Five profound ways physical exercise shapes your brain and mind

We’ve all heard that exer­cise is good for us—how it strength­ens our hearts and lungs, and helps us pre­vent dis­eases like dia­betes. That’s why so many of us like to make New Year’s res­o­lu­tions to move more, know­ing it will make us health­i­er and live longer.

But many peo­ple don’t know about the oth­er impor­tant ben­e­fits of exercise—how it can help us find hap­pi­ness, hope, con­nec­tion, and courage.

Around the world, peo­ple who are phys­i­cal­ly active are hap­pi­er and more sat­is­fied with their lives. They have a stronger sense of pur­pose and expe­ri­ence more grat­i­tude, love, and hope. They feel more con­nect­ed to their com­mu­ni­ties, and are less like­ly to suf­fer from lone­li­ness or become depressed.

These ben­e­fits are seen through­out the lifes­pan, includ­ing among those liv­ing with seri­ous men­tal and phys­i­cal health chal­lenges. That’s true whether their pre­ferred activ­i­ty is walk­ing, run­ning, swim­ming, danc­ing, bik­ing, play­ing sports, lift­ing weights, or prac­tic­ing yoga.

Why is move­ment linked to such a wide range of psy­cho­log­i­cal ben­e­fits? One rea­son is its pow­er­ful and pro­found effects on the brain. Here are five ways that being active is good for your brain—and how you can har­ness these ben­e­fits yourself.

1. Physical accomplishments change how you think about yourself

Every time you move your body, sen­so­ry recep­tors in your mus­cles, ten­dons, and joints send infor­ma­tion to your brain about what is hap­pen­ing. This is why if you close your eyes and raise one arm, you can feel the shift in posi­tion and know where your arm is in space. You don’t have to watch what’s hap­pen­ing; you can sense yourself.

The abil­i­ty to per­ceive your body’s move­ments is called pro­pri­o­cep­tion, and is some­times referred to as the “sixth sense.” It helps us move through space with ease and skill and plays a sur­pris­ing­ly impor­tant role in self-concept—how you think about who you are and how you imag­ine oth­ers see you.

When you par­tic­i­pate in any phys­i­cal activ­i­ty, your moment-to-moment sense of self is shaped by the qual­i­ties of your move­ment. If you move with grace, your brain per­ceives the elon­ga­tion of your limbs and the flu­id­i­ty of your steps, and real­izes, “I am grace­ful.” When you move with pow­er, your brain encodes the explo­sive con­trac­tion of mus­cles, sens­es the speed of the action, and under­stands, “I am pow­er­ful.” If there is a voice in your head say­ing, “You’re too old, too awk­ward, too big, too bro­ken, too weak,” sen­sa­tions from move­ment can pro­vide a com­pelling counterargument.

Phys­i­cal accom­plish­ments change how you think about your­self and what you are capa­ble of, and the effect should not be under­es­ti­mat­ed. One woman I spoke with shared a sto­ry about when she was in her ear­ly 20s and found her­self severe­ly depressed, with a plan to take her own life. The day she intend­ed to go through with it, she went to the gym for one last work­out. She dead­lift­ed 185 pounds, a per­son­al best. When she put the bar down, she real­ized that she didn’t want to die. Instead, she remem­bers, “I want­ed to see how strong I could become.” Five years lat­er, she can now dead­lift 300 pounds.

2. Exercise makes you more resilient

Courage is anoth­er side effect of phys­i­cal activ­i­ty on the brain. At the very same time that a new exer­cise habit is enhanc­ing the reward sys­tem, it also increas­es neur­al con­nec­tions among areas of the brain that calm anx­i­ety. Reg­u­lar phys­i­cal activ­i­ty can also mod­i­fy the default state of the ner­vous sys­tem so that it becomes more bal­anced and less prone to fight, flight, or fright.

The lat­est research even sug­gests that lactate—the meta­bol­ic by-prod­uct of exer­cise that is com­mon­ly, but erro­neous­ly, blamed for mus­cle soreness—has pos­i­tive effects on men­tal health. After lac­tate is released by mus­cles, it trav­els through the blood­stream to the brain, where it alters your neu­ro­chem­istry in a way that can reduce anx­i­ety and pro­tect against depression.

Some­times, the move­ment itself allows us to expe­ri­ence our­selves as brave, as the lan­guage we use to describe courage relies on metaphors of the body. We over­come obsta­cles, break through bar­ri­ers, and walk through fire. We car­ry bur­dens, reach out for help, and lift one anoth­er up. This is how we as humans talk about brav­ery and resilience.

When we are faced with adver­si­ty or doubt­ing our own strength, it can help to feel these actions in our bod­ies. The mind instinc­tive­ly makes sense out of phys­i­cal actions. Some­times we need to climb an actu­al hill, pull our­selves up, or work togeth­er to shoul­der a heavy load to know that these traits are a part of us.

3. Exercise can make your brain more sensitive to joy

When you exer­cise, you pro­vide a low-dose jolt to the brain’s reward centers—the sys­tem of the brain that helps you antic­i­pate plea­sure, feel moti­vat­ed, and main­tain hope. Over time, reg­u­lar exer­cise remod­els the reward sys­tem, lead­ing to high­er cir­cu­lat­ing lev­els of dopamine and more avail­able dopamine recep­tors. In this way, exer­cise can both relieve depres­sion and expand your capac­i­ty for joy.

These changes can also repair the neu­ro­log­i­cal hav­oc wreaked by sub­stance abuse. Sub­stance abuse low­ers the lev­el of dopamine in your brain and reduces the avail­abil­i­ty of dopamine recep­tors in the reward sys­tem. As result, peo­ple strug­gling with addic­tion can feel unmo­ti­vat­ed, depressed, anti­so­cial, and unable to enjoy ordi­nary plea­sures. Exer­cise can reverse this.

