Continuing my discussion on how exercise improves creativity and executive function--and thus the writing process--today we'll focus on a recent study that examines how aerobic exercise fares compared to resistance exercise. In other word, what's better for the writing process, lifting or running? Should you go for a 5 mile run or a 60 minute weight routine?
Runners, rejoice!
Authors of an April 2009 article in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise entitled "The Effect of Acute Aerobic and Resistance Exercise on Working Memory" found that running reduced reaction time and increased accuracy on a working memory test, while resistance training had no effect. The article was published by a group of researchers in the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health at the University of Illinois.
Subjects (all undergraduate students) in the study were placed in three groups. One was the control group at rest, one completed 30 minutes of treadmill running at 60-70% VO2 max, and the last group completed three sets of 8-12 reps at 80% of their one-rep max for each of the seven major muscle groups. The resistance participants rested for 60 seconds between each set and 90 seconds between each exercise.
After exercise, participants were given a cognitive task that required them to encode a set containing either three, five, or seven letters and to then decide whether a single "probe letter" was present in the set. Subjects were tested both immediately after their workouts and again 30 minutes later.
The researchers found shorter response time during the tasks for the 30 minute treadmill group, both immediately and 30 minutes after their exercise session. Similar effects were not observed in the resistance training group. The researchers said that "shorter RT (response time) latency was observed for task conditions requiring increased working memory capacity after aerobic exercise, relative to the pretest, providing support for the view that changes in cognitive function after acute exercise are disproportionately larger for tasks requiring greater amounts of executive control."
So it appears as if aerobic exercise has a beneficial effect on tasks requiring executive control, or those that require higher-order thinking like writing. While researchers are still trying to determine why, the prevailing thought is that increased blood flow to the brain--present during aerobic exercise, which increases heart rate, but not nearly as much during weight training--increases the movement of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), affectionately known as "Miracle Gro for the Brain," across the synapses.
Comments