17 ms·

Runners’ brains may be more connected, research shows

134 points by manojr 10y ago

renafowler 10y ago
Hmm it depends upon where you run. Diesel fumes give you a stroke
- dsacco 10y ago
  Do you have any literature I could read about this? Part of my running route is next to a busy street in the morning.
  - renafowler 10y ago
    Here you go: http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/expert-answers/air-pollution-and-exercise/faq-20058563 http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/expert-a...
agumonkey 10y ago
I found that learning music unlocked pattern comprehensions that were very mathematical. Multiple layers of abstraction (rhythm or note points, derivatives of these two, overlay, non linear transformations, and the equivalent momentum phenomenons). Running is something that trigger creative mind activity for me. And a form of flow. I wouldn't be surprised if other physical activity would do the same: climbing, even body building when done in a meditative manner (maybe?).
- 20161112 10y ago
  Would learning drumming help unlock these patterns? I signed up for lessons yesterday :)
  - agumonkey 10y ago
    Hell yes. I'm a "drummer" first. I don't mention this because drumming is rarely thought as musical. It does make you reflect on different part of the musical continuum. To summarize my years twirling sticks: - drumming often lead to learning things slow. Focusing on minute details that are ignored, also meditative (you have to be slow and low energy but it's dense, you pay attention at the 10th of a second so you're constantly mentally and physically active) - limb independance is akin to meditation for me, playing patterns involving all limbs massages my brain. It's like trying to balance on a virtual wire. It's a game of doing more with less and abstracting the motion of each limb into another form of data. You must not think of one limb in particular. You feel rhythm and accents, and you distribute to some limbs... I feel like a live compiler. - oddly technique also required revisiting my understanding of physics. It's all about angular momentum, shifting gravity center and inertia. Also doing less with more by distributing the effort on every possible muscle. Makes you reflect on a global basis about each hit. Oh and I forgot, to do lengthy single hand rolls with accents, you don't rotate your wrist, you wave your forearm, hand and stick (it has to be smooth like low basketball dribbling, you'll see if you look for moeller technique later) accents are just a blip in amplitude at the forearm wave; the hand wave will keeps as it is so you'll keep time and won't feel tired because waving doesn't require much energy (half the energy comes from sensitivity and reusing the response of the skin to let the stick go up). It was through this that I started to "see" music. I played bass too, and along the way melody and harmony started to make sense at the intuitive level (I only took 1 year of accelerated formal theory training on piano as a teen, taught me approximately nothing about "music") All in all, I'm a brainiac (for better or worse) .. different people will see other things in drumming. ps: One last thing, at first drumming felt like an immense beast to tame. Famous drummers did things I could barely see, even less understand. My mind skipped to conclusion thinking to reach that level I had to do more and play like a fighter jet. It's the other way around, it changed your view about your perception and interpretation of the world through your senses. As I told before it's all a game of economy, but you have to experience each cymbal, skin, sticks, subtle space and time placement to finally see that just a few strokes well placed are enough to recreate that "complex" thing. It's a bit like when you finally understand a software architecture, you realize how small it is, but you connected the dots and see how much it can do.
    - 10y ago
  - spangry 10y ago
    Piano's another good one if you're looking for something more melodic. Although I think drumming is where it's at if you'd find value in the social aspects of music (it's harder to play piano in a band). Now that I think about it, drumming and piano have a couple of things in common, even though they're vastly different instruments. Both require 'synchronising' the left and right sides of your body (and also, presumably, the left and right hemispheres of your brain). Although, occasionally, they require 'un-synchronising': for example when the beat is syncopated. As a pianist, it's such a strange feeling when a syncopated piece 'clicks': it almost feels like your left & right hands (and brain hemispheres) are operating completely independent of each other; almost like it's two separate people playing two separate pieces at the same time. Also, both are arguably percussion instruments :)
    - agumonkey 10y ago
      Any favorite piano player / band / album / theme that tickle your syncopation senses ?
      - spangry 10y ago
        It's hard to go past Chopin's "Fantaisie Impromptu". I quite like Yundi Li's interpretation of the piece: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvm2ZsRv3C8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvm2ZsRv3C8 And one from my favourite composer, Claude Debussy, the first in his pair of Arabesques: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Fle2CP8gR0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Fle2CP8gR0 . The Arabesque is really nice: it starts off synchronised and then transitions to a really beautiful syncopated flowing section. And although this has nothing to do with syncopation or off-beat rhythms, I highly recommend this video from Valentina Lisitsa (one of the most technically brilliant pianists alive, IMHO) playing a Beethoven Sonata with a GoPro strapped to her chest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0m2RW4m8xE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0m2RW4m8xE Although you might want to avoid that last one if you're prone to motion sickness :)
        agumonkey 10y ago
        I didn't felt a lot for Lisitsa interpretation. Debussy Arabesque n°2 has bits that I like a lot, too short though. Chopin's piece is nice for the momentum but .. I'm more in love with the Prelude 20. Do you know other piece of him with similar harmonic brilliance ? ---- Listening to classic music like this is relaxing, I currently listen to things like: - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbklUUuhHgs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbklUUuhHgs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFaVOruNRck https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFaVOruNRck (guitar only, tell me what you think about this piece, which is a cover from metheny in a classical guitar rewrite) otherwise - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3s3dne0d8Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3s3dne0d8Q (this is the piece that made me think I should start listening to classical music more openly. I used to be in jazzfusion, but the piano introduction felt mostly classical in tone and quite beautiful. The rest isn't bad either, strings, bass, guitar... a very nice crescendo) Talking about off beat syncopation, not sure if that's what you mean, I think of this kind of rhythm (warning not classical music): - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nahPAXPFYPQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nahPAXPFYPQ I consider the dude who created this album a genius, his pianistic style is messy, lightweight, with diagonal solos (see next song finale) toying with the bar in all directions. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGh-7RnafpU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGh-7RnafpU I hope you'll enjoy some of this (maybe you already know them) ---- ps: bonus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK7Lh64Ibz8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK7Lh64Ibz8
- braythwayt 10y ago
  > “Music is the pleasure the human soul experiences from counting without being aware that it is counting.” -- German mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716), who co-discovered calculus
  - agumonkey 10y ago
    Cute quote. I started thinking I disagreed but I confused calculus with counting/algebra .. A whole chunk of classical music is "integer" like (algebra). Jazz/Swing adds flips music around syncopation which is a massive change in mental representation. It's the difference between Harryhausen and Star Wars stop motion (or more recently keyframe tweening and Mitsuo Iso odd time animation). Macro vs Micro. And .. it aligns with Leibniz theories. It's all variations, accelerations, you're always in motion. I believe only 18th music started to care about bending time [rubato, chopin] which is akin to what I felt trying to understand jazz.
    - braythwayt 10y ago
      This is a thread around drumming, but there is also the mathematics of intervals, harmonies, dissonance, resolution... Music is not _like_ mathematics, music _is_ mathematics, it’s just a different way of expressing it.
      - agumonkey 10y ago
        It's missing the inertia part I was trying to convey. This is rarely taught. Except for a crescendo flag on the score. But to me it is essential to what music is. Intervals, harmonies seem like side effects (I'm exagerating).
