Why exercise makes us more productive

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Michelle Gass, the former president of Starbucks, used to wake up at 4:30 for a morning run. Vogue magazine editor Anna Wintour warms up every day on the tennis court at six in the morning. Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, strives to keep up with them and often starts his day by running. In addition to the desire for a healthy lifestyle, this trinity has one more thing in common: they are all very, very successful.

Why does success favor those who love physical education? Yes, because the positive effect of exercise extends not only to the volume of your waist. Let's take a look at six main reasons why staying in good physical shape is beneficial not only for your health, but also for your personal productivity and, therefore, your career.

1. Physical activity helps to stay focused and keep abreast

Let's start with a simple example: movement causes blood to flow to the brain. This, in turn, improves perception. Research by Jim McKenna, a researcher at the University of Bristol, showed that the quality indicators of work after exercise increase several times, you plan your time better and are able to think sharper.

One of my clients experienced this magical feeling after taking part in my author's self-development program for a week. The course included daily yoga, walking, and strength training.

Carson Tate author of Easy Work

Other participants in the training admitted that after several days of regular workout, their thoughts became clearer, they got excited at work, and they also managed to get rid of the afternoon struggle with sleep - an eternal problem for many office residents. In addition to this, Tate cited experimental data obtained when working with another group of subjects: they did not exercise in the morning, and their success rates were slightly lower.

2. Physical education adds vigor to you

Everyone has days when the last thing we want to do is go to workout, no matter if it's morning or evening. Who can condemn himself to these torments? No matter how paradoxical it may sound, but if this brave person is you, then you are in luck: after periodic sports, it really becomes easier to perk up. And here's scientific argument number two: exercise allows your body to supply cells with glucose and oxygen much faster, which will also affect your level of activity.

An interesting study was done at the University of Georgia. Its participants were divided into three groups. The first was engaged in physical education with moderate intensity, the second - with low intensity, the third (control) did not exercise at all. During the six weeks of the experiment, both "physical" groups showed a stable increase in the vital indicator, which can be characterized as good spirits - the desire to live, create and enjoy. Unlike the control group, where everything remained at the same level, the fatigue threshold increased in the moderate intensity group, which, in fact, is a good result.

It is not at all necessary to choose the section on intensive crossfit classes, where burpees are king and god, as a new source of vivacity. A moderate workout and regular strength training will do the trick too. Vitality is nothing more than your ability to stay fit throughout the day.

3. Exercise has a positive effect on brain activity

For knowledge workers, the brain is the only, but at the same time, the most powerful secret weapon - the main tool by which the work gets done successfully. This is why it is so important to maintain the ability to immediately get involved in the process and show certain results.

Molecular biologist John Medina has dedicated his life to studying the human brain and the genes involved in its development. According to one of his studies, physically active people perform better on cognitive tests than those who are sedentary.

Another clinical study by Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne and the Institute for the Study of the Brain showed that exercising has a direct effect on brain activity and reducing stress at work.

Professor Paul Taylor, head of the aforementioned study, noted that a group of subjects showed a clear improvement in mood, while the indicators of the thought process increased by an average of 4%.

4. Physical education promotes new discoveries

Deadlock? Struggling to find the right solution for an hour in a row? Step aside, close your laptop and walk. The results of the study, published in the American edition of The Journal of Experimental Psychology, mastitis, showed that walking (both outdoors and indoors) contributes to a surge in creative thinking by an average of 60%.

Carson Tate herself, while writing her book, mentioned that from time to time she literally banged her head against the wall in an attempt to formulate this or that idea that came to mind. At such moments, she went on hikes around the neighborhood or climbed a couple of flights of stairs in her home or office.

It feels like a light is turned on in a dark room. As soon as I got up and started to move, fresh ideas seemed to light up my head by themselves.

Carson Tate

Try to follow Tate's advice if you face a similar problem: do not sit still, waiting for something incomprehensible. Under a lying stone and water does not flow.

5. By exercising, you maintain the right work-life balance

If you think that the hour you can devote to fitness after work is just another item in an already busy work schedule, you are wrong.

An article in the Harvard Business Review argues that people who regularly find time to exercise find it much easier to solve many problems. What's the secret? The whole point of mindful exercise is to keep you organized.

This inevitably happens to those who gradually become accustomed to the need to keep themselves in shape: the skills of effective time management only grow stronger from this, allowing you to cope with both work and household chores equally successfully.

For this reason, physical education should by no means be a candidate for relegation from the list of your must-do-priorities in life. Especially if there is a smell of fried in the air - exercise will help keep you calm and clear of mind.

6. Exercise helps to cope with discomfort

In continuation of our today's topic, I want to quote the words of the same Tate.

I've always enjoyed running, I've even been on a team that fought for the honor of my college. Over the four years of my sports career, I had the opportunity to take part in a considerable number of trainings and crosses, far from all of which I could overcome in one breath. There were also days when the only thing that didn't seem to hurt after the next "training" race was my hair, as if I had to learn to breathe again.

However, now that I am a business owner and also a loving wife and mother, I often have to literally jump above my head: learn something new, work for the good of the company, be with my family and at the same time remain a social person.

Carson Tate

What does Carson's words indicate? Training is usually tough and boring, especially at first. But you bravely continue: one more step, another circle, the last approach! As we can understand, sport is in many ways similar to the daily office routine: in both cases, you have to take the beginning of the path and overcome it with dignity. That is why it is important to correlate our physical and mental efforts, because one without the other works frankly worse.

So, the conclusion suggests itself: physical education is the very secret ingredient known to all successful people without exception. Of course, you can do without it, but you run the risk of never achieving the desired results.

When Martha Stuart, TV presenter and media mogul, was asked how she manages to do so much during the day, she said without thinking twice:

Until I started to exercise every day, I was very tired. Even if you devote only half an hour a day to classes, it will have an extremely positive effect on your well-being.

Think about what Martha is saying today - it's not just the key to high productivity throughout the day. Perhaps your whole life will reach a qualitatively new level.

How to make physical education the norm

1. If you are in the habit of buying coffee before work, then make it a rule to walk to the coffee shop. That said, if your house has an elevator, give it up and go down the stairs.
2. Park your car as far as possible from the entrance door to make a few dozen extra steps. Convince yourself that you will do this all the time. Okay, let's start with one or two times a week.
3. Set several reminders on your mobile phone that will make you get out of your office chair for at least 5-10 minutes during the day.
4. Find yourself a comrade. This is perhaps one of the most important components of the success of the entire event. First, it will be interesting to share with him the joy of small victories. Secondly, it will introduce a small competitive component into the classroom. Thirdly, the first two arguments will be enough: just promise yourself that you will convince someone to join your "army of one" no later than in a month.
5. Get down to business with humor: come up with some legend according to which you are on "Her Majesty's Secret Service" as a popular hero once immortalized by the efforts of Sean Connery: this way you can try to negotiate with yourself for less moral and volitional efforts.

Now that you have learned almost everything about physical education and its magical properties, the only thing to do is to get up early tomorrow and go on foot. Even if not on a platform with horizontal bars and parallel bars, but at least for coffee. The main thing is to be on the move.