent runner, weightlifter, etc. But I've
| never been "coordinated" enough to be even average at any
| sport.
|
| Luckily in High School and college, I could choose swimming
| and weightlifting as my Physical Ed requirements,
|
| Even being a fitness instructor didn't take dynamic
| coordination since I was in charge of the class, do moves I
| was completely comfortable with and rehearsed extensively. I
| was never a good student in a highly choreographed fitness
| class. I picked up moves here and there from other
| instructors and made them my own.
| twawaaay wrote:
| On a sample of size one. I found that sticking to hard exercise
| (I am a runner, so intervals, tempo runs, long runs, etc) seems
| like it is making it easier for me to stick to hard exercise in
| the future. I have some theories about it (like upping my
| tolerance for pain) but I think ultimately it all comes down to
| willpower. If so, it means that willpower can also be exercised
| and you can increase/improve it to let you do things that are not
| necessarily pleasurable right now but give you delayed
| gratification.
|
| Can't tell if it transfers from exercise to my actual work.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| >I think ultimately it all comes down to willpower
|
| My annecdata agrees with this point.
|
| >Can't tell if it transfers from exercise to my actual work
|
| IME, it all comes down to whether I truly care about my work.
| deepsun wrote:
| In "Willpower" book they argue that you only need willpower to
| make a habit. Once the habit is established, you don't exercise
| willpower anymore.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| I'd argue that habituating lowers the amount of willpower
| required. I'd also note that it is easy to lose habits of
| activities that require a lot of willpower to create a habit
| around.
| tejohnso wrote:
| Doesn't that imply that after a month without chocolate or
| potato chips I could easily avoid them for the rest of my
| life? Wish it were true.
| krallja wrote:
| I used to drink at least one can of soda every day, and
| after almost a decade of regularly going without it, I can
| now drink a soda at a restaurant without falling back into
| the soda trap.
| kqr wrote:
| It works on multiple levels. After a month without
| chocolate you might find it much easier to avoid buying it,
| and if you don't have it in your home it will be easier to
| avoid eating it.
| collinvandyck76 wrote:
| In a sense yes. I started a low carb diet a month ago and
| at this point i no longer actively crave those things. Not
| saying I would never eat them again but I have definitely
| lost the habit of doing so.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| Seen that in my own life. It's more of figuring out the
| alchemy of starting a flywheel, setting it in motion, and
| getting out of the way.
|
| The hard parts are mostly front-loaded (excepting the
| phenomenon of hitting the wall) which seems profoundly
| unfair, but it is what it is.
| sgc wrote:
| Ha!
| varelse wrote:
| csours wrote:
| I believe that the Brain-Computer analogy has been very harmful.
|
| I grew up thinking of myself as a "brain on a stick" - my body
| didn't really matter and only my brain was important. I think
| read a bunch of science fiction that made fun of this idea, but I
| didn't realize it was making fun of it and I took it seriously.
|
| You are not a brain on a stick - your body is important.
| Developing an understanding of your sensations and emotions is
| important. Developing an understanding of your deeply held
| beliefs and assumptions is important. Keeping your body healthy
| is important.
| [deleted]
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| > You are not a brain on a stick
|
| We probably are not, but I'm not convinced that the opposite is
| true.
|
| Stephen Hawkins did not notoriously exercise much, given his
| condition, and yet he died at 76, despite the odds.
|
| Einstein routinely walked a few miles a day and that's all the
| exercise he did.
|
| Many other popular great thinkers of the past spent a lot more
| time on books than improving their bodies.
|
| In Italy we learn as children about Giacomo Leopardi, a very
| popular poet, writer and philosopher of the 19th century,
| according to Wikipedia "considered the greatest Italian poet of
| the nineteenth century and one of the most important figures in
| the literature of the world", that _His continual studies
| undermined an already fragile physical constitution, and his
| illness, probably Pott 's disease or ankylosing spondylitis,
| denied him youth's simplest pleasures_
|
| Without evidence I reckon that all we can conclude is that only
| sometimes exercise is the best cognitive exercise, but we don't
| know why nor if it is actually true.
| datameta wrote:
| Without attempting to take away anything from your comment I
| will point out that a routine of walking a few miles a day is
| sufficient to reap most cognitive benefits.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| I agree.
|
| But who actually doesn't?
|
| We all (almost) walk a few miles (or kms) a day, without
| even realising it.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Most people in the US don't walk a "few" miles a day, the
| average is 1.5-2.5 miles (depending on the study). Our
| very car-centric society makes it difficult to get
| incidental walking distances up. If you switch to
| kilometers, then yes, the average person in the US walks
| a few kilometers a day.
| xeromal wrote:
| I'd wager that most professional office setting americans
| walk less than 5000 steps a day.
| the_fury wrote:
| I'd agree with that. Unless I'm trying to increase the
| amount I walk, I usually come in under 5K steps a day.
| It's not at all hard to add a few tasks to get it up to a
| more reasonable number, and I do, but if I don't
| _intentionally_ add those tasks, the baseline is very low
| indeed.
| kkahmann wrote:
| I'm lucky if I even get that without supplementing with
| intentional exercise and I guarantee I walk more than
| anyone else in my office (during the work day)
| csours wrote:
| Yes, it is a relative thing, not a determinative thing.
|
| It's hard to talk about this without tripping on ableism -
| but - Stephen Hawkins started out with such a great cognitive
| ability that a deficit later in life would have been less
| noticeable. Life is more than a cognitive experience, it's a
| human experience. Hawkins' human experience was not great.
| I've read that he was very hard on the people close to him.
| Even if exercise 'only' helped with dealing with emotions,
| that would still show up as a cognitive improvement - it's
| hard to think straight when you are upset.
|
| > I'm not convinced that the opposite is true.
|
| I'm not entirely sure what 'the opposite' means. "You are a
| brain on a stick"? It is evident that the brain does not
| survive without the body. It is evident that the brain is
| affected by what the body does. The body is not a stick.
|
| The brain does compute, but it is not a computer. A computer
| does not actively take in information about the world. A
| computer does not form familial and tribal affiliations. A
| computer has a very limited experience of the world.
| asveikau wrote:
| > Einstein routinely walked a few miles a day and that's all
| the exercise he did.
|
| Do you mean to say this is insignificant? I think even if you
| don't work up much of a sweat or do some heavy lifting or
| whatever, a daily walk is very good for your health.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| The first mistake is to exclude the brain from the body. The
| brain is just another part of the body. It doesn't live in a
| universe of its own hermetically sealed off from the body. It
| is the body! Every region of you is you. Certainly, some
| regions (I hesitate to use the word "parts" with all its
| mechanistic baggage) are more critical to your existence and
| operation, but that doesn't have anything to do with your
| identity qua identity. The brain is seamless with "the rest",
| and in a state of mutual and coherent dependence with "the
| rest".
|
| (Now, I can argue that the intellect as abstracting faculty is
| not material, but this faculty is not disconnected from the
| brain and needs the brain to operate, and so again, the health
| of the body affects even those faculties which, strictly
| speaking, are not bodily per se.)