        braythwayt 10y ago
        I don’t know if this is wha you mean, but when listening to music, the human brain is constantly making predictions about what will happen next. Jerry Coker explains that the quality of the experience lies in the balance between the familiarity of being right and the surprise of being wrong. Thus, when listening to syncopation, you constantly comparing what your brain hears to a steady 4/4 it ‘expects' to hear. And when listening to a soloist improvise, you are comparing the notes your brain hears to the melody it ‘expects’ to hear. This is obviously not the only effect, not by a long shot, but is that what you mean by “inertia?"
- jabv 10y ago
  I don't do body building (taking a narrow definition of the term), but I do heavy (for me) barbell lifts as part of my regular exercise routine. For some anecdata, I consistently find myself in a better frame of mind after lifting as long as I was properly focused on form, challenging myself rather than going through the motions, etc. My university education revolved around cello performance, and I find many similarities in the state of mind after a good practice session compared with a good lifting session.
  - agumonkey 10y ago
    I'd say it's the connection with the world through your body. People say meditation is looking inside you, I start to think it's what they mean. You allocate your neurons to sense more about your own body and your interface with the world. Either the movement of weights and their effect on your muscles and joints. Or the vibration caused by your bow on the strings. When I was working out, since I was out of shape, I used the music "slowness" as a guide to doing push ups. Always going slow, very slow, and very smooth. Even on every day chores, I realize that anything done in this fashion is relaxing, body and mind wise.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  The mediaeval university curriculum was based on two foundations, the trivium and the quadrivium (collectively "the seven liberal arts"). The trivium: grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Or in computing terms: input (parsing), processing, and output. The quadrivium: maths, geometry, music, and astronomy. "What's the connection?" you ask? Numbers. Numbers in space. Numbers in time. Numbers in space and time.
  - contingencies 10y ago
    Interesting. After some reading, apparently this interpretation of the trivium is standard, though this interpretation of the quadrivium not entirely. My immediate thought was that of course there would be crossover. For example, rhetoric includes elements of time (tempo/rhythm are poetic). Maths, geometry and astronomy are largely about processing, and so on. More interestingly, they considered the whole lot preparatory work for studying philosophy. Might a modern pentivium add numbers in n-dimensional space (matrices / calculus), or a sextivium explorations and representations of infinity? Or would these fall under the subsequent study of philosophy? How about parallel/concurrent systems? It certainly seems to me as a layman that large swathes of research mathematics and theoretical physics are approaching subject areas traditionally ascribed to philosophy. I wonder what the latin word for GPU would be.
    - dredmorbius 10y ago
      What other definitions for the quadrivium are you finding? The set and description I've cited have seemed fairly standard, though I'm not an expert in the area. I'm finding the content and descriptions mostly interesting in a retrospective sense -- I'm not ent advocating that the mediaeval curriculum be implemented in its original form today. At the same time, I find the notion of input, processing, and output to be quite useful, and one which might be considered as part of a modern curriculum. For the maths progression of the quadrivium, there are a few other possible clusters or progressions. We've made some advances in maths as well. I see a general structure of: quantitative notations and operations (arithmetic), solving for unknowns (algebra), geometry and trigenometry, integrals and derivatives, matrixes, differential equations and approximations (FFT). There's also logic (informal, formal, programmatic), programming, and artificial intelligence / machine learning. Genetic engineering seems also to fall somewhere on this axis. Collectively, all of this falls under inforamtion acquisition, processing, storage, and transmission.
- pault 10y ago
  Anecdote: When I was in middle school I failed horribly at my first year of algebra classes and just couldn't seem to get a grip on the concepts (also I would often see "shortcuts" in the problems that would lead to horribly wrong answers). I would score about 50% on every quiz. I could tell my teacher thought I was an idiot. Around that time I started learning music theory and playing in the school band, and learning jazz on the bass. The next year I was at the top of all of my math classes. My teachers thought I was cheating since I had developed a reputation as a "burnout" by that time (there's nothing more satisfying than getting called in after class to take a test in front of a smug teacher and acing it). Also, even though I quit playing music about 10 years ago, to this day I can map out a melody in my head (I can immediately tell the interval between any two notes and string them together to play a melody on the first attempt), and I can pick apart mult-part harmonies because I can hear them in my head. I very clearly remember walking home from school one day and realizing that for the first time I could hear more than one note at a time in my head. Music definitely rewires the brain in amazing ways.
  - agumonkey 10y ago
    Heh, the day I started to isolate overlapping melodies was a huge gift. Makes me happy to read your story. After formal training, and years of wondering what the hell chord progression were about.. the day I could parse harmony in my head and focus on one line in relation to the others, everything became clear. although I cannot measure what I feel in precise way (I couldn't name the intervals) I can improvise counterpoints for a few seconds intuitively. Which is a god damn pleasure. I even enjoy singing dissonant, just for the sake at aiming where the chords don't, and then keep a dissonant counterpoint. It's not dissonnant to me anymore, it's just a different sonic feeling. After all, 13th 17th and many jazz harmonies felt dissonant to me at first.. this is just an extension. I believe that this "explains" more about music than 10 years of music theory classes. ps: That's why I'm often thinking we should teach math to kids with actual activities. Involving your sense is to me critical to internalization of concepts. Later on you can drop the notation. pps: indeed that's the kind of brain rewire I never expected. It opens your mind to other sensations too; and also, even pushing it, it change my view of European geometric explanation of everything. If people, cultures didn't have written music but understood music as you describe .. who has the knowledge here ?
- Fricken 10y ago
  I started running a couple months ago, I do my best thinking now while running out in nature (running in the city is not as good, too many interruptions). I've set my day up so I can go straight to the computer after I run without changing out of my running clothes or doing a bunch of transitional tasks, because that time is cognitively valuable. I'm full of ideas and want to get them down before they fade. Running takes up about 2 hours of my day, but running for 2 hours and working for 4 feels more productive than just working for 6 hours. I'm doing better work. I was once obsessed with climbing for almost a decade. When climbing I was 100% focused on climbing, my mind wasn't really free to wander and think of other things. Even when I was done climbing, I would still be thinking about climbing. Climbing problems were always the biggest problems in my life, they had a way of eclipsing everything else, which is what it means to get the 'climbing bug'.
  - nether 10y ago
    Why did you stop climbing?
    - Fricken 10y ago
      Tendonitis
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- criddell 10y ago
  How old were you when you learned music? I've been trying to learn to play guitar on and off for 25 years now. It's a huge struggle for me. For a while I'll practice daily, make very little progress, get frustrated and bored, then quit. A year later I start over and no progress is ever made. I've had different teachers and different instruments (I love the gear part of it) and I know what's really needed is grit. I do get the feeling though that my 46 year old brain is a little calcified and doesn't want to learn something entirely new. That's part of the reason I think I really need to work on it. My kids take music lessons and after the first week, they accomplished more than I had in years.
  - agumonkey 10y ago
