The Positive Effects of Cardio Exercises onBrain Power Candia Ndayizigiye University of Toronto, Mississauga Karen Asp’s article “Howexercise boosts your brain power” explores the importance of cardiovascularexercise in regards to memory, productivity, problem solving and stress.Firstly, Asp states that the increase of blood flow and hormones (inparticular, serotonin, dopepinene, nophinpine) improves memory and recall. Shesupports this idea by drawing on the study directed by the Frontiers in HumanNeuroscience. This research article explores the role of cardiovascular fitnesson the hippocampus (responsible for memory and learning). In the experimentresearchers “scanned the brains ofpeople who exercised for one hour per day , three days a week for six months”(Kirk et al., 2011) The results correlated that an increase in the hippocampus helpedparticipants perform better on memory tasks.
Another important pointAsp made is that there is a positive correlation between exercise andproductivity. She supports this claim by using research conducted by the InternationalJournal of Workplace Health Management. In the experiment, researchersconcluded that “people who exercised during their workday were 23 percent moreproductive on days they didn’t exercise”. (Coulson, McKenna, Field, 2008).Thirdly,Asp also stated that exercising can have a decrease on stress. She support thisidea by drawing on the study presented by the Society of Neuroscience. In theexperiment, researchers found that “rats that were allowed to run beforehand ofbeing subjected to stress reacted less to the stress than those that hadn’t(Reynolds G, 2009,).
Regardless, even if the research was conducted on rats itis the same for humans. Lastly, Asp stated thatthe intensity of cardiovascular exercise (in particular with women) can helpwith problem solving/memory improvement. She supports this claim by usingresearch conducted by the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory. In theexperiment, researchers “found that people learned vocabulary words 20 percentfaster after intense exercise than after a low intensity activity”( Winteret al., 2007) Literature Search1) “Scanned the brains ofpeople who exercised for one hour per day, three days a week for six months”The original source wasfrom the journal “Frontiers in Human Neuroscience” research paper “Highercardiorespiratory fitness levels are associated with greater hippocampal volumein breast cancer survivors” . The major indicators of finding theoriginal source was using the keywords hippocampus and cardiovascular fitness. Inaddition, another clue presented in the text, was also using thekey words in the journal “Frontiers in Human Neuroscience”.
Chaddock-Heyman, L., Mackenzie, M. J., Zuniga, K.
,Cooke, G. E., Awick, E., Roberts, S., Kramer, A.
F. (2015). Highercardiorespiratory fitness levels are associated with greater hippocampal volumein breast cancer survivors. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 9, 3017- 3022.doi:10.
3389/fnhum.2015.00465 2) “People who exercised during theirworkday were 23 percent more productive on days they didn’t exercise.The original source was from the from theInternational Journal of Workplace Health Management research paper “Exercisingat work and self?reportedwork performance”.
The major indicators of finding theoriginal source was using key words on the International Journal of WorkplaceHealth Management such as work performance and exercise. McKenna, J., Coulson, J.
, & Field, M.(2008). Exercising at work and self?reported workperformance.
International Journal of Workplace Health Management, 1(3),176-197. Retrieved January 22, 2018, fromhttp://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/17538350810926534 3) “Rats that wereallowed to run beforehand of being subjected to stress reacted less to thestress than those that hadn’tThe original source was presentedat the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Chicago.
Themajor indicators of finding the original source was using the keywords rats andstress on Google scholar. In addition, another clue presented in the text wasusing the same key words in the University of Toronto library database.Reynolds, G. (2009, November 22). PHYS ED;Stress Relief. Retrieved from http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.
html?res=9806E4DA1438F931A15752C1A96F9C8B63 4) “Found that peoplelearned vocabulary words 20 percent faster after intense exercise than after alow intensity activity”The original source wasfrom PubMed’sarticle “High impact running improves learning”. The majorindicators on finding the original source was using the key words High impactrunning, learning and Neurobiology of Learning and Memory. In addition, anotherclue presented in the text was using the same key words on the PubMed’sdatabase.Winter, B.
, Breitenstein,C., Mooren, F., Voelker, K., Fobker, M., Lechtermann, A.
, Knecht, S. (2006).High impact running improves learning. PubMed, 87(4), 597-609.
doi:10.1016/j.nlm.2006.11.003