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| You can largely blame Descartes for this notion.
| vlabakje90 wrote:
| This rather finds its origin in religion (Abrahamic, amongst
| others), where the soul is regarded being as separate from
| the body.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Mind-body dualism is an older position than Descartes, but
| cartesian dualism is distinct from the Aristotelian
| hylemorphic theories that were popular for a long time
| before, and still profoundly shapes the way we think in
| ways that may be difficult to even realize because the
| world view completely permeates all modern western thought.
|
| It does however become very apparent when you read pre-
| cartesian authors that their views on the soul are off.
|
| If you equate the soul with consciousness, it's obvious
| that a potted plant does not have a soul.
|
| If you view it as the animating principle, it's equally
| ridiculous to say a potted plant doesn't have a soul, since
| it's so clearly growing.
| mikrl wrote:
| > Developing an understanding of your sensations and emotions
| is important
|
| There are pleasant social side effects from doing this but
| sometimes being so in tune can affect you in weird ways too.
| csours wrote:
| "Balance in all things" - Ember Spirit
| knodi wrote:
| Shouldn't people working laborious jobs have higher than normal
| office jobs cognitively healthy?
| lob_it wrote:
| What percentage of either are actually in a healthy
| environment?
|
| The stats from the AHA show 60%-70% are overweight/obese.
|
| Another study shows upwards of 70% on perscription medication.
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/study-shows-70-percent-of-ameri...
|
| To actually meet a "natural" is quite rare :)
|
| BMI is a lifestyle choice, but obviously unhealthy environments
| are a side effect of low-quality data/food/education
| thesz wrote:
| The stresses that make body need brains and grow these brains and
| nervous system as a whole, are stresses that were encountered
| during evolution: hunger, need to endure (long walk, long work)
| and need to apply force (run fast, lift heavy).
|
| When body experience these three stresses it produces brain
| derived neutrotrophic factor [1], which acts as a growth hormone
| for nervous system as a whole and also grows brain, in areas
| related to long term memory, higher cognitive functions
| (language, logic, spatial navigation, etc) and learning.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain-
| derived_neurotrophic_fac...
|
| It works as if you can build "thinking muscles" which will help
| in every aspect of life.
|
| E.g., if you barbell squat, you most probably will also run
| faster and you also will be more stable. Squats are not directly
| related to running, but they help nevertheless.
|
| If you do endurange training and/or intermittent fasting, you
| will be more cognitively capable. Endurance training is not
| directly related to thinking, but it helps nevertheless.
|
| So, yes.
|
| An exercise for general purpose thinking is an exercise.
| tinktank wrote:
| Have there been any studies on quantitative effects? If I
| wanted to increase my IQ 1 point how much exercise should I be
| doing?
| vasco wrote:
| None where you get hit in the head. Curious to see martial
| arts where you can get punched in the face anywhere near
| "good for brain" discussions.
| thesz wrote:
| Thank you!
|
| Martial arts is a pet peeve of mine.
|
| First, I think I should note that amateur boxing does not
| incur brain damage that is recognizable by contemporary
| methods. I see no studies contrary to that. Thus,
| basically, if you like boxing or other martial arts
| training, do that - having some exercise is better than not
| having any, and boxing is quite taxing.
|
| Then, I should proceed to my main point: how martial arts
| training of someone's choice corresponds to the three
| stresses that elevate BDNF?
|
| Typical martial art will train you for strength endurance.
| Strength endurance is an ability to exert about 30% of your
| 1RM for a prolonged period of time and training it is not
| directly a strength training neither it is an endurance
| training.
|
| I think one should train for strength and/or stamina
| (direct relation with BDNF levels) and then take classes on
| martial arts technique (pattern recognition and reaction).
| This is how sambo/judo champions are trained, from what I
| know.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| I don't know about exercise, but an easy way to increase your
| IQ score is to take the test repeatedly.
| thesz wrote:
| Here's one study amongst many: https://www.frontiersin.org/ar
| ticles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.0261...
|
| "Results: ...Groups of moderate ([?]40) and high ([?]49)
| fitness outperformed the group of low ([?]31) fitness for
| inhibition and episodic recognition, whereas no significant
| differences between moderate and high fitness were observed
| (ANCOVAs). Breakpoints between benefits from VO2max for
| inhibition and recognition were estimated to [?]44/43
| mL*kg-1*min-1 (multivariate broken line regressions)."
|
| Be a moderately fit, at the very least.
|
| Resistance training will reduce side effects of endurance
| training (muscle loss and hormone profile) and also would
| help reduce all cause mortality:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2453303/
|
| If you would like to live long and be smart, walk (jog, run)
| and hit the gym. ;)
|
| Actually, I found that searching for the balance is a
| congitive test in itself. It can be said that the way you
| solve it describes and defines you.
| [deleted]
| wisty wrote:
| > Recent advances in AI, and less recent advances in computing in
| general showed that a lot of the things we consider "cognitively
| hard" - from symbolic manipulation to arithmetic, "drawing" and
| even reasoning - can be reproduced by computer machinery a lot
| simpler than we originally thought, at a (likely) higher than
| human level in the near future Robots still have a hard time
| navigating terrain and manipulating stuff
|
| ...
|
| > So, here's the speculation / thesis: exercising, that is,
| operating our bodies at a higher than baseline level, with
| everything that entails - energy regulation, unconscious
| balancing, spatial awareness, etc - requires more computing power
| than crosswords, sudoku, finding relations between measure theory
| and first-order logic through category theory, etc
|
| I don't buy it. Stuff like "navigating terrain" is something that
| insects can do often better than robots. It's simply not that
| hard for animals, which have specialised hardware for this (but
| on the flipside we lack hardware IEEE compliant floating point
| units).
|
| Exercise is good because the brain is an organ, and general
| health is good for organs. And because of psychological factors.
| General and mental health have a huge impact on cognitive
| performance.
|
| Cognitive training is not particularly effective because it's a
| lot of wistful thinking and snake oil (there might be something
| to it, but I've seen little evidence that it's particularly
| effective especially when it comes to transfer).
|
| There probably is some cognitive benefit to exercise. Decision
| making under pressure, discipline, spatial awareness, etc and
| there would be some transfer to related domains. But I suspect
| the main effect is just health (which both is better for
| cognitive performance, and encourages other activities which are
| good for cognitive performance).
| boomskats wrote:
| I don't have any references to hand, but drawing from both
| personal experience and anecdotal stories from places like
| r/nootropics, the link between cognitive performance and physical
| exercise is already well established and almost universally
| accepted. In comparison, brain training games and sudoku puzzles
| are rarely, if ever, mentioned as beneficial (again,
| anecdotally). Am I misunderstanding what's being speculated here?
|
| Somewhat related - something that I do find quite curious from my
| own personal experience is that lifting heavy weights has a far
| greater impact on my ability to concentrate (and therefore
| perceived cognitive ability, I guess) than cardio/aerobic
| exercise does. Like night and day. I've recently started
| attributing it to creatine supplementation, but I do wonder if
| there's anything more to it than that.
| ren_engineer wrote:
| Not sure why this is so surprising, your body is at the very
| least the thing carrying your brain around. Having it in good
| condition would obviously maximize your brain's potential
|
| Socrates was talking about this stuff thousands of years ago:
|
| >For be you assured that there is no contest of any sort, nor
| any transaction, in which you will be the worse off for being
| well prepared in body; and in fact there is nothing which men
| do for which the body is not a help. In every demand,
| therefore, which can be laid upon the body it is much better
| that it should be in the best condition; since, even where you
| might imagine the claims upon the body to be slightest--in the
| act of reasoning--who does not know the terrible stumbles which
| are made through being out of health?
|
| > It suffices to say that forgetfulness, and despondency, and
| moroseness, and madness take occasion often of ill-health to
| visit the intellectual faculties so severely as to expel all
| knowledge from the brain. But he who is in good bodily plight
| has large security. He runs no risk of incurring any such
| catastrophe through ill-health at any rate
| return_to_monke wrote:
| creatine supplementation is supported by the literature to have
| cognitive benefits.