    I had piano lessons for a year at 14. Stopped (learned nothing except 2 or 3 children melodies, and few ideas that I forgot in a week). Then started again around 19, drumsticks and bass. As I said I was almost dead wrong for 6 years. With mostly regressions. All instruments are different though. Guitars require quite a large amount of time to adapt your left hand (neck). It's easy to never make progress there. Bass guitar is a tad easier because you play melodies and not a blend of this + chords, which are demanding in dexterity and stamina. The frustration, abort, guilt cycle is hard to avoid. Even guys who took lessons as kids have off days. They told us on boards that when they struggle to play, they just take it easy and make it a rudiment day. Stupid patterns at slow pace, just to keep warm. Do not ocmpare yourself to kids, it's mostly masochism. It's like comparing the speed of a fresh windows 95 install vs a 2 yo one. They have natural excitement and smoother fingers, I believe their brain is just a nasty pattern cruncher and most things end up intuitive the next day. That says nothing about your own ability to learn or take pleasure. <= pleasure which should be the goal. One question, do you use a metronome ? everytime I struggle, 2 minutes of metronome backed practice suddenly realigns my hand and my ears and everything gets smoother. Not perfect but it helps to get properly warmed up and enjoy the feeling.
    - criddell 10y ago
      I do have a metronome and I when I use it, I pretty reliably rage quit about 4 minutes later. One thing that I think music teachers would probably frown on is that I picked up Rocksmith and made more progress with that than practicing chord changes, scales, and Hal Leonard songs. The score for being on time on the right note with the software always adding a few more notes than I can play works really well for me. Plus I can play it with my daughter.
- frenchhacker 10y ago
  any book/website to recommend about music theory?
  - agumonkey 10y ago
    No, none, in early 2Ks I just skimmed the first ones Google told me to Since we're on HN, I could suggest you to search "clojure music" on youtube. There are a few talks about a dude revisiting music theory from wave freq. all up to Bach all in a few pages of clojure code. Very Very very cool.
Eerie 10y ago
So, what kind of musical instrument can you play while running?
- aczerepinski 10y ago
  Sousaphone is an instrument that's meant to be worn, so I would start there.
- cschmittiey 10y ago
  Marching drums are usually worn, although it's hard to run with tenors/snares.
- wavefunction 10y ago
  Bugles
- Broken_Hippo 10y ago
  Maracas, some bells, and probably finger cymbals. You could probably get a triangle or tambourine going, but it would be a bit awkward - especially the triangle. Most breath-based instruments are out, due to the high speed, but you might be able to do interesting things with a Kazoo, or if you have real talent, a Harmonica. So long as you were at a jog instead of a run, you could probably fashion an extra-sturdy harness for a small xylophone set and play it. Edit for an afterthought: You might be able to get into certain string instruments as well. I'd start with something like a ukulele due to the small size and occasional low cost.
alexandros 10y ago
Do we know if that is because Runners and Musicians tend to be generally better educated and raised, both those things being markers of middle- and upper- class membership?
- danaliv 10y ago
  They controlled for this. "Participants were roughly the same age — 18 to 25 — with comparable body mass index and educational levels."
  - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
    Not to discredit them, because it's a hard problem, but it isn't a full control: even on a college campus (or looking at alumni) and controlling for weight, running and instrument training would still be proxies for various things about upbringing or current social status, and could account for the effects by selection bias. That said, I think this is introductory work on the topic and definitely justifies further inquiry.
    - danaliv 10y ago
      You're right; "control" may be too strong a word. In any case, they did at least consider it. :)
- Broken_Hippo 10y ago
  Just as a note: Runners might be more middle-to-upper class, but musicians aren't. It is more that some instruments can be expensive. Singing, rap, diy instruments aren't so, and neither is digital music. You do, however, tend to miss out on the physical aspect of playing some of the instruments with the digital music, but not much of the rest if you pay attention.
bluenose69 10y ago
Actually, the article is mainly about running. Music is mentioned just once, and a bit tangentially. PS. the photo in the article shows the waterfront of Halifax, Nova Scotia, with Georges Island to the left. The island is the site of Fort Charlotte. During the seven years war, the English imprisoned 2000 French sailors there, which is hard to imagine, given the size of the island (all of which is visible in the photo).
- braythwayt 10y ago
  Yes, please don’t editorialize titles. Some titles are awkward and need editing. But fixing what the title is trying to say is not the same thing as changing the title to say what you want it to say. Which does not mean that your perspective is not important. So instead of editorializing the title, either leave it be or fix it to say what the source intended, then kick of the discussion with your own interpretation as a comment.
chiefalchemist 10y ago
Do runners create brains? Or do brains create runners? The study is interesting but, as the article mentions, more needs to be learned. That aside, it's likely a bit of both. In the case of the latter (I.e., brain creates runner) what happens when the person fails to realize their potential (?)? That is, you have a runner brain but are 20 lbs overweight and sit on your ass all day. Does that, can that, drive mental illness e.g., depression)? Regardless, lack of blood flow can't be a positive.
SFJulie 10y ago
/me is often downvoted : I should not be then. I play bass, and can run 15km in one hour without breaking too much of a sweat. Humm ... better means nothing... Yet another whizz bang science that is void of any sense. But it is nice to have ego boosting article.
- devdad 10y ago
  So you're sub40ish at 10k and lands at 60ish at 15k. If true, that's impressive.
tdrd 10y ago
It's not even clear that this is about running. They compared runners to sedentary individuals; this sounds like another "exercise is good" conclusion to me.
r3dk1ng 10y ago
I always assumed all things that required effort and coordination between the two halves of the brain would increase the connectivity, specifically over the corpus callosum.
JustSomeNobody 10y ago
Here's a question. I have no desire to learn an instrument, so is it still possible to learn enough music theory to reap the mental benefits? As far as running goes, my knees don't allow for it.
- Swizec 10y ago
  > my knees don't allow for it Start slow, buy shoes appropriate for your gait, work on technique. I have bad knees running in the family, had tendon injuries in both of them as a kid too. Used to get a lot of pain when running then I decided to focus on my technique, taking it slow (like, 2 mile runs at 10min/mile cause running longer or faster felt like the death) Now 3 years later I run a 4hr marathon and the only time my knees hurt is when it's time to buy new shoes. And yes, it is a great excuse if you don't actually want to run. My advice is for if you want to but think you can't :) PS: start slow can mean "long leisurely walk" depending on your shape. Tendons and joints need to get used to being used
  - JustSomeNobody 10y ago
    Thanks. My right knee does need to have a professional look at it; I've just been putting that off. Same professional tells me I need more exercise (I eat healthy so that helps me not be _too_ bad, though). I see there's some avoidance there now that I'm typing all this. :)
CopOnTheRun 10y ago
So maybe I missed it in the article, but it seems like they just tested a group of physically active students, and those who weren't. Does running have anything to do with the "functional connectivity" or is it just exercise in general? The article says we've known exercising is good for the brains of older people for some time now, the new study just tested the effects on younger people. Shouldn't the title be "exercise is good for the brains of young people too"?
- bo1024 10y ago
  I think part of the point is that even apparently-"mindless" exercise is now shown to also be good. See this paragraph: > Previous studies have shown that activities that require fine motor control, such as playing a musical instrument, or that require high levels of hand-eye coordination, such as playing golf, can alter brain structure and function. However, fewer studies have looked at the effects of more repetitive athletic activities that don’t require as much precise motor control — such as running. Raichlen’s and Alexander’s findings suggest that these types of activities could have a similar effect.
  - Johnny555 10y ago
