Moderate to intense exercise increases your levels of alertness and thereby your ability to focus. That focus increases your opportunity to learn new information and skills.
**But exercise itself does not make you smarter per se** You still have to engage in the active process of learning and self directed neuroplasticity.
I cover the details of that and the underlying science in chapter 6 of my book Protocols: An Operating Manual for the Human Body
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Deliberate cold exposure increases peripheral adrenaline and dopamine and central (meaning within the brain) norepinephrine — and emerging evidence suggests it also increases dopamine within the mesolimbic brain reward pathways.
Together these three molecules: dopamine, norepinephrine, and adrenaline, are referred to as the catecholamines.
Understanding how they work in parallel in the body and brain, and how to stimulate their release in the body and brain can be very useful for health, focus, learning, and much more.
It also explains a lot such as why you actually “get” energy from exercise.
All of this and more also covered in Protocols Ch 3: on stress control, and raising your stress threshold.
PS: The response to the book has been wonderful. Thank you ever so much to all who have read or listened to the book and shared some of what you’ve learned with others!
More important than any protocol are the principles and the mechanisms behind them. Stay curious about scientific mechanisms and principles and you’ll be able to best navigate the health landscape now and forward.
And as always, thank you for your interest in science!
#neuroscience #science #ciencia #neurociencia #protocolsbook