|
| Also, lifting heavy does train your central nervous system too,
| which might be a pathway to better cognitive ability? (This
| second part is 100% bro science, though)
| boomskats wrote:
| Yeah, I guess 'lifting heavy does train your CNS too' isn't
| too far away from what the author of this post is speculating
| also. The implication seems to be that physical activity is
| more 'computationally challenging', rather than 'cognitively
| challenging' like sudoku is. 'Computationally challenging' to
| me implies a higher level of CNS activation than 'cognitively
| challenging' tasks that employ conscious reasoning only.
| bluedevilzn wrote:
| How come athletes aren't getting nobel prizes?
|
| Alternatively, why is not a single successful scientist in
| great physical shape?
| ethanbond wrote:
| Fine, if your name is Einstein or von Neumann you can skip
| leg day.
| GistNoesis wrote:
| Maths/Physics now need a full time career just to reach the
| current frontier of knowledge, you have to build on existing
| ground, Athletes must somehow take time to learn this
| knowledge, and by the time they have learned it, they are not
| as physically fit as they once were.
|
| Alan Turing was a good runner.
| canucker2016 wrote:
| Roger Bannister, first person to run under 4 minutes for
| the mile, was a neurologist. He considered his work in
| medicine to be more important than running the first sub-4
| minute mile.
|
| see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Bannister
| bparsons wrote:
| Not a single scientist?
| dfc wrote:
| There are tons of successful scientists that are in shape.
| Excelling intellectually and physically both require
| discipline.
|
| I like to run so here is the first person I thought of:
|
| Wolfgang Ketterle: Nobel Prize Physics & Marathon PB = 2:50
|
| https://www.runnersworld.com/runners-
| stories/a20837391/im-a-...
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| Edwin Hubble, while not a Nobel prize winner, was a
| basketball player, football, baseball player, and pugalist.
| He also did track and field and waterpolo polo while studying
| Law at Oxford .
| pharrington wrote:
| In addition to what everyone else said, astronauts have to be
| in great physical shape.
| BirAdam wrote:
| Just because a person does not use a thing does not mean that
| he/she is not capable of doing so. Additionally, to quote my
| favorite math teacher, what one fool can do, so can any
| other. The issue is our most limited resource: time. I've
| spent a ridiculous amount of time doing things that further
| no ability. As such, I'm less than mediocre at both sport and
| and work. Becoming a good athlete requires an insane
| investment of time into diet, exercise, training, and study
| of the sport not only modern but past. To claim that an
| athlete is dumb is to make a prescriptive claim about what
| knowledge is valuable. The athlete has an intuitive
| understanding of physics, tactics, and strategy that others
| do not. The athlete may also have some formal scholarly
| knowledge on the topic as well. The physicist would not be
| capable of matching the athlete in use of those same physics
| with his/her own body without the same training regimen and
| time use; and should they swap time spent, each would begin
| to become the other.
| jmopp wrote:
| Magnus Carlsen talks a lot about the physical stamina you
| need to play chess, a purely mental game. Niels Bohr was
| famously a passionate footballer, who played at club level in
| Denmark.
| joemazerino wrote:
| Because athletes are focusing elsewhere.
|
| You're comparing top-level performers
| hnrodey wrote:
| > How come athletes aren't getting nobel prizes?
|
| Diminishing returns.
|
| > Alternatively, why is not a single successful scientist in
| great physical shape?
|
| This is just complete falsehood. Utter nonsense.
| petesergeant wrote:
| I have found heavy powerlifting negatively affects my
| concentration. The exhaustion in my muscles afterwards I've
| always found very distracting
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| It is not just that, but it's also because you have to apply
| a surprising amount of mental concentration in power lifting.
| Basically, you have to be hyper-aware of your entire form
| while you are lifting. From my experience that takes as much
| concentration as working on a hard mental problem.
| etothepii wrote:
| In the articles hypothesis were correct this might not be a
| surprise, building a weight lifting robot would likely be
| much easier than one that could traverse complex terrain at
| even 4 mph.
| hattmall wrote:
| Sure, you could build a weight lifting robot just by
| increasing it's raw mechanical ability. But to build one
| that's made of hundreds of strings only capable of
| individually lifting a single pound and coordinating them
| around multiple axes to lift hundreds of pounds would be
| much more difficult.
|
| But there's really no reason to do that since you can just
| increase the raw mechanics.
| datameta wrote:
| A dedicated weight-lifting robot could have far fewer
| degrees of movement. It could essentially be a couple of
| pistons at a camber with one more powered axis for balance.
| wellthisisgreat wrote:
| it's the day after a 9-10 RPE session that has the focus for
| me.
|
| or the calming effect of exhaustion so I can tackle intense
| managerial problems without an emotional overhead.
| nanomonkey wrote:
| You may want to play around with _not_ working out to
| exhaustion. There is a whole set of routines built around
| just depleting your ATP, triggering mTOR, and not damaging
| muscle tissue or creating lactic acid build up. _The Quick
| and the Dead_ book by Pavel Tsatsouline is one such routine,
| it uses 10 sets of 10 push-ups and 10 sets of 10 kettlebell
| swings with resting in between (30 minutes total, 3 times a
| week). I 've found it to be quite effective, there are other
| options out there. The key is that they don't deplete you,
| and you can go on to do things the rest of your day without
| soreness or inability to walk down stairs. YMMV.
| indymike wrote:
| > I've recently started attributing it to creatine
| supplementation, but I do wonder if there's anything more to it
| than that.
|
| My boxing coach used to say concentration trains concentration
| (failing to concentrate in the ring results in automatic
| negative feedback).
|
| I suspect that the focus you have when lifting (so much going
| on there trying to control your body while exerting at maximum
| effort), is helping your brain learn to better focus. If you
| are like most people who lift, you probably are paying
| attention to what is going in and coming out of your body,
| which also requires focus as well.
|
| In my experience, focus is a skill that is learned, and like
| all things, is easy for some, and very difficult to master for
| others.
| scotty79 wrote:
| I think the idea this person has is pretty novel. That physical
| excercise is great for the mind, not only because it has some
| nebulous general benefits but because it computationally is a
| very hard task for the brain. Harder than anything you could
| throw at it consciously.
|
| It might be wrong but it's interesting and somewhat novel.
| tartoran wrote:
| > because it computationally is a very hard task for the
| brain
|
| Can you explain what part of physical exercise is
| computationally hard for the brain?
| jstanley wrote:
| Inverse kinematics calculations for a large number of
| joints, and high-precision control of same.
| ben_w wrote:
| Don't most mammals have about the same number of joints?
| This implies a very small part of our mind is responsible
| for that.
|
| Even pumpkin toadlets, who famously can't coordinate
| their landings, the problem isn't the size of their
| brain, it's their vestibular system.
|
| I'm of the opinion that most animals are probably a lot
| higher up the sentience scale than is the current social
| consensus, but I don't think exercise is itself a major
| cognitive effort. Arbitrary games sure (not just the
| rules, anything social involves modelling multiple
| entities like yourself), but not the physical exercise
| itself.
| jamesmontalvo3 wrote:
| I don't think the point is that physical work makes
| humans intelligent in comparison to animals. I think the
| point is that physically active humans exercise aspects
| of their intelligence that modern sedentary humans do
| not.
| MereInterest wrote:
| Processing of visual information, especially on short time
| scales. Feedback mechanisms for balance. Adapting to
| changing environmental conditions (e.g. how much should a
| stride be adjusted on gravel, in mud, on damp pavement).
| These are all detailed tasks that are done during physical
| exercise, just not typically tasks that are done at a
| conscious level.
| ambicapter wrote:
| Why are people so impressed at Boston Dynamics robots
| completing obstacle courses that human children could
| easily complete?
| dahart wrote:
| You should try building one! I wonder why isn't everyone
| impressed what Boston Dynamics has done?
|
| As soon as we make a robot that's as good as a human
| child in every way, then I'm going to start worrying
| seriously about Skynet.
| rendaw wrote:
| While it's true that Boston Dynamics robots can barely
| walk, they can't write coherent and innovative stories,
| solve abstract problems, or other related tasks at all
| yet.
| ben_w wrote:
| Hardware is hard.
|
| Making an AI that learns to control a purely virtual body
| appears to be a fairly standard project.
|
| 1) https://youtu.be/XrOTgZ14fJg
|
| 2) https://youtu.be/882O_7hsAms
|
| 3) https://youtu.be/1kV-rZZw50Q
|
| 4) https://youtu.be/gn4nRCC9TwQ
| scotty79 wrote:
| Not falling over while moving and interacting with physical
| objects successfully.
|
| You can throw at it few gpus worth of computing power and
| still end up short.