    fewer studies have looked at the effects of more repetitive athletic activities that don’t require as much precise motor control — such as running Is it really true though that running doesn't require precise motor control? Every time I run, my feel "automatically" skip over imperfections in the road surface, placing my foot down early just before the big crack in the sidewalk, sidestepping the dog poop on the sidewalk, leaping off the curb while my eyes are focused on traffic. And unlike the guy that plays golf where he's only focusing for a few minutes per hole, my feet are active for my entire one hour run and my mind is guiding my feet for 10,000 steps throughout the run. It may be a different part of the brain than deciding how to hit a ball to reach a target 300m away, but there's still a lot of eye-foot coordination in running.
    - bo1024 10y ago
      Great point. I was thinking that a great study to get at this could be comparing treadmill-only and outside-only runners.
tsumnia 10y ago
This title is a little click-baity, but I think one of the nice takeaways from the article was the connectivity in the frontal cortex. I've been researching how to improve CS education this past semester, and its taken me down a long road of cog. psych. Much of this information is "true", but shouldn't be read as "Runners and musicians are 'smarter'". Firstly, what's it mean to be 'smart'? As expertise grows, that knowledge needs to be stored somewhere. In my studies, this led to Cambridge's Handbook Of Expertise [1], in which there is a chapter focusing on perceptual-motor expertise. In violinists, the neural plasticity of the cerebellum expanded similarly to the cerebellum's in chess players. As my link and this article sort of point out, mental and physical expertise cause the brain to expand. There is some discussion about the brain being an "arena" for limited neural tissue; however, I am by no means an expert of the brain. My interpretation of this information is that the same practices done in runners/musicians can be applied to other mental practices - ala CS. You get better at running by running; you get better at playing a violin by practicing your scales; what are the elements of CS that can be reduced to these solitary practices as a means to get better at them? [1] https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511816796 https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511816796
syphilis2 10y ago
I found a lot of my questions from the article were quickly explained by looking over the paper. http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2016.00610 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2016.00610
sctb 10y ago
We've updated the title from “Runners and musicians have better-connected brains than the rest of us” to that of the article.
skookum 10y ago
A hypothesis mentioned in the original paper: "...it is also possible that the cognitive benefits of exercise occur because locomotion is not simply an automated repetitive motor task, but is instead a highly complex behavior that involves domains related to both motor and cognitive functions. For example, walking or running through complex environments can engage several components of executive function including volition, self-awareness, planning, inhibition, monitoring, attentional switching and multi-tasking, in addition to motor control..." If that is indeed the mechanism which accounts for the brain differences claimed, perhaps mountaineers, sidecountry & backcountry skiers or snowboarders, mountain bikers or long-distance hikers might be better groups than runners for validating this.
Houshalter 10y ago
There was an interesting study that looked at Facebook likes and personality types of a large number of people. They found the pages/interests that were the most heavily correlated with each of the major personality dimensions. It's really interesting and you can see the whole chart twoard the bottom of this article: http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/this-algorithm-knows-you-better-than-your-facebook-friends-do/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/this-algorithm-knows-you-... Emotional stability was highly correlated with running, sports, and general outdoor activities (and also rap music, interestingly.) Is it because spending time outside makes people more emotionally stable? Or do emotionally stable people just enjoy outdoor activities more?
- imesh 10y ago
  For what it's worth exercise is needed for me to feel mentally stable.
- pizza 10y ago
  I gotta say I laughed out loud when I saw the mention of The Velvet Underground. It also reminded me of this aside Lou Reed spoke before performing a song; > This is a song about the sorrows of the contemporary world, of which I know we all know so well. At least, I read about it all the time. It's like, one day – this is when I was in college, right? – and I woke up, 6:30 in the morning because I get up early, and I put on the radio, and they said, y'know, 'So-and-so truck driver today ran over his baby son's head and it burst like a watermelon.' And then they said, 'It's 22 degrees out.' So I figured, on all levels, there was no reason ever to go out again. I stayed indoors for about eight months. Also passed with honors in Kierkegaard – that's 'cause I understand, y'know, the existential leap. Anyone who lies in bed at 6:30 in the morning listening to that has to. Anyway, after that communism was the only answer for me, I felt. And if you can't be a communist and make money, then you have to be a rock & roll singer. At least in Hoboken ... So anyway, this is a song called 'I Can't Stand it Anymore.'"
zw123456 10y ago
I have been a runner for just about my whole life (ran track in HS) is started listening to music when the small mp3 players first came out and I noticed that it seemed to interfere with my "runners high" a little bit. I know this is tied to beta endorphins but I also think there is a Zen like aspect. So I stopped using the player and instead just let my mind run free too. My theory is that running can also unlock a type of meditative experience in the brain. I notice how much more clearly I can think after. It could be an evolutionary anachronism in that when the hunter man begins to run that the brain enters a state of heightened acuity in preparation for the kill. Who knows.
- edblarney 10y ago
  "I notice how much more clearly I can think after." Yes me to. I'm quite past 30 and on most days I feel a little crap. After a run, I feel 20-something in terms of energy, motivation and attitude. I think it's a combination of the endorphins, and then the rebalancing of sugar levels. I feel as though my metabolism has been 'reset to something proper'. I think that light cardio is the closest thing to the fountain of youth.
  - ZeroFries 10y ago
    Yes, the combo of balanced blood sugar + oxygen + CO2. Might also have something to do with alkalinity as your body clears the lactic acid (by perhaps becoming more alkaline after buffering).
  - ipnon 10y ago
    >combination of endorphins The primary component of a runner's high is attributed to a category of neurotransmitters known as endocannabinoids. Endorphins become the primary component of a runner's high when the body becomes structurally damaged, like when marathon runners struggle to remain standing and lose the ability to concentrate (note the similarities to heroin consumption). The feelings of well-being and the Zen-like state that comes about from running a few miles is almost entirely due to endocannabinoids, similar to when someone has consumed cannabis.
xivusr 10y ago
I've been running since XC in HS, but reconnected in my mid twenties to overcome addictions. Since then I've more or less just substituted one for the other, but the running seems to have better long-term effects. The activity is closely connected with my work and personal life -- in that when I don't run, the rest of my life suffers.
rokosbasilisk 10y ago
I would like to see this study replicated as the sample size of 22 seems low, and I have a strong suspicion nutrition plays a very large role as covariate here. Just not sure how generalizable this is. Ive been doing some data analysis internship for a similar study but more brain vs circadian cycles. The human data is often messy and does not replicate. The clonal mouse studies data is often more consistent, and what Im building an in silico model for.
oryak 10y ago
This doesn't sound like a good study to me because of the two groups they are comparing. Even in the original article (which I only had a brief look at), it seems they didn't do a really fair comparison but compared two completely different groups with each other. With the same study, they could also have said "people with more brain connections feel a stronger urge to run long distances". A better study would have been to take a group of lazy people, divide them into two groups, one will do long distance running in the next year, one won't, and an additional group of current runners divided into the same groups. Then I would start believing this. Right now it sounds just like a flawed first-time study an undergrad did.
woutervegter 10y ago
if you really want to improve your brain during exercise, try dancing like jazz/modern/lyric/ballet/street. A nearly common characteristic of dancing people I know is that their mind is quite bright some arguments: http://neuro.hms.harvard.edu/harvard-mahoney-neuroscience-institute/brain-newsletter/and-brain-series/dancing-and-brain http://neuro.hms.harvard.edu/harvard-mahoney-neuroscience-in...

