It’s a proven fact. Using aerobics to increase your cardio-respiratory performance by just 5% will show a corresponding 15% improvement in mental tests. Scientists in the US have painstakingly examined the data in order to state this fact with confidence. Aerobics boosts the flow of blood and the intake of oxygen for your body as a whole and for your brain in particular. This means you should be using Aerobics for not just body fitness, but also brain fitness and self-improvement.

When quality blood supply is increased for your brain, important areas such as the frontal and pre-frontal areas benefit. These areas are at the same time the ones that typically receive poorer blood flow as a person gets older, yet they are the ones that house the executive decision-making capabilities. These are the capabilities for understanding concepts, sorting out data, making informed decisions and then planning to put those decisions into effect, essentially all the things you need in order to keep your personal development going forward instead of being stagnant.

Feed your brain what it needs

For quality brainpower, you need quality blood supply with enhanced oxygen content. The active processing functions consume a much larger quantity of energy compared to the "auto-pilot" functions of the brain. They require both oxygen and glucose to fire on all six cylinders. Glucose is manufactured by your body using the food that you eat, and this process also takes oxygen. So aerobics, in increasing the intake of oxygen to your body, is serving a double goal, those of both directly and indirectly increasing your brain fitness.

Why aerobics? Why not some other sport or fitness exercise? The same studies that pointed out the great return on investment for a modest increase in cardio-respiratory fitness also indicate that other fitness activities can also help – under certain conditions. For example, walking steadily can be an excellent exercise to get your brain up to full power, where as weight training and stretching do not appear to have the same effects.

Deep breathing – the fundamental truth

The key factor appears to be in the breathing that you do. Long, deep, steady breathing is what has the most beneficial impact. This is what slowly, but steadily builds up the right oxygen content in your blood and gives you other beneficial effects like acting against elements that have a negative effect on your body, like free radicals. Free radicals have the dangerous propensity of attaching themselves and interrupting networks and chains of cells that the body relies on to function correctly. They can do this in your brain to interrupt the correct flow of thought processes, just as they can do it in your skin to prevent the natural elasticity of the collagen. Prematurely wrinkled skin is often the result of free radicals that have been multiplied in a person’s body by bad diets, or the abuse of alcohol or tobacco.

Just as the visible effect of poor circulation and oxygen deficiency can be seen in a person’s skin, you can imagine what the corresponding effect is on a person’s brain. It’s interesting to note that scientists have not only measured externally the positive effects of aerobics-like exercise on human beings, but they have also observed what happens to the brains of mice when they take more exercise. It turns out that mice that voluntarily opt for exercise on a treadmill regenerate a significant number of brain cells. Just think what aerobics might do for you.