Exercise and learning: Discover how regularly moving your body can make you smarter

Exercise does a lot of good things for your mind. Here, we will explore how moving your body can physically change your brain and make you smarter. Note: This article will be slightly technical.

Neurogenesis

Regular exercise makes your brain more flexible to change. When you move your body, your brain and muscles release chemicals that help create new neurons (neurogenesis). These new neurons will form neural pathways to store incoming information, memories, or skills. To reap the benefits of neurogenesis, you should exercise at least two times a week. Moving your body can increase your learning capacity. All it takes is a bit of time and effort.

Making Memories

Exercise can also improve your ability to remember things. It does it by utilizing stress. When your body encounters a threat, it goes into fight-or-flight mode. This stress pushes your body to devote extra resources to the brain to pay better attention and remember the danger so that you can avoid it in the future. This increased focus during stress explains why stress can significantly affect how we perceive the world. Exercising induces mild stress on your body. Your brain does not distinguish different sources of stress, so it also readies itself to pay attention and memorize. Your brain becomes primed to remember things as if recalling a critical detail about some danger. Stress is how exercise helps you learn new things immediately. It pressures your body and the brain to remember.

BDNF

Another way exercise helps learning is by prompting your brain to produce BDNF, a chemical that improves your neurons’ connection. When you practice a new skill, your brain recruits new neurons to fire electrical signals in a slightly new way. The connection between these neurons needs to strengthen to solidify your learning. This process is where the BDNF produced from exercising can significantly help you. Ultimately, you can exercise before you want to learn something new to boost your ability to absorb information and remember. Doing this will help you save time and make your learning more permanent.