134 points by manojr 10y ago

renafowler 10y ago

Hmm it depends upon where you run. Diesel fumes give you a stroke

dsacco 10y ago
Do you have any literature I could read about this? Part of my running route is next to a busy street in the morning.
- renafowler 10y ago
  Here you go: http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/expert-answers/air-pollution-and-exercise/faq-20058563 http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/expert-a...

agumonkey 10y ago

I found that learning music unlocked pattern comprehensions that were very mathematical. Multiple layers of abstraction (rhythm or note points, derivatives of these two, overlay, non linear transformations, and the equivalent momentum phenomenons). Running is something that trigger creative mind activity for me. And a form of flow. I wouldn't be surprised if other physical activity would do the same: climbing, even body building when done in a meditative manner (maybe?).

20161112 10y ago
Would learning drumming help unlock these patterns? I signed up for lessons yesterday :)
- agumonkey 10y ago
  Hell yes. I'm a "drummer" first. I don't mention this because drumming is rarely thought as musical. It does make you reflect on different part of the musical continuum. To summarize my years twirling sticks: - drumming often lead to learning things slow. Focusing on minute details that are ignored, also meditative (you have to be slow and low energy but it's dense, you pay attention at the 10th of a second so you're constantly mentally and physically active) - limb independance is akin to meditation for me, playing patterns involving all limbs massages my brain. It's like trying to balance on a virtual wire. It's a game of doing more with less and abstracting the motion of each limb into another form of data. You must not think of one limb in particular. You feel rhythm and accents, and you distribute to some limbs... I feel like a live compiler. - oddly technique also required revisiting my understanding of physics. It's all about angular momentum, shifting gravity center and inertia. Also doing less with more by distributing the effort on every possible muscle. Makes you reflect on a global basis about each hit. Oh and I forgot, to do lengthy single hand rolls with accents, you don't rotate your wrist, you wave your forearm, hand and stick (it has to be smooth like low basketball dribbling, you'll see if you look for moeller technique later) accents are just a blip in amplitude at the forearm wave; the hand wave will keeps as it is so you'll keep time and won't feel tired because waving doesn't require much energy (half the energy comes from sensitivity and reusing the response of the skin to let the stick go up). It was through this that I started to "see" music. I played bass too, and along the way melody and harmony started to make sense at the intuitive level (I only took 1 year of accelerated formal theory training on piano as a teen, taught me approximately nothing about "music") All in all, I'm a brainiac (for better or worse) .. different people will see other things in drumming. ps: One last thing, at first drumming felt like an immense beast to tame. Famous drummers did things I could barely see, even less understand. My mind skipped to conclusion thinking to reach that level I had to do more and play like a fighter jet. It's the other way around, it changed your view about your perception and interpretation of the world through your senses. As I told before it's all a game of economy, but you have to experience each cymbal, skin, sticks, subtle space and time placement to finally see that just a few strokes well placed are enough to recreate that "complex" thing. It's a bit like when you finally understand a software architecture, you realize how small it is, but you connected the dots and see how much it can do.
  - 10y ago
- spangry 10y ago
  Piano's another good one if you're looking for something more melodic. Although I think drumming is where it's at if you'd find value in the social aspects of music (it's harder to play piano in a band). Now that I think about it, drumming and piano have a couple of things in common, even though they're vastly different instruments. Both require 'synchronising' the left and right sides of your body (and also, presumably, the left and right hemispheres of your brain). Although, occasionally, they require 'un-synchronising': for example when the beat is syncopated. As a pianist, it's such a strange feeling when a syncopated piece 'clicks': it almost feels like your left & right hands (and brain hemispheres) are operating completely independent of each other; almost like it's two separate people playing two separate pieces at the same time. Also, both are arguably percussion instruments :)
  - agumonkey 10y ago
    Any favorite piano player / band / album / theme that tickle your syncopation senses ?
    - spangry 10y ago
      It's hard to go past Chopin's "Fantaisie Impromptu". I quite like Yundi Li's interpretation of the piece: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvm2ZsRv3C8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvm2ZsRv3C8 And one from my favourite composer, Claude Debussy, the first in his pair of Arabesques: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Fle2CP8gR0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Fle2CP8gR0 . The Arabesque is really nice: it starts off synchronised and then transitions to a really beautiful syncopated flowing section. And although this has nothing to do with syncopation or off-beat rhythms, I highly recommend this video from Valentina Lisitsa (one of the most technically brilliant pianists alive, IMHO) playing a Beethoven Sonata with a GoPro strapped to her chest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0m2RW4m8xE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0m2RW4m8xE Although you might want to avoid that last one if you're prone to motion sickness :)
      - agumonkey 10y ago
        I didn't felt a lot for Lisitsa interpretation. Debussy Arabesque n°2 has bits that I like a lot, too short though. Chopin's piece is nice for the momentum but .. I'm more in love with the Prelude 20. Do you know other piece of him with similar harmonic brilliance ? ---- Listening to classic music like this is relaxing, I currently listen to things like: - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbklUUuhHgs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbklUUuhHgs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFaVOruNRck https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFaVOruNRck (guitar only, tell me what you think about this piece, which is a cover from metheny in a classical guitar rewrite) otherwise - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3s3dne0d8Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3s3dne0d8Q (this is the piece that made me think I should start listening to classical music more openly. I used to be in jazzfusion, but the piano introduction felt mostly classical in tone and quite beautiful. The rest isn't bad either, strings, bass, guitar... a very nice crescendo) Talking about off beat syncopation, not sure if that's what you mean, I think of this kind of rhythm (warning not classical music): - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nahPAXPFYPQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nahPAXPFYPQ I consider the dude who created this album a genius, his pianistic style is messy, lightweight, with diagonal solos (see next song finale) toying with the bar in all directions. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGh-7RnafpU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGh-7RnafpU I hope you'll enjoy some of this (maybe you already know them) ---- ps: bonus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK7Lh64Ibz8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK7Lh64Ibz8
braythwayt 10y ago
> “Music is the pleasure the human soul experiences from counting without being aware that it is counting.” -- German mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716), who co-discovered calculus
- agumonkey 10y ago
  Cute quote. I started thinking I disagreed but I confused calculus with counting/algebra .. A whole chunk of classical music is "integer" like (algebra). Jazz/Swing adds flips music around syncopation which is a massive change in mental representation. It's the difference between Harryhausen and Star Wars stop motion (or more recently keyframe tweening and Mitsuo Iso odd time animation). Macro vs Micro. And .. it aligns with Leibniz theories. It's all variations, accelerations, you're always in motion. I believe only 18th music started to care about bending time [rubato, chopin] which is akin to what I felt trying to understand jazz.
  - braythwayt 10y ago
    This is a thread around drumming, but there is also the mathematics of intervals, harmonies, dissonance, resolution... Music is not _like_ mathematics, music _is_ mathematics, it’s just a different way of expressing it.
    - agumonkey 10y ago
      It's missing the inertia part I was trying to convey. This is rarely taught. Except for a crescendo flag on the score. But to me it is essential to what music is. Intervals, harmonies seem like side effects (I'm exagerating).
      - braythwayt 10y ago
        I don’t know if this is wha you mean, but when listening to music, the human brain is constantly making predictions about what will happen next. Jerry Coker explains that the quality of the experience lies in the balance between the familiarity of being right and the surprise of being wrong. Thus, when listening to syncopation, you constantly comparing what your brain hears to a steady 4/4 it ‘expects' to hear. And when listening to a soloist improvise, you are comparing the notes your brain hears to the melody it ‘expects’ to hear. This is obviously not the only effect, not by a long shot, but is that what you mean by “inertia?"
jabv 10y ago
I don't do body building (taking a narrow definition of the term), but I do heavy (for me) barbell lifts as part of my regular exercise routine. For some anecdata, I consistently find myself in a better frame of mind after lifting as long as I was properly focused on form, challenging myself rather than going through the motions, etc. My university education revolved around cello performance, and I find many similarities in the state of mind after a good practice session compared with a good lifting session.
