If you wanted to ensure your mind was in top gear, which do you think would provide the better preparation – 15 minutes of calm relaxation, or a 15 minute jog?
A study involving 101 undergrad students suggests you’d be better off plumping for the latter.
Evidence had already accumulated showing that relatively brief, moderate aerobic exercise – like going for a brisk walk or a jog – has immediate benefits for mental functioning, especially speed and attentional control. A parallel literature has also documented how brief, aerobic exercise has beneficial effects on your mood, including making you feel more energetic, even when you don’t expect it to. In their new paper in Acta Psychologica, Fabian Legrand and his colleagues bridged these findings by looking to see if the emotional effects of exercise might be at least partly responsible for the cognitive benefits.
They asked their participants to rate how energetic and vigorous they were feeling and then to complete two cognitive tests (versions of the Trail Making Test, which involves drawing lines between numbers and letters as fast and as accurately as possible).
Next, they allocated half their student participants to go for a 15 minute group jog around the campus and the others to spend the same time following group relaxation exercises. Finally, two minutes after the jog/relaxation session, the students answered the same questions as before about their feelings of energy, and then they repeated the cognitive tests.
The students who went for a jog, but not the relaxation students, subsequently showed significant improvement on the version of the Trail Making Test that measures mental speed and attentional control (but not the other that taps memory and cognitive switching). Moreover, this improvement in cognition was fully mediated by their increased feelings of energy and vigour, implying – although not proving conclusively – that the jog boosted cognition through its effects on their subjective sense of having more energy (in contrast, the relaxation group actually felt dramatically less energetic).
Among the study limitations was the fact the relaxation session took place inside, while the jog was outside. Notwithstanding this issue and some others, and while recognising the need for more research, Legrand and his team said that their findings “add weight to recent suggestions that increased feelings of energy may mediate the relationship between aerobic exercise and some aspects of cognitive functioning.”
—Brief aerobic exercise immediately enhances visual attentional control and perceptual speed. Testing the mediating role of feelings of energy
Christian Jarrett (@Psych_Writer) is Editor of BPS Research Digest
indianGOAT on October 4th, 2018 at 10:39 UTC »
This is really interesting! The article states that a limitation of the control “relaxation” group was the fact that they were inside while the joggers went outside. I wonder how much of that attributes to the boost in energy. And how well would this study translate in the context of meditation vs exercise?
whatsariho on October 4th, 2018 at 09:46 UTC »
What about when you first jog and then relax.
mvea on October 4th, 2018 at 09:30 UTC »
The title of the post is a copy and paste from the title and sixth paragraph of the linked academic press release here :
Journal Reference:
Fabien D. Legrand, Cedric Albinet, Anne Canivet, Fabien Gierski, Isabella Morrone, Chrystel Besche-Richard,
Brief aerobic exercise immediately enhances visual attentional control and perceptual speed. Testing the mediating role of feelings of energy,
Acta Psychologica, Volume 191, 2018, Pages 25-31, ISSN 0001-6918,
Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2018.08.020.
Link: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001691817301336
Highlights
• Acute exercise is thought to facilitate cognitive processes by replenishing energy levels.
• Various cognitive performances were measured before and following 15 min of exercise vs. relaxation/concentration.
• Pre- to post-intervention changes in feelings of energy were also assessed in each group.
• Significantly differences were found for cognitive processing speed.
• These differences were fully mediated by changes in feelings of energy.
Abstract:
While the effects of acute exercise on mood and cognitive functions have been separately documented over the last decade, recent findings have pointed to a possible connection between affective responses to exercise and cognitive performance. The main objective of this study was to test whether the effects of acute exercise on cognition were mediated by changes in feelings of energy. One-hundred-and-one undergraduate students were randomized into one of two experimental conditions: 15 min of jogging at “moderate” intensity, or 15 min of relaxation/concentration (control condition). Perceptual speed, visual attentional control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility were assessed pre- and post-intervention in both groups via the Trail Making Test. Self-rated feelings of energy were also recorded pre- and post-intervention. Only completion time for the TMT-A significantly improved from pre- to post-intervention in participants who exercised compared with participants who practiced relaxation/concentration. No Group × Time interaction was found with regard to the other TMT variables. Finally, changes in feelings of energy were found to fully mediate the relationship between exercise and perceptual speed/visual attentional control. Taken together, our data suggest that a brief bout of moderate intensity exercise can improve the efficiency of certain cognitive processes through increases in feelings of energy, but further research is required to evaluate the duration of benefits and to determine whether these apply to other populations.