According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are a range of physical benefits associated with exercise, ranging from increased longevity to an overall improvement in mood. In fact, scientific research seems to indicate that the benefits of exercise might even extend to your intelligence, in that activity can apparently make you smarter.
Children
A study appearing in the June 2008 issue of the "Educational Psychology Review" examined previous studies on the effects of exercise on intelligence, cognition and academic achievement in children, including studies on animals that found a correlation between physical activity and changes in neurological development. The researchers concluded that exercise may be "a simple, yet important, method of enhancing those aspects of children's mental functioning central to cognitive development."
Exercise and IQ
A study published in the December 2009 issue of the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" found a direct correlation between IQ and one's level of fitness. The study examined a database containing information on 1.2 million young Swedish men who enlisted in the military and received assessments regarding level of fitness and intelligence. The study's findings presented a clear link between physical fitness and a high IQ. In addition, the study concluded that a high level of physical fitness at the age of 18 can increase the chances of achieving higher-than-average educational and professional goals later in life.
The Stroop Test
The Stroop Task is a commonly used psychological test that challenges the testee's ability to read words more quickly than naming colors; for example, if the word "red" is written in blue ink, a person taking the test must quickly read the word while ignoring the color. The test is designed to measure mental flexibility and vitality. A study published in the January 2008 issue of "Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise" examined the relationship between aerobic fitness in adolescents and their performance on the Stroop Test. Researchers concluded that teens with higher levels of fitness performed better on the test than those with lower fitness levels.
The Elderly
According to a study appearing in the August 2007 issue of "Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise," 120 healthy men and women between the ages of 65 and 92 completed the Yale Physical Activity Survey and took the Stroop Test. Researchers saw a direct correlation between fitness level and test performance, leading to the conclusion that physical activity was beneficial to the frontal lobe of the brain, "a region that mediates executive function and experiences accelerated age-related decline."
References
- National Institutes of Health; Teen Fitness Linked to Higher IQ, Achievement; Vicki Contie; December 2009
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Physical Activity for Everyone - The Benefits of Physical Activity
- "Educational Psychology Review"; Exercise and Children's Intelligence, Cognition, and Academic Achievement; P.D. Tomporowski, et al.; June 2008
- University of Michigan, Environmental Psychology Lab: Stroop Task - A Test of Capacity to Direct Attention
- "Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise"; The Relation of Aerobic Fitness to Stroop Task Performance in Preadolescent children; S.M. Buck, et al.; January 2008
- "Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise"; The Unique Relation of Physical Activity to Executive Function in Older Men and Women; W.R. Bixby, et al.; August 2007
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