Sunday, March 08, 2009

Brain Exhaustion

If I'm looking for excuses for poor exercise performance, here is an alternative explanation. The story cites British research that found people became fatigued more quickly when doing exercise if they had previously undertaken strenuous mental activity. Although the heart and muscles functioned no differently, a higher 'perception of effort' made people reach exhaustion sooner, Perhaps its not so much living on the flat land, as the drain of extra work and study, that's been setting me back.

Yes, I know we're looking at one study involving just sixteen people with no real information on experimental design or possible bias. Of course, such considerations never stop the newspapers from declaring 'research proves' something controversial or oversimplified, and I'm going to claim some milage from this one.

It provides some evidential basis for my frequent claims that work with the brain is one of the most tiring kinds of all. It may also provide some solace to all those office workers who keep finding they can't quite motivate themselves to go to the gym or for a run, and when they do, that their limbs and lungs just don't seem to work as well as they should.

What, if anything, can be done about it is a different question.

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