- agumonkey 10y ago
  I'd say it's the connection with the world through your body. People say meditation is looking inside you, I start to think it's what they mean. You allocate your neurons to sense more about your own body and your interface with the world. Either the movement of weights and their effect on your muscles and joints. Or the vibration caused by your bow on the strings. When I was working out, since I was out of shape, I used the music "slowness" as a guide to doing push ups. Always going slow, very slow, and very smooth. Even on every day chores, I realize that anything done in this fashion is relaxing, body and mind wise.
dredmorbius 10y ago
The mediaeval university curriculum was based on two foundations, the trivium and the quadrivium (collectively "the seven liberal arts"). The trivium: grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Or in computing terms: input (parsing), processing, and output. The quadrivium: maths, geometry, music, and astronomy. "What's the connection?" you ask? Numbers. Numbers in space. Numbers in time. Numbers in space and time.
- contingencies 10y ago
  Interesting. After some reading, apparently this interpretation of the trivium is standard, though this interpretation of the quadrivium not entirely. My immediate thought was that of course there would be crossover. For example, rhetoric includes elements of time (tempo/rhythm are poetic). Maths, geometry and astronomy are largely about processing, and so on. More interestingly, they considered the whole lot preparatory work for studying philosophy. Might a modern pentivium add numbers in n-dimensional space (matrices / calculus), or a sextivium explorations and representations of infinity? Or would these fall under the subsequent study of philosophy? How about parallel/concurrent systems? It certainly seems to me as a layman that large swathes of research mathematics and theoretical physics are approaching subject areas traditionally ascribed to philosophy. I wonder what the latin word for GPU would be.
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    What other definitions for the quadrivium are you finding? The set and description I've cited have seemed fairly standard, though I'm not an expert in the area. I'm finding the content and descriptions mostly interesting in a retrospective sense -- I'm not ent advocating that the mediaeval curriculum be implemented in its original form today. At the same time, I find the notion of input, processing, and output to be quite useful, and one which might be considered as part of a modern curriculum. For the maths progression of the quadrivium, there are a few other possible clusters or progressions. We've made some advances in maths as well. I see a general structure of: quantitative notations and operations (arithmetic), solving for unknowns (algebra), geometry and trigenometry, integrals and derivatives, matrixes, differential equations and approximations (FFT). There's also logic (informal, formal, programmatic), programming, and artificial intelligence / machine learning. Genetic engineering seems also to fall somewhere on this axis. Collectively, all of this falls under inforamtion acquisition, processing, storage, and transmission.
pault 10y ago
Anecdote: When I was in middle school I failed horribly at my first year of algebra classes and just couldn't seem to get a grip on the concepts (also I would often see "shortcuts" in the problems that would lead to horribly wrong answers). I would score about 50% on every quiz. I could tell my teacher thought I was an idiot. Around that time I started learning music theory and playing in the school band, and learning jazz on the bass. The next year I was at the top of all of my math classes. My teachers thought I was cheating since I had developed a reputation as a "burnout" by that time (there's nothing more satisfying than getting called in after class to take a test in front of a smug teacher and acing it). Also, even though I quit playing music about 10 years ago, to this day I can map out a melody in my head (I can immediately tell the interval between any two notes and string them together to play a melody on the first attempt), and I can pick apart mult-part harmonies because I can hear them in my head. I very clearly remember walking home from school one day and realizing that for the first time I could hear more than one note at a time in my head. Music definitely rewires the brain in amazing ways.
- agumonkey 10y ago
  Heh, the day I started to isolate overlapping melodies was a huge gift. Makes me happy to read your story. After formal training, and years of wondering what the hell chord progression were about.. the day I could parse harmony in my head and focus on one line in relation to the others, everything became clear. although I cannot measure what I feel in precise way (I couldn't name the intervals) I can improvise counterpoints for a few seconds intuitively. Which is a god damn pleasure. I even enjoy singing dissonant, just for the sake at aiming where the chords don't, and then keep a dissonant counterpoint. It's not dissonnant to me anymore, it's just a different sonic feeling. After all, 13th 17th and many jazz harmonies felt dissonant to me at first.. this is just an extension. I believe that this "explains" more about music than 10 years of music theory classes. ps: That's why I'm often thinking we should teach math to kids with actual activities. Involving your sense is to me critical to internalization of concepts. Later on you can drop the notation. pps: indeed that's the kind of brain rewire I never expected. It opens your mind to other sensations too; and also, even pushing it, it change my view of European geometric explanation of everything. If people, cultures didn't have written music but understood music as you describe .. who has the knowledge here ?
Fricken 10y ago
I started running a couple months ago, I do my best thinking now while running out in nature (running in the city is not as good, too many interruptions). I've set my day up so I can go straight to the computer after I run without changing out of my running clothes or doing a bunch of transitional tasks, because that time is cognitively valuable. I'm full of ideas and want to get them down before they fade. Running takes up about 2 hours of my day, but running for 2 hours and working for 4 feels more productive than just working for 6 hours. I'm doing better work. I was once obsessed with climbing for almost a decade. When climbing I was 100% focused on climbing, my mind wasn't really free to wander and think of other things. Even when I was done climbing, I would still be thinking about climbing. Climbing problems were always the biggest problems in my life, they had a way of eclipsing everything else, which is what it means to get the 'climbing bug'.
- nether 10y ago
  Why did you stop climbing?
  - Fricken 10y ago
    Tendonitis
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
criddell 10y ago
How old were you when you learned music? I've been trying to learn to play guitar on and off for 25 years now. It's a huge struggle for me. For a while I'll practice daily, make very little progress, get frustrated and bored, then quit. A year later I start over and no progress is ever made. I've had different teachers and different instruments (I love the gear part of it) and I know what's really needed is grit. I do get the feeling though that my 46 year old brain is a little calcified and doesn't want to learn something entirely new. That's part of the reason I think I really need to work on it. My kids take music lessons and after the first week, they accomplished more than I had in years.
- agumonkey 10y ago
  I had piano lessons for a year at 14. Stopped (learned nothing except 2 or 3 children melodies, and few ideas that I forgot in a week). Then started again around 19, drumsticks and bass. As I said I was almost dead wrong for 6 years. With mostly regressions. All instruments are different though. Guitars require quite a large amount of time to adapt your left hand (neck). It's easy to never make progress there. Bass guitar is a tad easier because you play melodies and not a blend of this + chords, which are demanding in dexterity and stamina. The frustration, abort, guilt cycle is hard to avoid. Even guys who took lessons as kids have off days. They told us on boards that when they struggle to play, they just take it easy and make it a rudiment day. Stupid patterns at slow pace, just to keep warm. Do not ocmpare yourself to kids, it's mostly masochism. It's like comparing the speed of a fresh windows 95 install vs a 2 yo one. They have natural excitement and smoother fingers, I believe their brain is just a nasty pattern cruncher and most things end up intuitive the next day. That says nothing about your own ability to learn or take pleasure. <= pleasure which should be the goal. One question, do you use a metronome ? everytime I struggle, 2 minutes of metronome backed practice suddenly realigns my hand and my ears and everything gets smoother. Not perfect but it helps to get properly warmed up and enjoy the feeling.
  - criddell 10y ago
    I do have a metronome and I when I use it, I pretty reliably rage quit about 4 minutes later. One thing that I think music teachers would probably frown on is that I picked up Rocksmith and made more progress with that than practicing chord changes, scales, and Hal Leonard songs. The score for being on time on the right note with the software always adding a few more notes than I can play works really well for me. Plus I can play it with my daughter.
frenchhacker 10y ago
any book/website to recommend about music theory?
- agumonkey 10y ago
  No, none, in early 2Ks I just skimmed the first ones Google told me to Since we're on HN, I could suggest you to search "clojure music" on youtube. There are a few talks about a dude revisiting music theory from wave freq. all up to Bach all in a few pages of clojure code. Very Very very cool.