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| Have you ever played QWOP? Play QWOP.
| klipt wrote:
| > because it computationally is a very hard task for the
| brain
|
| No they didn't say harder, they said it uses "more
| computation", there's a difference.
|
| Your brain has many parallel systems specialized for
| exercise, because our ancestors have used similar systems to
| move their bodies for eons. Exercise fires all these systems
| in parallel, so your brain is getting great "throughput".
|
| On the other hand stuff like Sudoku is using a much smaller
| fraction of our brain that developed recently, probably for
| language, and then trying to use the language part to do
| math, which feels "difficult" precisely because we're trying
| to do it with just a small, unspecialized part of our brain,
| instead of a bunch of specialized parallel systems.
|
| So exercise is both "easier", but also more efficiently gets
| your brain working because of parallelism.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| I haven't heard people mention it before but I've often
| wondered why physical exercise wasn't considered
| "intelligent" when so much of the brain was dedicated to
| tasks like moving around and coordination.
| wjholden wrote:
| Not disagreeing, but let me point out that animals can move
| their bodies quite well and we consider most of them
| significantly less intelligent. I don't know what
| proportion of the brain is used for movement and what
| proportion is used for cognition.
| ambivalents wrote:
| Couldn't this prove the point that we don't equate
| movement with intelligence, though? Who's to say animals
| also don't possess this intelligence? Maybe we'd have to
| go down the chain then, to more inert species like plants
| and fungi, though they also possess intelligence I can't
| begin to comprehend.
| Pelam wrote:
| IANAB, but large animal bodies correlate with large brain
| size. Huge animals like elephants and whales have much
| bigger brains than humans, but are not considered
| cognitively equivalent to humans.
|
| Maybe moving and maintaining a body requires body size
| proportional "raw" computational power and maybe human
| brains have mostly just qualitative differences not
| related to mass when compared to animals (ok, and a bit
| of extra proportional brain mass too).
|
| If this is the case the connection between excercise and
| cognitive capacity could seem natural. Excercise requires
| massive neural resources and thus physical excercises
| also excercise the brain to a large degree and the
| whatever qualitative bit that humans have "on top" simply
| rides the wave to some improvement.
| someweirdperson wrote:
| Dolphins and bears can balance a ball on their nose.
| Human artists can balance multiple plates on sticks. Is
| it a difference in computing power, or just because we
| can't force animals to practice enough?
| stefs wrote:
| from personal experience i can say: after i started working
| out extensively, often for 10+ hours a week, i did notice
| that i just had a lot less time and energy left for
| intellectual endeavours (which consisted of mostly reading
| and programming exercise projects). not only was the time
| spent in the gym "lost" (intellectually), but afterwards (i
| mostly trained in the evening) i was just too tired and
| exhausted for longer periods of intense concentration.
|
| that said, i began spending a lot of time reading about
| exercising instead, which is surprisingly intellectually
| stimulating. there are a bunch of high level powerlifters,
| bodybuilders and weightlifters who do, for example,
| scientific paper reviews and criticism. i learned a lot
| about second-guessing findings there. road cycling is
| probably on of the most data driven sports out there (i
| kinda quit strength sports during covid and started
| cycling, which is probably even more time consuming).
|
| there are intellectually aspects to - and surrounding -
| most sports to a degree, but i doubt intelligence is the
| decicive factor even in comparably tactical athletic
| disciplines (team sports).
| boringg wrote:
| The thing about cycling which is nice is it allows for
| your brain to decompress and wander into deep thought
| (assuming a solo ride) while tour body is physically
| working. Whereas mountain biking is more action and
| coordinated and quite fun but doesnt get me into a deep
| state if mind. Powerlifting builds muscle and does
| provide benefits (structural integrity especially for the
| end years of my life) but i don't feel rejuvenated more
| just tired after working out. I find that im not as sharp
| during the hour or two after from tiredness (for an
| intense workout). To be fair both cycling and mountain
| biking im totally cooked for something equivalently
| intense.
| rayrey wrote:
| Swimming as well is good for a deeper state of
| thoughtfulness. Just you and the water, watching the lane
| marker, approach the T, make the turn, repeat
| usrusr wrote:
| But not before you have reached a rather high level of
| technique. Before that, it feels like a sustained fight
| against drowning that fills your entire attention like
| few other things do. I'd say the threshold to mentally
| let go is lower in almost every other sport. That state
| of a background task that keeps the kind from dozing off,
| it's leaving plenty of attention to the mind wandering? I
| rarely hear that mentioned by swimmers, the state of mind
| trope frequently occurring is "counting tiles", which
| rather sounds like as if even those with perfect
| technique and routine don't disconnect mind from physical
| activity all that much.
| stefs wrote:
| for me it's complicated. sometimes i do get into those
| deep thoughts on long solo rides, but i found that i
| couldn't really concentrate on complicated issues enough
| without neglecting my concentration on the road. i did
| have a couple of good ideas from time to time, but it
| wasn't a regular experience and highly dependend on the
| type of riding. moreover, i run the risk of forgetting
| about the good ideas if the ride goes on for several more
| hours and i fall into other deep thought mind traps.
|
| if i do structured training i try to stay concentrated on
| the task at hand, i.e. pedalling technique, breathing,
| recovery (heart rate), keeping watts constant,
| controlling cadence and so on. i do long virtual
| endurance rides with the ERG on but tend to watch
| entertaining movies.
|
| i don't seem to get into deep though states much during
| weightlifting, as the lifts require me to be concentrated
| and fully focussed and the pauses are too short to get
| lost on the one hand and require active recovery on the
| other.
|
| the big difference here is that most people who want to
| use training time for intellectual improvement just
| listen to podcasts, but that's not really an option for
| me as i'm hearing impaired and barely understand
| anything.
| boringg wrote:
| Fair - i think my point is that there is some value
| getting into those deep thought spaces for benefit
| cognitive function in addition to the physical exercise.
| Not scientifically proven but i suspect it has a benefit.
| whydoyoucare wrote:
| The conventional wisdom of exercising alternate days, 20
| minutes per day, etc. may lead to many people over-
| training themselves. In my experience, the "exercise-
| life" balance (similar to work-life balance) has to be
| had for benefits to accumulate and our ability to
| continue it.
|
| That said, I lift twice a week for a total of about 4 to
| 4.5 hours, and that strikes an optimum balance for my
| age, physiology and everything else. I tried many other
| forms and failed to find that exercise-life balance.
|
| Additionally a lot of conventional wisdom in exercise
| science borders on "voodoo", and some are challenging it
| [1].
|
| [1] Search for Mark Rippetoe's articles on Starting
| Strength. See, for instance,
| https://startingstrength.com/article/why-you-should-not-
| be-r... (the name is a bit misleading).
