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flexagonAt the gym today there was an issue of Newsweek with several articles on exercise and how it (aerobic exercise anyway) promotes new neural growth in the hippocampus. There were lots of fascinating quotes but I finally decided it would be evil for me to steal it, when it could possibly be stolen by a newbie instead and change a life. :) The articles had interesting things to say about the brain's self-regulation of exercise intensity and how some people's settings for this are just wrong -- leading some to basically just never feel like as much activity as their body actually could handle or might like. I never knew that. That sucks.
There was a brief mention of how only aerobic exercise has been definitively linked to better cognition, and studies focusing on stretching and/or strength training have yet to prove anything similar (though it also said most research has been on aerobic exercise so far; and what about the zillion studies on yoga? Doesn't anyone realize that yoga is stretching and strength training?). I was amused, because I had finished strength training and was stretching while reading this, and I was sure that my left hip was opening in just a slightly different (and better!) way than I could ever remember before. Such moments are so exciting -- I don't need a study to tell me that a network of neurons is growing in either size or efficiency, or both. Something happens. And the article says "some people who see results, and most do, eventually report that their habit of working out becomes enjoyable." What a dry way to talk about a process I feel privileged even to watch, much less to be.
Maybe the best thing of all is the thrill of knowing what something new feels like. In those moments, like today with the hip or yesterday when (more visibly to other people) I managed a kind of headstand I'd never done before, it doesn't matter that someone else out there is better or has felt it before. My whole system goes "oh!" and is just naturally, authentically intrigued. And the body is complex, and there are many systems of movement, so working with it offers the chance for an infinite number of those moments.
There was a brief mention of how only aerobic exercise has been definitively linked to better cognition, and studies focusing on stretching and/or strength training have yet to prove anything similar (though it also said most research has been on aerobic exercise so far; and what about the zillion studies on yoga? Doesn't anyone realize that yoga is stretching and strength training?). I was amused, because I had finished strength training and was stretching while reading this, and I was sure that my left hip was opening in just a slightly different (and better!) way than I could ever remember before. Such moments are so exciting -- I don't need a study to tell me that a network of neurons is growing in either size or efficiency, or both. Something happens. And the article says "some people who see results, and most do, eventually report that their habit of working out becomes enjoyable." What a dry way to talk about a process I feel privileged even to watch, much less to be.
Maybe the best thing of all is the thrill of knowing what something new feels like. In those moments, like today with the hip or yesterday when (more visibly to other people) I managed a kind of headstand I'd never done before, it doesn't matter that someone else out there is better or has felt it before. My whole system goes "oh!" and is just naturally, authentically intrigued. And the body is complex, and there are many systems of movement, so working with it offers the chance for an infinite number of those moments.
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o0o0o0!
Date: 2007-04-29 11:49 pm (UTC)i'm often borrowing and returnign magazines from my gym. i treat it like a library.
is that bad?
Re: o0o0o0!
Date: 2007-04-29 11:59 pm (UTC)I love the gym magazine-sharing thing. I contribute to it too: Redbook, Psychology Today, Tech Review and most recently Oxygen.
Re: o0o0o0!
Date: 2007-04-30 12:35 am (UTC)though its mostly hippie dippy magazines...mother earth news, outside, the nation, etc.