Health and Medicine
PUBLISHED
Going for a quick jog around the block isn’t for everyone. But new research suggests you’ll still reap the benefits even if it's anything but quick.
Physical activity is known to have many rewards beyond simply maintaining a healthy body weight, and it’s thought that aerobic activity in particular helps to stimulate the prefrontal cortex.
This is the part of the brain responsible for emotional control and complex thinking. Previous research by the same group behind this new study found that even mild exercise can activate this region and lead to positive outcomes.
Slow and steady
In this new study the researchers were interested in knowing exactly how intense that activity has to be to see an effect.
“Running is widely believed to benefit the brain, but studies combining rigorous brain imaging with tightly controlled running protocols have been relatively limited, partly because exercise intensity is much easier to control on a bike,” study authors Hideaki Soya and Ryuta Kuwamizu at the University of Tsukuba, Japan, told PsyPost.
To investigate how even mild running can improve someone’s mental and emotional health, the researchers recruited 24 individuals and measured their brain activity while they were on a treadmill and when they were sedentary.
On subsequent days, the participants were either told to simply sit there, as a control, or to go on a 10-minute run at a slow pace that matched the individual’s fitness level.
Critically, the speed was slow enough to walk, but the participants were instructed to do it at a light jog.
Before and after the activity, everyone was tested on their mood and executive function.
What they found was that even a short, light run with minimal effort was enough to boost the participants' mood, while their reaction times also increased (though this effect was much less substantial than the effect on mood).
“The current results,” write the authors, “suggest that acute very slow running has a positive effect on both executive function enhancement and mood improvement with minimal effort.”
It's probably worth pointing out here, however, that this is quite a small study, and the researchers made no comparison with other forms of exercise, so there is no way of knowing whether slow running provides any benefit over just walking, for example.
The trial also wasn't "blinded," in that the participants knew when they were running and when they weren't, which means they could be influenced by the placebo effect.
Admittedly, it's hard to imagine a study design where participants remain unaware of whether or not they are running, so we can't really hold this one against the researchers.
Bobbing like a pigeon
Curiously, the team also measured the amount of “head bobbing” participants experienced. This movement of the head is common for runners, and they were interested to see if it had an effect.
They found a positive correlation between the amount someone bobbed their head and how much their pleasant mood improved. It's important to note that this is only a correlation, though, and a pretty weak one at that, especially considering there were only 24 people in the study.
While this phenomenon would obviously need more investigation, the authors suggest the rhythmic movement of the head up and down could be related to the enjoyable feeling often reported by runners.
So, while running isn’t for everyone, it seems that even if you’re worried about being too slow for it to be any good, there might be some positive benefits to a slow jog around the block after all.
The study was published in the journal Imaging Neuroscience.
