Exercise
Move your body to build your brain
© 2014 Commonwealth of Australia through the Australian Government Department of Education.
This material may be used, reproduced in material form and communicated free of charge for non-commercial
educational purposes until 31 December 2018, provided all copyright notices and acknowledgements are retained.
Why are executive functions important?
Exercise is the single most effective way to boost brain overall function, which in turn boosts executive
function.
It's not just any old exercise either: the benefits come from moderate to high-intensity aerobic exercise,
especially when combined with complex motor movements such as dance or martial arts. If you were to
take action on only one piece of advice from The Adventures of You, it should be this one: get moving!
This resource sheet is for personal use and for those parents, teachers and carers who want to help boost
their child's brain function. It explains the cognitive benefits of exercise, how it works (roughly) and the
kinds of things that encourage the best results.
Build your brain: cognitive benefits of exercise
Exercise benefits all aspects of a person's life as it:
 improves alertness, attention and motivation
 encourages nerve cells to bind to one another
 stimulates the development of new nerve cells.
Here's how it works
When you work your heart and lungs, they push blood and oxygen throughout your body and brain with a
number of positive effects.
A host of chemicals including serotonin, brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), norepinephrine and
dopamine are produced. These hormones and other molecules make you feel calm, patient, focused,
positive and optimistic – like you can handle anything.
You burn fat which helps produce the insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1) that is critical in the formation of
new cells. And you want your brain to have new cells, because in biology there is no standing still. Brain
cells are either growing or dying, so you want them to be growing.
As your exercise increases in intensity, your body begins to burn glucose and your muscles begin to develop
micro tears. Your body responds as if there is an emergency which is why, if you're unfit and you jump into
exercise, you start to feel panicked – your body is quite literally having a panic attack. Your muscles release
even more growth hormones to make more blood vessels, and your brain produces a host of proteins and
enzymes that sweep up all the waste molecules being produced. This process leaves the brain cleaner, and
better connected.
© 2014 Commonwealth of Australia through the Australian Government Department of Education.
This material may be used, reproduced in material form and communicated free of charge for non-commercial
educational purposes until 31 December 2018, provided all copyright notices and acknowledgements are retained.
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How do we get the best results from exercise?
The short answer
The short answer is to get outside and walk, jog, run or sprint on a regular basis. You want to do mid-level
of exertion, working 'somewhat hard'. If you did that every second day, great. If you did it every day, even
better. However, the higher the intensity the more you will need time to recover.
The ideal is to mix up all these levels of intensity: walking or jogging every day, running a couple of times a
week, and every now and then throwing in some sprints. Different benefits come from each level of
intensity, and softer days give time to recover from harder ones.
The more precise answer
If you want to apply a little more precision, use your maximum heart rate (MHR) as a guide.
Table 1: The relationship between level of exercise and maximum heart rate (MHR)
Level of exercise
% MHR
Low intensity
55–65%
Medium intensity
65–75%
High intensity
75–90%
To calculate your MHR, simply deduct your age from 220, for example, 220 – 21 years old = 199 beats per
minute. This is only a rule of thumb, but it is accurate enough for general use. If you then work out ranges
for low, medium and high intensity exercise using the table above, you will have a good set of targets.
Keeping track of your heart rate
Research shows that use of feedback devices such as a pedometer or heart rate monitor greatly increases
the effectiveness and consistency of exercise. Heart rate monitors are commonly available from sports
stores, and consist of a chest strap sensor and a digital watch display. Whenever you exercise you simply
enter the target heart rate for the session, and then adjust your pace based on feedback from the watch.
Judging how much time
This is one of those things where anything is better than nothing, but more is better. A good target is
45–60 minutes per day but if you find that overwhelming ignore it. The important thing is to start
somewhere and just stick with it.
© 2014 Commonwealth of Australia through the Australian Government Department of Education.
This material may be used, reproduced in material form and communicated free of charge for non-commercial
educational purposes until 31 December 2018, provided all copyright notices and acknowledgements are retained.
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Mixing social engagement with exercise
Here are a few reasons why it's good to have social engagement in your exercise.
 Increases mental effort
Exercise or sports that involve coordinating with other players or partners is inherently more
difficult and unpredictable. Greater demands are placed on your precision, attention and mental
flexibility, and this increases the overall benefit of the exercise. Partnered dance, tennis, martial
arts, netball, AFL, basketball – these are all good examples of sports with in-built social complexity.
 Sustains motivation
Exercising with others can help reinforce a routine, build motivation and prevent boredom. Cycling,
rowing and running are often done with partners simply to help make the activity more fun and
engaging.
 Develops social skills
Group activities are excellent ways to develop social skills, not just the baseline skills such as
planning, sharing and cooperating, but also the higher order skills such as having a conversation
and getting a date. Organisers can build rules into an exercise routine to help target this, for
instance saying that everyone in a team has to discover certain pieces of information about each of
their team members or partners. To make it even more difficult, a team member is not allowed to
ask for the information directly.
