There’s a growing pile of research showing exercise improves the human mind. While different studies using different methodologies may come to different conclusions, it’s become clear that at least some movement offers some cognitive and psychological benefits. So the question on every, shall we say, “movement-averse” person’s mind is: How little exercise can we get away with before we reap some of these rewards?
According to a new study published in the journal Imaging Neuroscience, it’s actually very little.
Read more: “Running Is Always Blind”
To uncover this lower bound of brain-boosting physical activity, neuroscientists from the University of Tsukuba in Japan fitted 24 healthy adults with a functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and a head accelerometer. They then tasked these participants with what they termed “slow running” at a pace of 3 to 6 kilometers per hour (or 1.9 to 3.7 miles per hour, which is really more of a moderate to brisk walk). The team recorded the participants’ brain activity as well as their moods before and after their stroll.
To assess their cognitive performance, the participants took the Stroop test, which measures how well we deal with incongruent stimuli. During the test, the names of colors are flashed on a screen in colored text that may or may not match the name (i.e., text reading “RED” may be colored blue). The quicker participants identify the color of the text, the better the cognitive performance (you can try it for yourself here).
They found that slow running yielded some surprising benefits. After just 10 minutes, participants showed a shorter Stroop time and a more positive mood. Their brains also showed increased activation in the left lateral prefrontal cortex, which governs high-level thinking, language, and executive control.
But most interesting was the head acceleration data. The researchers found that the greater the head acceleration, the greater the improvement in mood. In other words, the more head bobs while you’re running (or briskly walking), the better you’ll feel afterwards. Previous research on cycling found that light intensity exercise has only modest effects on mood, but these findings suggest that running is an entirely different experience.
Altogether, this is great news for people who aren’t built for CrossFit or other high-intensity workouts. But it might be bad news for people who just don’t want to exercise—now they’ve got no excuse.
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