Eerie 10y ago

So, what kind of musical instrument can you play while running?

aczerepinski 10y ago
Sousaphone is an instrument that's meant to be worn, so I would start there.
cschmittiey 10y ago
Marching drums are usually worn, although it's hard to run with tenors/snares.
wavefunction 10y ago
Bugles
Broken_Hippo 10y ago
Maracas, some bells, and probably finger cymbals. You could probably get a triangle or tambourine going, but it would be a bit awkward - especially the triangle. Most breath-based instruments are out, due to the high speed, but you might be able to do interesting things with a Kazoo, or if you have real talent, a Harmonica. So long as you were at a jog instead of a run, you could probably fashion an extra-sturdy harness for a small xylophone set and play it. Edit for an afterthought: You might be able to get into certain string instruments as well. I'd start with something like a ukulele due to the small size and occasional low cost.

alexandros 10y ago

Do we know if that is because Runners and Musicians tend to be generally better educated and raised, both those things being markers of middle- and upper- class membership?

danaliv 10y ago
They controlled for this. "Participants were roughly the same age — 18 to 25 — with comparable body mass index and educational levels."
- SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
  Not to discredit them, because it's a hard problem, but it isn't a full control: even on a college campus (or looking at alumni) and controlling for weight, running and instrument training would still be proxies for various things about upbringing or current social status, and could account for the effects by selection bias. That said, I think this is introductory work on the topic and definitely justifies further inquiry.
  - danaliv 10y ago
    You're right; "control" may be too strong a word. In any case, they did at least consider it. :)
Broken_Hippo 10y ago
Just as a note: Runners might be more middle-to-upper class, but musicians aren't. It is more that some instruments can be expensive. Singing, rap, diy instruments aren't so, and neither is digital music. You do, however, tend to miss out on the physical aspect of playing some of the instruments with the digital music, but not much of the rest if you pay attention.

bluenose69 10y ago

Actually, the article is mainly about running. Music is mentioned just once, and a bit tangentially. PS. the photo in the article shows the waterfront of Halifax, Nova Scotia, with Georges Island to the left. The island is the site of Fort Charlotte. During the seven years war, the English imprisoned 2000 French sailors there, which is hard to imagine, given the size of the island (all of which is visible in the photo).

braythwayt 10y ago
Yes, please don’t editorialize titles. Some titles are awkward and need editing. But fixing what the title is trying to say is not the same thing as changing the title to say what you want it to say. Which does not mean that your perspective is not important. So instead of editorializing the title, either leave it be or fix it to say what the source intended, then kick of the discussion with your own interpretation as a comment.

chiefalchemist 10y ago

Do runners create brains? Or do brains create runners? The study is interesting but, as the article mentions, more needs to be learned. That aside, it's likely a bit of both. In the case of the latter (I.e., brain creates runner) what happens when the person fails to realize their potential (?)? That is, you have a runner brain but are 20 lbs overweight and sit on your ass all day. Does that, can that, drive mental illness e.g., depression)? Regardless, lack of blood flow can't be a positive.

SFJulie 10y ago

/me is often downvoted : I should not be then. I play bass, and can run 15km in one hour without breaking too much of a sweat. Humm ... better means nothing... Yet another whizz bang science that is void of any sense. But it is nice to have ego boosting article.

devdad 10y ago
So you're sub40ish at 10k and lands at 60ish at 15k. If true, that's impressive.

tdrd 10y ago

It's not even clear that this is about running. They compared runners to sedentary individuals; this sounds like another "exercise is good" conclusion to me.

r3dk1ng 10y ago

I always assumed all things that required effort and coordination between the two halves of the brain would increase the connectivity, specifically over the corpus callosum.

JustSomeNobody 10y ago

Here's a question. I have no desire to learn an instrument, so is it still possible to learn enough music theory to reap the mental benefits? As far as running goes, my knees don't allow for it.

