Are you too busy to exercise?

What’s the first thing that you are too busy to do? For me it’s exercise. Or should I say for me it was exercise.

After discovering “Brain Rules:12 principles for surviving and thriving at work, home and school” by John Medina (http://www.brainrules.net/) I am now going to have to find something else to be too busy to do.

Why?

Because according to John exercise is the closest thing we have to a magic bullet for our brains and:

we learn 20% faster immediately after exercise
exercise improves our brain’s higher-order functions (complex problem solving, reasoning etc)
we are best at decision making when our heart rate is up
we get better outcomes from business meetings when we hold them while walking at 1.8 km per hour (sounds funny but I think it works –I feel much more eloquent when I walk about while using the phone)
exercise will improve our long term memory

My nibble is this. I find it easy to be too busy on my business to get all hot and sweaty, even though I know how important it is to look after my physical health. But knowing that 45 minutes spent exercising will have a positive and direct impact on my business, well it’s a no-brainer.

Oh and if you are thinking this guy is just a quack you might want to know that he is actually a developmental molecular biologist whose work focuses on the genes involved in human brain development and the genetics of psychiatric disorders.

And he’s very entertaining. Take a look at his website (http://www.brainrules.net/)