Does the stress of being, in effect, forced to exercise, perhaps because your doctor or worried spouse has ordered it, cancel out the otherwise sturdy emotional benefits of physical activity? Read more…
Posts tagged with PHYS ED
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Good and Bad, the Little Things Add Up in Fitness
By Gretchen ReynoldsPerhaps the most dominant exercise-science theme of 2012 was that little things add up, with both positive and pernicious effects.Read more…
Keeping Your Eye on the Ball
By Gretchen ReynoldsTraining yourself to keep your eye on the ball — which most of us don’t actually do, it turns out — can significantly improve golf putting, a new study shows, as well as basketball shooting, soccer penalty kicks and other ball-related activities. Read more…
The ‘Love Hormone’ as Sports Enhancer
By Gretchen Reynolds
The brain hormone oxytocin facilitates the ability to read other people’s emotions and deepens bonds between group members. It is also almost certainly an essential, if unacknowledged, player in most sports competitions. Read more…
Can Housework Help You Live Longer?
By Gretchen Reynolds
Active people typically live longer than those who are sedentary, but precisely what types or amounts of exercise most affect life span has not been clear. Several new studies, though, are beginning to provide some clarity, suggesting that certain activities may be better than others. Read more…
The Benefits of Middle-Age Fitness
By Gretchen ReynoldsEven if you haven’t previously bothered with exercise, getting fit in middle age appears to reshape the landscape of aging. Read more…
Finding Your Ideal Running Form
By Gretchen ReynoldsMany experts say runners should be taught the best form, but new research suggests that runners often improve their form just by running more.Read more…
Cancer Survivors Who Stay Active Live Longer
By Gretchen ReynoldsEven moderate activity like taking a walk may improve cancer survivors’ long-term prognosis, according to new research showing that regular exercise can lower survivors’ risk of premature death, not only from cancer but from any cause. Read more…
The 20-Minute Workout Video
By Gretchen ReynoldsIn the first of her Phys Ed videos, which will appear regularly on Well, Gretchen Reynolds introduces us to a laboratory at McMaster University in Ontario where researchers are studying how high-intensity interval training can compress effective exercise into just a few minutes. Read more…
How Working the Muscles May Boost Brainpower
By Gretchen ReynoldsMuscles do appear to affect the mind, according to a study of drugs that simulate the effects of exercise in mice. Mice that had “exercised” did better on tests of memory and learning and had far more new neurons in brain areas central to learning and memory than mice that had remained quiet in their cages. Read more…
The Surprising Shortcut to Better Health
By Tara Parker-PopePerhaps the most unexpected message from the new fitness book “The First 20 Minutes” is not that we all need to exercise more to achieve better health. We just need to do something. Read more…
Mixing Weight Training and Aerobics
By Gretchen ReynoldsMany competitive athletes and trainers believe that aerobic exercise and strength training should not be done in close proximity, but two new studies show that both can be done, in either order, without dampening the overall benefits of each. Read more…
The Evolution of the Runner’s High
By Gretchen ReynoldsPeople and dogs experience runner’s high. Ferrets don’t. New findings may help explain why aerobic exercise appears to be part of our evolutionary history. Read more…
Does Exercise Make You Overeat?
By Gretchen ReynoldsExercise may change your desire to eat, two recent studies show, by altering how certain parts of your brain respond to the sight of food.Read more…
How Exercise Can Prime the Brain for Addiction
By Gretchen ReynoldsAn eye-opening new study of cocaine-addicted mice found that dedicated exercise may in some cases make it even harder to break an addiction. Read more…