| kaitai wrote:
| Exercise-life balance will change, as well, throughout
| your life. We all have different seasons.
|
| Some years ago I was working at a university and could go
| to the gym and lift heavy over lunch. That was great -- a
| good decompression, opportunity to talk w/people in other
| parts of the university, and the strongest I ever got. At
| another time in life I did CrossFit. It gave me some
| community when traveling and I could fit it outside the
| workday. Now due to covid/kid/corporate job I switched
| for a few years to circuit training/HIIT in the basement.
| That got me into very good shape in a different way than
| lifting heavy a few times a week. And now I have to
| change again -- different family schedule has taken away
| my early-morning workout slot and my short bike commute
| and so I'm trying to find the new normal. Maybe I can
| join a gym again, but with the family morning grind and
| family evening routine I cannot easily spend more than 40
| min a day on fitness, and as winter approaches the
| outside activities possible change.
|
| It is important to acknowledge the different seasons of
| life.
|
| Back to the article. Mathematicians know the power of
| walking; that's why it's a tradition for many week-long
| conferences to have a Wednesday afternoon hike. The best
| of course is the one at Oberwolfach but the hike I went
| on at Luminy is a close second. Many mathematicians run,
| play Ultimate Frisbee, rock climb, dance, etc. From my
| own experience exercise is significant in clearing my
| mind and thus enabling creativity (rather than
| rumination), and it has a significant effect on my
| resting heart rate and sleeping heart rate. Sleep in turn
| is very important to cognition and creativity. As I get
| older, the more I notice I need to pay attention to these
| things and can't take them for granted. Building exercise
| into my routine is crucial. Systems are important.
| stefs wrote:
| there's a lot of bro science regarding overtraining.
| almost all of the time it's actually undersleeping and
| undereating, i.e. recovery is the limiting factor. back
| then i was single, didn't work full time and also had
| flexible work time, so sleeping 8-10 hours a night and
| eating huge heaps of food every day was the norm.
| endurance sports are a little different in some aspects,
| mostly body weight management.
|
| i'm not the biggest fan of rippetoe. e.g. the article you
| linked is at least partially bullshit for high(er) level
| athletes (i only skimmed it though). it's important to
| keep the audience in mind though; it may be valuable
| advice for _some_.
| tsol wrote:
| The way I've heard it is 'what most people think is
| overtraining is underrecovering'. My brother is a sports
| medicine doctor and what he told me is that actual
| overtraining is pretty much only seen in real athletes
| after months of sustained excessive training. What most
| people go through is actually called 'overreaching' and
| while it's not optimal you can keep going if you recover
| properly.
| stefs wrote:
| as they say: "you get stronger on rest days". this
| applies to both endurance and strength sports. the trick
| is to use your rest days productively; it doesn't
| necessarily require being inactive (for those who really
| want to go all in).
|
| also, there's the principle of polarized training (for
| endurance sports): "go easy on the easy days, go hard on
| the hard days", because if you go to hard on the easy
| days, you can't go hard enough on the hard days.
|
| a lot of people are under the impression that giving 100%
| every time, every day is the best way, probably thanks to
| years of training montages of sly dragging sleds through
| waist deep snow and karate-kid ... idk, kicking a tree
| really hard or whatever karate kid does, when actually it
| just leads to exhaustion and burnout.
| Daishiman wrote:
| Most of the professional athletes I've met get 10-12
| hours of sleep. Now that I do lifting I need a solid 9
| hours of sleep to recover and I need to stuff my face
| full of food to make gains.
|
| Not impossible but certainly something that a lot of
| people can't do consistently if they want to have a job
| and do other things in life. Getting a half day of rest
| is almost a luxury for many.
| stefs wrote:
| yes, i usually slept without an alarm and there's a very
| noticable difference of about 2 hours between training
| and non-training days (i.e. 7 vs. 9 hours). i'm not a
| professional athlete, i'm a motivated amateur.
|
| non-athletes often think it's nice to eat whatever you
| want and not gain weight, but it's actually quite
| unpleasant to having to force feed yourself all the time;
| not at least because you start wanting to eat certain
| meals - with a purpose. it took me a ridiculous amount of
| time and effort to put on some mass.
|
| i used to go to the gym because i was bored. when i
| didn't feel great, i went to the gym because i knew i'd
| feel better afterwards. the gym was my safe space and my
| default activity. now that i have a family conditions
| have changed considerably; training is usually done late
| at night, in between obligations or on a few "me time"
| weekend hours for longer bike rides. works well enough, i
| can't complain.
| ehnto wrote:
| It's definitely about finding your personal balance of
| effort versus capacity to recover, although do make sure
| to read up on conventional wisdom and use that to guide
| you first. It takes a while to know what you're actually
| looking for.
|
| To add an anecdote, my balance changes depending on my
| focus at the time. If I'm on a strength training arc,
| it's 3 days a week at 1-2hrs a session. If I've shifted
| focus to functional fitness I can train 3-4 times a week
| at ~40minutes a session, as it just doesn't take as long
| to do the work, and doesn't take as long to recover from
| that work.
|
| Food and sleep are usually the limiting factor, I just
| can't recover fast enough and that is what over training
| really is, it's training over your capacity to recover.
| Daishiman wrote:
| I appreciate Rippetoe for getting me into strength
| training but the article is complete and utter BS and he
| does peddle quite a bit of it.
|
| The antagonistic effect of endurance training on strength
| is not really relevant for recreational runners and this
| has been show time and time again in multiple high-
| quality studies. You should only really care if you're a
| competitive lifter; a ton of people who go to the gym
| have terrible cardio, and I would argue that good cardio
| fitness is much more relevant to overall health; you
| should _not_ be getting winded going up a couple flights
| of stairs.
|
| Furthermore the cardiovascular effects of strength
| training are insufficient for all-around good health.
| Cardio stimulates different metabolic pathways that are
| very much useful in life; having done both activities I
| can tell you when I was an active marathon runner I just
| had way more energy in the tank for everything.
|
| The article makes a mention that nutrition is more
| relevant for heart health than cardiovascular
| condititioning, something that not only is just plain
| false, but also ignores that body mass is body mass and
| having an excessive amount of muscle mass does not
| correspond with cardiovascular health either.
|
| The critiques about repetitive motion in running are just
| downright ridiculous. Runners get injured, of course. So
| do people who deadlift with bad technique. As a species
| we are frankly much more adapted to running than moving
| heavy weights, as evidenced by the amount of effort our
| bodies go through to keep muscle mass off as compared to
| any other primate. There is a balance between both but
| Rippetoe just goes on about things like being "harder to
| kill" which is plain fanboying; I would contend that
| being an ultramarthon runner or an Ironman triathlete
| corresponds far better with grit and not getting killed
| over all the gymgoers that can barely run a mile.
| baxtr wrote:
| What's the one book or paper you would recommend?
| stefs wrote:
| sorry, i'm not sure what you mean. i can't recommend any
| books or papers. on the one hand i'm not a scientist
| myself, on the other hand i have no idea what you're
| interested in or what is relevant for you.
|
| but if i'd have to recommend ONE book, i'd say
| https://www.parktool.com/en-us/product/big-blue-book-of-
| bicy... - because you can't exercise at all on your bike
| if it's broken
|
| for random study reviews:
| https://www.strongerbyscience.com/research-spotlight/ ,
| for nutrition and supplements: https://examine.com/ , for
| cycling, e.g.:
| https://www.youtube.com/c/DylanJohnsonCycling
| baxtr wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| I was referring to what you said about reading.
|
| _> i began spending a lot of time reading about
| exercising instead_
| stefs wrote:
| oh, usually what came up on
| https://www.reddit.com/r/weightroom/
|
| if there's something interesting going on in the field of
| (strength) training science, it'll be linked and
| discussed there.
