Changing coffee for 30 seconds of exercise

Just a few push-ups can have the same effect as a cup of coffee. So, the next time you need new ideas and a fresh perspective on a problem, instead of taking a trip to the coffee machine, just lie down and go. 30 seconds of vigorous exercise, unlike coffee, will not make you addictive, and will work whenever you need to "recharge".

How it works

If, instead of a cup of coffee, you exercise for 30 seconds, your heart rate increases and can reach 150-170 beats per minute (while in a calm state this figure is 60-90 beats per minute).

You can do different exercises - push-ups, jumping out of full squats, etc. High intensity exercise will help "speed up" the heart in just half a minute, after which blood flow to the brain increases, concentration and other cognitive functions improve.

How to check it

The person who proposes this technique, Gregory Ferenstein, conducted experiments on himself, measuring the improvement in cognitive function after coffee and after a mini-workout.

To measure the results, he used the Quantifield-mind website, where you can find out your reaction time and memory state. There are given certain tests, developed over 10 years of psychological research, and the time it takes to pass them is noted.

For example, in one of the tests, meaningless characters are displayed, set to fields from 1 to 9. When a large version of a character is displayed, you must press the corresponding field number, which contains a similar small character. And this must be done as quickly as possible. Errors are also added to the total score.

Overall, this is a concentration game, and its result shows what level of concentration you are currently at.

Gregory compared his performance after 250 mg of caffeine and after training. As you can see from the graph below, his score improved 12% after training, but only 6% after caffeine.

However, with short-term memory, the effect was the opposite - from caffeine, the indicators improved by 26%, and from exercise by only 16%. This is supported by studies that have identified caffeine as the best way to boost short-term memory.

I decided to test for myself whether exercise would help, and I also passed five tests on this resource. Below is a table that shows my results (time to complete the task and number of points) after a cup of coffee (250 grams of instant coffee) and after 30 seconds of exercise (push-ups and jumping out of a full squat).

As you can see, on some points the results after the exercises are better, but, like Gregory Ferenstein, short-term memory worked better after coffee (Visual Backword Digit Span exercise, where you need to memorize numbers and write them in reverse order).

Scientific evidence and speculation

Coffee is a great natural drug, but its effects wear off quickly. Scientists have found that exercise can provide all of the same benefits as consuming caffeine.

Exercise provides the best nutrition for the brain, which improves higher mental performance. To understand how exercise makes us smarter, in 2012, the University of North Carolina conducted experiments that involved physical activity, varying in intensity and time.

The study authors found that heavy exercise was at least twice as effective as moderate exercise. The research team concluded that the effect of exercise on cognitive function is generally small, but that when intense strength exercise is used, some cognitive functions are significantly improved.

Will it help you? May be. The researchers found that people with low physical activity did not get much of an effect on mental performance from exercise. Those who exercise at least occasionally can improve their cognitive function without caffeine and addiction to it.