Limitation of contact sports
Contact sport does not help executive function, and if anything may reduce it. That's not to say: don't play
contact sports. It is just that if your goal is to improve executive function then you need to spend time on
other forms of exercise.
Benefits
The right kind of exercise regulates all the neurological systems related to mood, in particular those
associated with fight or flight responses, happiness or depression.
In terms of stress and anxiety, exercise forces the issue by putting you in a stressful situation where your
heart rate is elevated. By continuing to exercise in this aroused state you cue your nervous system to
recalibrate its sense of what is normal and what is not.
The long-term effect is that you are less likely to get panicked or angry about things because your nervous
system is more used to dealing with stressors. In the case of depression, exercise forces the production of
dopamine and stimulates the entire system associated with pleasure and elevated mood. Like a muscle,
this system improves with use, and it lifts baseline mood as it develops.
© 2014 Commonwealth of Australia through the Australian Government Department of Education.
This material may be used, reproduced in material form and communicated free of charge for non-commercial
educational purposes until 31 December 2018, provided all copyright notices and acknowledgements are retained.
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Ways to maintain exercise
Sticking with it
Exercise can be hard to start and easy to stop. Here are a few simple tactics to help you stick with it.
Create a routine
Do it in a group
Use iPods
Automate the exercise part of
your life by following a strict
routine, for example starting
every morning with a run or
exercising through that midafternoon slump.
Social engagement and
commitment can be enough to
keep you going. Not likely to
work with introverts, unless the
exercise is inherently
stimulating like dance or
football.
If the exercise has a low mental
load, then it's a great excuse to
listen to music, books or
podcasts, or watch TV.
Scheduling
Frequency and routine are the most important things. It's also worth noting that brain function is elevated
in the hour or so immediately after intense exercise. So the ideal routine is probably 45–60 minutes of
complex aerobic activity every morning, followed by the hardest task of the day.
Teacher tip
Tell your students to run before they take an exam or have to solve a complex problem!
I hate exercise!
If you really hate exercise, then this whole resource might seem like bad news. There are a couple of things
we can say.
The first is that you may have a genetic predisposition towards not liking exercise. For instance, if you have
a genetic makeup that doesn't produce dopamine as effectively as other people, then you are likely to find
exercise unrewarding and not want to continue with it. But the fact is that exercise can, over time,
compensate for your genetic makeup. In the case of dopamine deficiency, exercise boosts production not
only of dopamine, but also dopamine receptors, creating a virtuous cycle over time.
The other reason why you might hate exercise is because you are already deeply out of shape. Yes, you are
going to find it hard to get started. But the good news is that even the smallest steps create benefits that
will compound over time. No matter how poor your condition, the best thing you can do for yourself is get
out and start walking every day. Put on your headphones. Listen to something. Walk as fast and far as you
can. You'll enjoy it, and eventually your conditioning will improve so you can take on more advanced
exercise.
© 2014 Commonwealth of Australia through the Australian Government Department of Education.
This material may be used, reproduced in material form and communicated free of charge for non-commercial
educational purposes until 31 December 2018, provided all copyright notices and acknowledgements are retained.
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Ideal aims




45–60 minutes every day
Elevated heart rate
Mentally challenging
Socially engaging
Resources
Supporting worksheets available on the myfuture website
 Exercise planner
 Exercise chooser
Books
The best overall account of the relationship between exercise and mental functioning is Spark: the
revolutionary new science of exercise and the brain by John Ratey and Eric Hagerman, 2008.
Sources of information
Best, JR 2010, 'Effects of physical activity on children's executive function: contributions of experimental
research on aerobic exercise', Dev. Rev. 30:331–551
Davis, CL, Tomporowski, PD, McDowell, JE, Austin, BP, Miller, PH et al. 2011. 'Exercise improves executive
function and achievement and alters brain activation in overweight children: a randomized, controlled
trial', Health Psychol. 30:91–98
Diamond, A 2012, 'Activities and programs that improve children's executive functions', Current Directions
in Psychological Science, 21(5), 335–341
Erickson, KL & Kramer, AF 2009. Aerobic exercise effects on cognitive and neural plasticity in older adults.
Br. J. Sports Med. 43:22–24
Hillman, CH, Erickson, KI & Kramer, AF 2008, 'Be smart, exercise your heart: exercise effects on brain and
cognition', Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 9:58–65
Lakes, KD, Hoyt, WT 2004, 'Promoting self-regulation through school-based martial arts training', Appl. Dev
Psychol. 25:283–302
Ratey, JJ & Hagerman, E 2008, Spark: the revolutionary new science of exercise and the brain, Little, Brown,
New York
Voss MW, Nagamatsu LS, Liu-Ambrose T & Kramer AF 2011, 'Exercise, brain, and cognition across the
lifespan', J. Appl. Physiol. 111:1505–13
© 2014 Commonwealth of Australia through the Australian Government Department of Education.
This material may be used, reproduced in material form and communicated free of charge for non-commercial
educational purposes until 31 December 2018, provided all copyright notices and acknowledgements are retained.
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