|
| tbh., the guys there seem to adhere to the scientific
| method a lot more than the software developers i know.
| baxtr wrote:
| Nerds and bodybuilders don't mix well. There is this smart
| guy though who "invented" a Gym for nerds only. Pretty
| cool, forgot the name.
| boringg wrote:
| I had a friend of mine who was a jock played in varsity
| athletes and was quite strong. He also happened to a be
| 100% average student in the STEM field. His professors
| were always shocked when he was the too student in the
| class - significant amount of disbelief.
| ben_w wrote:
| The stereotypical jock who isn't particularly smart, and
| the stereotypical nerd who isn't particularly fit.
|
| Stereotypes are powerful things.
| hamreh0076 wrote:
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Trigger warning: Self-promotion here. I'm not selling anything,
| though.
|
| Your brain is part of your body. It's as simple as that.
|
| I just celebrated 50 years of running:
| https://albertcory50.substack.com/p/50-years-of-running
|
| I thought long & hard about motivation and how I've kept it up.
| "Will power" is not it. And I've heard every conceivable excuse
| about why someone does _not_ exercise. Here 's a big one: "people
| will look at me weird." Or on the flip side, "All my friends
| exercise, so I have to, too." The great Richard Feynman had
| something to say about that.
|
| https://albertcory50.substack.com/p/what-do-you-care-what-ot...
|
| And lastly, don't listen to people telling you that you need a
| regular schedule that you stick to, no matter what. You will
| _never_ keep that up for long, and if you really hate some
| exercise, you 'll stop:
|
| https://albertcory50.substack.com/p/only-do-exercises-you-li...
| wazoox wrote:
| > don't listen to people telling you that you need a regular
| schedule that you stick to, no matter what. You will never keep
| that up for long...
|
| I've been running 6 days a week for 15 years now. What works
| for you may not work for other, and vice-versa. I definitely
| hated running for most of my life, and despised sport in
| general, but sticking to a routine definitely was the right
| solution for me.
| schwartzworld wrote:
| Running is an exercise that is only easy to enjoy if you
| reach and maintain a certain level of conditioning. If I run
| once a week or less, I'd never get in the zone, but once I am
| regularly running 20+ miles per week, I can start to actually
| like the way it feels.
|
| 6 days a week is a lot for most people, but I'm glad it works
| for you. For me, it's easier to think of it in terms of miles
| per week. I can't commit to 6 days, but I can commit to 15 or
| 20 miles.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| andscoop wrote:
| This comment reads antagonistic and oppositional. I don't
| think you should have a monopoly on advice just because
| you've been doing something for longer.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| You're so sensitive. He was oppositional first.
|
| Anyone can keep something up for a while. Eventually it
| builds up. In the case of running, you get knee problems,
| foot problems, and shin splints. If I only had a dime for
| everyone who's said, "You're lucky. I can't run anymore!"
| I'd have, well, several dollars.
|
| You're right, I don't have a monopoly. Go ahead and offer
| your own. Do you have some?
| andscoop wrote:
| My advice is to not take things too personally.
| 0xcde4c3db wrote:
| > So, here's the speculation / thesis: exercising, that is,
| operating our bodies at a higher than baseline level, with
| everything that entails - energy regulation, unconscious
| balancing, spatial awareness, etc - requires more computing power
| than crosswords, sudoku, finding relations between measure theory
| and first-order logic through category theory, etc
|
| Even if this is true (which seems plausible, but I'm not aware of
| it being proven), I don't think it tells us anything about the
| extent to which we're looking at "exercise inhibits cognitive
| decline" vs. "cognitive decline inhibits exercise".
| Quixotica1 wrote:
| I try to exercise 3 days a week and can say it dramatically
| improves my mental performance as well as my overall disposition.
| Always find it sad when people are against exercise and at the
| same time seem like they could really even fit from the emotional
| psychological boost
| [deleted]
| rosstex wrote:
| Reminder for Hacker News readers to step outside more than once a
| month so you can realize this naturally instead of applying your
| booksmart brains to reinvent things that most people not glued to
| their screens already know.
| teej wrote:
| It was once widely believed that for the body to be healthy, it
| needed the right balance of "humors": black bile, yellow bile,
| phlegm, and blood. That was partially right, but mostly wrong.
| We don't believe that model any more.
|
| It's always valuable to reassess common knowledge. That is the
| heart of human progress.
| rosstex wrote:
| Even so, the number of people in the comments asking for book
| recommendations on fitness and nutrition shows that many
| people here would rather cling to their comfort zone of
| digging deeper. You can re-evaluate words on paper all day,
| but it will never, ever compare to the understanding you get
| from actually trying the thing you want to understand.
| pcf wrote:
| The book "Spark" by John Ratey also talks a lot about how regular
| aerobic exercise simply balances out a lot of systems, and very
| likely will help against everything from depression to
| Alzheimers.
| spmurrayzzz wrote:
| I came here to post the same thing re: Ratey's work. Spark has
| been an important book for me, it's the reason I bought an
| exercise bike for my apartment. I've always worked out 2 or 3
| times per week, but extended high heart rate cardio was
| something I always avoided before I discovered the
| neurological/cognitive benefits.
| beebeepka wrote:
| I guess it depends on what one considers "exercise". I don't
| think lifting weights in disgusting smelly rooms translates
| improved cognition by itself but I don't mind if people think it
| does.
|
| That said, I experienced a real physical and mental decline
| quickly after I gave up my morning routine because it was too
| hot. I felt it mere weeks into the pause. Pretty ordinary.
| xeromal wrote:
| I don't think the author required that you had to go to the
| gym. You can always work out at home and smell your own BO.
| beebeepka wrote:
| The "article" is two short paragraphs. They didn't say much
| of anything.
|
| Take my comment as a meta commentary - making fun of the bro
| science here that I didn't want to engage directly.
| matai_kolila wrote:
| One thing I've learned over the years is to completely ignore
| anything you read on HN related to health and wellness...
| mrwh wrote:
| For me, I feel best running a couple of times a week. More than
| that and it becomes fatiguing, less and I feel heavier, my back
| plays up, etc. I say running, I mean jogging, and not seriously
| either, just a couple of miles around the neighborhood. While
| I've no idea whether this is the actual physiological effect, it
| does feel like an internal power wash of sorts.
|
| As I write this, a family jogs past. It's rather sweet.
| irrational wrote:
| There are a number of things that take effort, but I know I will
| feel much better afterwards and be happy I did them. But it takes
| so much to get myself to do them that they often don't get done
| in favor of low effort low to medium reward things.
| ghotli wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurobiological_effects_of_p...
|
| "Neurobiological effects of physical exercise"
|
| Lots of handwavy / subjective comments led me to post this.
|
| Personally I prefer understanding the acronyms as to what's been
| measured in the body due to regular exercise. No need for
| anything less than hard detail, imo. BDNF/VEGF expression, etc
| etc. Worth reading and looking up all the words you don't know
| yet.
| 0xcde4c3db wrote:
| I agree that this is a good idea overall, but also keep in mind
| that there are some major caveats:
|
| 1) A specific measure going up or down with exercise might or
| might not actually lead to the practical improvements that
| "should" go with it (cf. Goodhart's law)
|
| 2) Many studies are poorly designed or outright defective, and
| it tends to take a shockingly long time for people to stop
| routinely citing known-bad studies.
|
| 3) Even studies that lack fundamental flaws still often come
| with major practical limitations that tend to undermine
| attempts to generalize them. Exercise studies in particular are
| often limited to either "healthy" people of a relatively narrow
| age range or people who have a specific medical condition. In
| the latter case, there may be exclusion criteria that render
| the sample population non-representative of the overall
| population with that condition (e.g. in terms of overall
| severity, specific complications, or comorbidities).
|
| 4) Results are often summarized in a way that exaggerates their
| importance. A small effect size might be glossed over by
| emphasizing the large percentage of subjects for whom the
| change was statistically significant, for example.