In one ran­dom­ized tri­al, adults in treat­ment for metham­phet­a­mine abuse par­tic­i­pat­ed in an hour of walk­ing, jog­ging, and strength train­ing three times a week. After eight weeks, their brains showed an increase in dopamine recep­tor avail­abil­i­ty in the reward system.

Jump-start­ing the brain’s reward sys­tem ben­e­fits not just those who strug­gle with depres­sion or addic­tion. Our brains change as we age, and adults lose up to 13 per­cent of the dopamine recep­tors in the reward sys­tem with each pass­ing decade. This loss leads to less enjoy­ment of every­day plea­sures, but phys­i­cal activ­i­ty can pre­vent the decline. Com­pared to their inac­tive peers, active old­er adults have reward sys­tems that more close­ly resem­ble those of indi­vid­u­als who are decades younger.

4. The exercise “high” primes you to connect with others

Although typ­i­cal­ly described as a runner’s high, an exer­cise-induced mood boost is not exclu­sive to run­ning. A sim­i­lar bliss can be found in any sus­tained phys­i­cal activity.

Sci­en­tists have long spec­u­lat­ed that endor­phins are behind the high, but research shows the high is linked to anoth­er class of brain chem­i­cals: endo­cannabi­noids (the same chem­i­cals mim­ic­ked by cannabis)—what neu­ro­sci­en­tists describe as “don’t wor­ry, be hap­py” chemicals.

Areas of the brain that reg­u­late the stress response, includ­ing the amyg­dala and pre­frontal cor­tex, are rich in recep­tors for endo­cannabi­noids. When endo­cannabi­noid mol­e­cules lock into these recep­tors, they reduce anx­i­ety and induce a state of con­tent­ment. Endo­cannabi­noids also increase dopamine in the brain’s reward sys­tem, which fur­ther fuels feel­ings of optimism.

This exer­cise high also primes us to con­nect with oth­ers, by increas­ing the plea­sure we derive from being around oth­er peo­ple, which can strength­en rela­tion­ships. Many peo­ple use exer­cise as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­nect with friends or loved ones. Among mar­ried cou­ples, when spous­es exer­cise togeth­er, both part­ners report more close­ness lat­er that day, includ­ing feel­ing loved and supported.

Anoth­er study found that on days when peo­ple exer­cise, they report more pos­i­tive inter­ac­tions with friends and fam­i­ly. As one run­ner said to me, “My fam­i­ly will some­times send me out run­ning, as they know that I will come back a much bet­ter person.”

5. Moving with others builds trust and belonging

In 1912, French soci­ol­o­gist E?mile Durkheim coined the term col­lec­tive effer­ves­cence to describe the euphor­ic self-tran­scen­dence indi­vid­u­als feel when they move togeth­er in rit­u­al, prayer, or work. Mov­ing with others—for exam­ple, in group exer­cise, yoga, or dance classes—is one of the most pow­er­ful ways to expe­ri­ence joy.

Psy­chol­o­gists believe the key to pro­duc­ing col­lec­tive joy is synchrony—moving in the same way, and at the same time, as others—because it trig­gers a release of endor­phins. This is why dancers and row­ers who move in synch show an increase in pain tolerance.

But endor­phins don’t just make us feel good; they help us bond, too. Peo­ple shar­ing an endor­phin rush through a col­lec­tive activ­i­ty like, trust, and feel clos­er to one anoth­er after­ward. It’s a pow­er­ful neu­ro­bi­o­log­i­cal mech­a­nism for form­ing friend­ships, even with peo­ple we don’t know.

Group exer­cise has man­aged to cap­i­tal­ize on the social ben­e­fits of syn­chro­nized move­ment. For exam­ple, the more you get your heart rate up, the clos­er you feel to the peo­ple you move in uni­son with, and adding music enhances the effect. Breath­ing in uni­son can also ampli­fy the feel­ing of col­lec­tive joy, as may hap­pen in a yoga class.

We were born with brains able to craft a sense of con­nec­tion to oth­ers that is as vis­cer­al as the feed­back com­ing from our own heart, lungs, and mus­cles. That is an aston­ish­ing thing! We humans can go about most of our lives, sens­ing and feel­ing our­selves as sep­a­rate, but through one small action—coming togeth­er in movement—we dis­solve the bound­aries that divide us.

Clear­ly, we were born to move, and the effects of exer­cise on our psy­cho­log­i­cal and social well-being are many. So, why not start the new year right and add more move­ment to your life? No doubt you’ll feel bet­ter, be hap­pi­er, and have bet­ter social rela­tion­ships because of it.

– This essay is adapt­ed from The Joy of Move­ment: How Exer­cise Helps Us Find Hap­pi­ness, Hope, Con­nec­tion, and Courage, by Kel­ly McGo­ni­gal, Ph.D. Dr. McGo­ni­gal’s lat­est book explores why phys­i­cal exer­cise is a pow­er­ful anti­dote to the mod­ern epi­demics of depres­sion, anx­i­ety, and lone­li­ness. Based at UC-Berke­ley, the Greater Good Sci­ence Cen­ter high­lights ground break­ing sci­en­tif­ic research into the roots of com­pas­sion and altruism.

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About SharpBrains

SHARPBRAINS is an independent think-tank and consulting firm providing services at the frontier of applied neuroscience, health, leadership and innovation.
SHARPBRAINS es un think-tank y consultoría independiente proporcionando servicios para la neurociencia aplicada, salud, liderazgo e innovación.

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