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| Let's suppose for a moment that the numerous studies showing the
| benefits of exercise don't exist and its influence on cognition
| is neutral. Shouldn't you move, then? On the contrary - exercise
| is absolutely necessary for our survival and minimizing the
| probability of a huge number of illnesses, from cardiac problem
| to cancers. So a person who is not exercising is basically
| neglecting their condition.
|
| Now, when you add the numerous cognitive benefits to the
| equation, you would be crazy _not_ to add some movements to your
| daily routine. Literally everything counts. I use every
| opportunity to increase my oxygen and blood flow - and I 'm not
| surprised that the best ideas come when I'm _not_ in front of my
| computer.
| 90d wrote:
| This is so admirably true. My workout story started at 30. I
| spent one year doing pull ups, dips, push ups, squats.. various
| weight training as well. At a certain point I had improved my
| diet just to change my workouts. I want as many blessings to
| resonate through me from the universe as possible. I don't even
| have any preconceptions of what those will be; I have done my
| best to accept them. The effects of time under tension become
| remarkable for mental and cardiovascular health if you find a
| routine you enjoy. Start with a group, friend who goes, many non-
| national gyms will even have someone let you around if you call
| in.
|
| For me it was the local park having some shaded calisthenics
| equipment. Do a search in your area!! There is no pressure there,
| its outside, there is people of course it improves you! It can
| teach you all you need to know for atleast 6 months to a year if
| you let it.
|
| Anyone you come across will either not bother or be very
| friendly. Most commonly the regulars working out at these parks
| have a cool and unique mindset and would answer any workout
| question for you. After a year THEN try all that fancy stuff you
| would have possibly ego-lifted, struggled/injured yourself on.
| You will be amazed at your performance.
| pstuart wrote:
| > you want as many blessings to resonate through you from the
| universe as possible
|
| That's a keeper.
| dav wrote:
| Exercise (and particularly strength as opposed to cardio) is now
| well established to reduce many aging related effects, including
| around cognition.
|
| I suggest the book Defy Aging by Beth Bennett for a HN level deep
| dive into the science.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > Recent advances in AI, and less recent advances in computing in
| general showed that a lot of the things we consider "cognitively
| hard"...can be reproduced by computer machinery a lot simpler
| than we originally thought...
|
| > Robots still have a hard time navigating terrain and
| manipulating stuff
|
| I actually think you're seeing the same thing. The way DALL-E
| screws up important details is the same as how self-driving cars
| work perfectly fine 99% of the time. The devil is in the details.
| Py-o7 wrote:
| There's a lot of literature on various kinds of cardio (esp HIIT
| and 'zone 2') and lactate production -> BDNF which is loosely
| understood to be very important for your brain.
|
| Some more recent stuff on myokine release (from strength or
| cardio training) and warding off cognitive decline. Similar with
| training your balance (a parameter in exercise that is often
| forgotten).
|
| More speculatively: crosswords and sudoku seem fine, but what
| about something much more cognitively demanding like doing
| serious mathematics?
| alfor wrote:
| Infrared too.
|
| Infrared from the sun penetrate the skull and prevent
| inflammation in the brain. The effect is reduced dementia in
| people tha go outside. The infrared is reflected by the plants
| and thus walking in the shade of tree give increase of infrared
| exposure.
|
| It affect every cell of our body (mitochondria in fact)
|
| (Our biology has not evolved inside)
| SnowHill9902 wrote:
| I'd go as far as to say that the burden of proof is on anybody
| claiming that regular exercise is _not_ as fundamental as regular
| eating or regular sleeping or regular breathing. Reductionist,
| functionalist science has been extremely harmful in shaping how
| people understand themselves.
| fkregexp wrote:
| Read the title as "what if regular expressions is the best
| cognitive exercise" and I was fairly skeptical.
| ciconia wrote:
| I don't do any workout at all. Nevertheless, I'm very physically
| active. I work from home, and in general I set my own schedule.
| Whenever I want, I can open the door, go out, work some in the
| garden, build something, or do any of the house chores - doing
| the dishes, making bread, cooking something, fixing something. It
| keeps me on my feet basically the whole day long.
|
| I've been doing this every single day for the last few months,
| and it just feels so good, so satisfying. I feel sharp, in form,
| _physically content_. I also feel it gives me a solid emotional
| center, a calmness and a deep feeling of connection to the
| moment.
| osigurdson wrote:
| Single datapoint: I ran 50k per week on average for 1.5 years
| during Covid. I don't feel it changed my cognitive ability. I
| also deeply believe that exercise should make a difference in
| these areas. I'm at a loss to explain the lack of impact that it
| had.
| gateorade wrote:
| 50k per week is kind of a lot. I'm assuming you were training
| for something specific and were therefore on top of it, but
| that amount of work could definitely negatively effect your
| cognitive ability if you weren't getting enough
| calories/protein/water/sodium to replenish what you were
| losing.
| robocat wrote:
| "Running" starts at about 10km/h: say 5 hours spread over a
| week is not a lot. Walking is about 5 km/h, jogging is in-
| between. Average pace is something near 10 km/h for Strava
| users aged 20 to 49:
| https://www.healthline.com/health/fitness-
| exercise/average-r...
| osigurdson wrote:
| It is more about the metabolic situation that you put your
| body in vs an explicit pace.
|
| Elite runners can easily be in fully aerobic zones at 4
| min/km paces, while unfit runners could be getting into
| anaerobic zones at double that.
|
| I'm not sure why but "jogging" is a term that isn't
| commonly used these days. Perhaps it is because one
| person's easy run can be pretty fast while another's full
| out run (beyond 500m or so) can look like jogging.
| osigurdson wrote:
| I wasn't so much that cognitive ability was lower. It just
| wasn't any different. Basically, no observable impact on
| anything, positive or negative from this 18-month experiment.
| osigurdson wrote:
| I built up to that over a few months. Basically, three 10Ks
| during the week + 20K on the weekend. I was using the
| Maffetone approach so none of these runs were taxing.
| Madmallard wrote:
| What is a surprise to literally no one...
|
| Exercise improves blood flow which improves cognition. It's not
| complicated at all whatsoever.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| I did the stairway to heaven in hike in Hawaii. Started when it
| was still dark. It was exhausting, but in many ways it felt mind
| opening. Certain physical experiences build neural connections
| that you can't get any other way. Just being in a position to
| slip and die will make you alert and releases adrenaline, and you
| need to focus. Regular mountain climbers are probably different
| humans. Plus the views were spectacular.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| The problem I have with the exercise community is that (usually
| unintentionally) they made it look complicated and expensive.
|
| A 25 minute walk while listening to a podcast each day has done
| absolute wonders for everything in my life.
| johnfn wrote:
| Haha, yeah. Free doesn't have much of a marketing budget. :)
| hnthrowaway0328 wrote:
| Once one has a kid he/she will immediately realize that physical
| competence is not a luxury but a must-have for basic survival.
| abbadadda wrote:
| "Exercise turns out to be the closest thing to a wonder drug that
| self-control scientists have discovered. For starters, the
| willpower benefits of exercise are immediate. Fifteen minutes on
| a treadmill reduces cravings, as seen when researchers try to
| tempt dieters with chocolate and smokers with cigarettes. The
| long-term effects of exercise are even more impressive. It not
| only relieves ordinary, everyday stress, but it's as powerful an
| antidepressant as Prozac. Working out also enhances the biology
| of self-control by increasing baseline heart rate variability and
| training the brain. When neuroscientists have peered inside the
| brains of new exercisers, they have seen increases in both gray
| matter--brain cells--and white matter, the insulation on brain
| cells that helps them communicate quickly and efficiently with
| each other. Physical exercise--like meditation--makes your brain
| bigger and faster, and the prefrontal cortex shows the largest
| training effect." - Kelly McGonigal
| adverbly wrote:
| When I read things like this I can't help but wonder why so
| many "gym rats" are... lets just say "not quite all there".
| Obviously some are far above, above, or of average cognitive
| abilities, but at my school many athletes/kinesthesiology
| students were embarrassingly, shockingly bad at
| math/science/logic despite spending by far the most time in the
| gym - and all the tutoring in the world doesn't seem to make up
| for it.
| ok123456 wrote:
| You restricted your sample to student athletes and
| kinesthesiology majors. There are plenty of people who work
| out regularly who don't fall into those categories.
|
| The student athletes are, likely, being forced to seek out
| tutoring to remain on an active roster. Academics is not
| generally their top concern, and they're being coerced to see
| you. They're there to check a box.
|
| I'm sure there are good people going through a
| kinesthesiology program, but it doesn't have the best
| reputation for attracting the best students.
| jrh206 wrote:
| > as seen when researchers try to tempt dieters with chocolate
| and smokers with cigarettes
|
| This sounds so unethical. If I were a dieter or ex-smoker I
| would definitely not sign up for this sort of study.
| dimmke wrote:
| I read this title as "what if regular expressions are the best
| cognitive exercise?"
|
| And decided I would rather just be dumb in the span of 2 seconds.
| soheil wrote:
| I first read that as "what if regular expressions are the best
| cognitive exercise?" and found it much more interesting.
| lavp wrote:
| The author ignores the fact that we utilize a lot of computing
| power in training artificial intelligence.
|
| Where exactly would 'learning' fit in this analogy?
| polskibus wrote:
| Apparently squats are great for mental abilities, compared to
| other types of exercise.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p09v8wyh/a-simple-exercise-th...
| bob1029 wrote:
| Back squats are amazing. If you want to recruit _even more_
| muscle groups, you can try front squats instead. These are
| typically a precursor /supporting exercise for olympic lifting.
| adverbly wrote:
| Interesting piece.
|
| I've heard similar evidence in the past about how physical
| exercise is "good for the mind". If the author's reasoning about
| the computational requirements for motion are correct though,
| perhaps we need to do a bit of digging into why yoga/meditation
| is also supposedly quite "good for the mind", and yet they are
| significantly less complex from a motion standpoint than things
| such as martial arts/dancing/sports - which don't have the same
| reputation. Would love to see some research done though!
| ninjinxo wrote:
| What if sleep is the best cognitive exercise?
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| Anecdotally, exercising regularly has improved my sleep quite a
| lot.
| thinkharderdev wrote:
| Depends on the relevant margin. If you get adequate sleep then
| sleeping more won't help (and may actually hurt) but exercise
| can actually raise the baseline. To use a very rough analogy,
| sleep is like the fan in your computer. If it's working
| optimally it ensures you can utilize the CPU close to its
| physical limit. But exercise is like upgrading the CPU.
| caycecan wrote:
| Barbara Tversky's book "Mind in Motion" is a great read on how
| our minds are inextricable form locomotion will add tons of data
| and hypotheses to this idea https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Motion-
| Action-Shapes-Thought/dp/...
|
| And yes her husband was Amos Tversky, co-author of "Thinking,
| Fast and Slow"
| blackoil wrote:
| Our brain is made of different parts with different
| responsibility. Will exercising one part materially help rest?
| For body we have exercise schedule, does something similar exist
| for brain?
| scmitton wrote:
| There's a recent freakonomics episode that talks about this
| question (13:18) https://freakonomics.com/podcast/can-you-learn-
| to-love-hard-...
|
| The host Stephen Dubner sites a piece in psychology today that
| argues physical activity is strongly connected with cognitive
| function. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-
| way/201...
| ourmandave wrote:
| Ah, but what if _regular expressions_ are the best cognitive
| exercise?
|
| ~ Regex email address validation committee
| someweirdperson wrote:
| The story is about the brain computing power needed for exercise,
| not the physical aspect. Obviously, different kinds of exercise
| require different computing power. Playing a musical instrument
| likely requires as much brain activity as physical exercise,
| without much of the physical part, and should work as well to
| keep the brain active.
| travisporter wrote:
| I think this study is relevant. Athletes do a ton of processing
| https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn2672
| delecti wrote:
| It's an interesting idea, but I don't think it matches my
| subjective experience.
|
| I think better when I've been exercising, but it doesn't feel
| like I've given my brain a workout so much as it feels like I
| gave it percussive maintenance. It feels like exercise turns the
| sound of my subconscious from a buzzy rattle to a gentle hum,
| keeping it out of my way except to help. It very much does _not_
| feel like I 've given my mind a workout.
|
| Though I also have unmedicated ADHD, so my subjective experience
| of my subconscious might be different than most.
| curiousllama wrote:
| I also have unmedicated, diagnosed adhd. I view it as training
| my brain to STFU. It's gotten good enough that in my every day
| life, I find that now, even a few sets of push ups can help me
| reset when I'm in a doom loop.
| ericbarrett wrote:
| How old are you (roughly)?
|
| When I was in my 20s and 30s, my health varied a lot; sometimes
| I was sedentary and sometimes I was very active. But I never
| noticed a cognitive effect.
|
| Now that I'm well into my 40s, it's very noticeable when I've
| been off the exercise wagon. Not day to day, but definitely on
| timescales of a week or two. When I'm active, my recall is
| sharper and my memory clearer. I also feel this with my diet
| (real vs. processed foods) and drinking.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| Not the op, but I am 45, did a lot of sport till my 20s, I
| don't exercise anymore, since at least 20 years, what I
| notice now is the lack of proper rest: not sleeping enough,
| for example.
|
| Exercise actually makes me numb these days and I need a
| couple of days to recover.
|
| While immersing in deep focused studying or exercising my
| mind by learning new stuff, makes me feel a lot better and
| much sharper.
|
| To each his own I think.
|
| edit: a friend of mine who never did sports at young age
| tells me he feels better now that he goes swimming regularly
| at the age of 42, but who can tell if it is just because
| exercise is a new experience to him?
| ericbarrett wrote:
| > While immersing in deep focused studying or exercising my
| mind by learning new stuff, makes me feel a lot better and
| much sharper.
|
| I certainly agree with you on this. In my case, a healthy
| lifestyle makes taking on new challenges much easier: I'm
| less intimidated, and less frustrated by the slope of the
| inevitable learning curve.
| tsol wrote:
| >Exercise actually makes me numb these days and I need a
| couple of days to recover.
|
| Sounds like you're under-recovering. With proper food and
| rest, a normal intensity exercise shouldn't make you feel
| tired the next day. I had a similar problem and turns out I
| wasn't eating enough protein(I have to get in at least 200
| grams when working out or I feel awful, idk why)
| dfc wrote:
| I couldn't agree more. I like running but what I really enjoy
| is the change in my daily quality of life when I am regularly
| running.
| delecti wrote:
| I'm in my mid 30s, and feel that same effect on the
| timescales of a week. I was particularly sedentary for most
| of my youth, and have only been intermittently active since
| my early 20s.
| [deleted]
| przemub wrote:
| I read it as "regular expression". God help me.
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