Swizec 10y ago
> my knees don't allow for it Start slow, buy shoes appropriate for your gait, work on technique. I have bad knees running in the family, had tendon injuries in both of them as a kid too. Used to get a lot of pain when running then I decided to focus on my technique, taking it slow (like, 2 mile runs at 10min/mile cause running longer or faster felt like the death) Now 3 years later I run a 4hr marathon and the only time my knees hurt is when it's time to buy new shoes. And yes, it is a great excuse if you don't actually want to run. My advice is for if you want to but think you can't :) PS: start slow can mean "long leisurely walk" depending on your shape. Tendons and joints need to get used to being used
- JustSomeNobody 10y ago
  Thanks. My right knee does need to have a professional look at it; I've just been putting that off. Same professional tells me I need more exercise (I eat healthy so that helps me not be _too_ bad, though). I see there's some avoidance there now that I'm typing all this. :)

CopOnTheRun 10y ago

So maybe I missed it in the article, but it seems like they just tested a group of physically active students, and those who weren't. Does running have anything to do with the "functional connectivity" or is it just exercise in general? The article says we've known exercising is good for the brains of older people for some time now, the new study just tested the effects on younger people. Shouldn't the title be "exercise is good for the brains of young people too"?

bo1024 10y ago
I think part of the point is that even apparently-"mindless" exercise is now shown to also be good. See this paragraph: > Previous studies have shown that activities that require fine motor control, such as playing a musical instrument, or that require high levels of hand-eye coordination, such as playing golf, can alter brain structure and function. However, fewer studies have looked at the effects of more repetitive athletic activities that don’t require as much precise motor control — such as running. Raichlen’s and Alexander’s findings suggest that these types of activities could have a similar effect.
- Johnny555 10y ago
  fewer studies have looked at the effects of more repetitive athletic activities that don’t require as much precise motor control — such as running Is it really true though that running doesn't require precise motor control? Every time I run, my feel "automatically" skip over imperfections in the road surface, placing my foot down early just before the big crack in the sidewalk, sidestepping the dog poop on the sidewalk, leaping off the curb while my eyes are focused on traffic. And unlike the guy that plays golf where he's only focusing for a few minutes per hole, my feet are active for my entire one hour run and my mind is guiding my feet for 10,000 steps throughout the run. It may be a different part of the brain than deciding how to hit a ball to reach a target 300m away, but there's still a lot of eye-foot coordination in running.
  - bo1024 10y ago
    Great point. I was thinking that a great study to get at this could be comparing treadmill-only and outside-only runners.

tsumnia 10y ago

This title is a little click-baity, but I think one of the nice takeaways from the article was the connectivity in the frontal cortex. I've been researching how to improve CS education this past semester, and its taken me down a long road of cog. psych. Much of this information is "true", but shouldn't be read as "Runners and musicians are 'smarter'". Firstly, what's it mean to be 'smart'? As expertise grows, that knowledge needs to be stored somewhere. In my studies, this led to Cambridge's Handbook Of Expertise [1], in which there is a chapter focusing on perceptual-motor expertise. In violinists, the neural plasticity of the cerebellum expanded similarly to the cerebellum's in chess players. As my link and this article sort of point out, mental and physical expertise cause the brain to expand. There is some discussion about the brain being an "arena" for limited neural tissue; however, I am by no means an expert of the brain. My interpretation of this information is that the same practices done in runners/musicians can be applied to other mental practices - ala CS. You get better at running by running; you get better at playing a violin by practicing your scales; what are the elements of CS that can be reduced to these solitary practices as a means to get better at them? [1] https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511816796 https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511816796

syphilis2 10y ago

I found a lot of my questions from the article were quickly explained by looking over the paper. http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2016.00610 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2016.00610

sctb 10y ago

We've updated the title from “Runners and musicians have better-connected brains than the rest of us” to that of the article.

skookum 10y ago

A hypothesis mentioned in the original paper: "...it is also possible that the cognitive benefits of exercise occur because locomotion is not simply an automated repetitive motor task, but is instead a highly complex behavior that involves domains related to both motor and cognitive functions. For example, walking or running through complex environments can engage several components of executive function including volition, self-awareness, planning, inhibition, monitoring, attentional switching and multi-tasking, in addition to motor control..." If that is indeed the mechanism which accounts for the brain differences claimed, perhaps mountaineers, sidecountry & backcountry skiers or snowboarders, mountain bikers or long-distance hikers might be better groups than runners for validating this.

Houshalter 10y ago

There was an interesting study that looked at Facebook likes and personality types of a large number of people. They found the pages/interests that were the most heavily correlated with each of the major personality dimensions. It's really interesting and you can see the whole chart twoard the bottom of this article: http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/this-algorithm-knows-you-better-than-your-facebook-friends-do/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/this-algorithm-knows-you-... Emotional stability was highly correlated with running, sports, and general outdoor activities (and also rap music, interestingly.) Is it because spending time outside makes people more emotionally stable? Or do emotionally stable people just enjoy outdoor activities more?

imesh 10y ago
For what it's worth exercise is needed for me to feel mentally stable.
pizza 10y ago
I gotta say I laughed out loud when I saw the mention of The Velvet Underground. It also reminded me of this aside Lou Reed spoke before performing a song; > This is a song about the sorrows of the contemporary world, of which I know we all know so well. At least, I read about it all the time. It's like, one day – this is when I was in college, right? – and I woke up, 6:30 in the morning because I get up early, and I put on the radio, and they said, y'know, 'So-and-so truck driver today ran over his baby son's head and it burst like a watermelon.' And then they said, 'It's 22 degrees out.' So I figured, on all levels, there was no reason ever to go out again. I stayed indoors for about eight months. Also passed with honors in Kierkegaard – that's 'cause I understand, y'know, the existential leap. Anyone who lies in bed at 6:30 in the morning listening to that has to. Anyway, after that communism was the only answer for me, I felt. And if you can't be a communist and make money, then you have to be a rock & roll singer. At least in Hoboken ... So anyway, this is a song called 'I Can't Stand it Anymore.'"

zw123456 10y ago

I have been a runner for just about my whole life (ran track in HS) is started listening to music when the small mp3 players first came out and I noticed that it seemed to interfere with my "runners high" a little bit. I know this is tied to beta endorphins but I also think there is a Zen like aspect. So I stopped using the player and instead just let my mind run free too. My theory is that running can also unlock a type of meditative experience in the brain. I notice how much more clearly I can think after. It could be an evolutionary anachronism in that when the hunter man begins to run that the brain enters a state of heightened acuity in preparation for the kill. Who knows.

edblarney 10y ago
"I notice how much more clearly I can think after." Yes me to. I'm quite past 30 and on most days I feel a little crap. After a run, I feel 20-something in terms of energy, motivation and attitude. I think it's a combination of the endorphins, and then the rebalancing of sugar levels. I feel as though my metabolism has been 'reset to something proper'. I think that light cardio is the closest thing to the fountain of youth.
- ZeroFries 10y ago
  Yes, the combo of balanced blood sugar + oxygen + CO2. Might also have something to do with alkalinity as your body clears the lactic acid (by perhaps becoming more alkaline after buffering).
- ipnon 10y ago
  >combination of endorphins The primary component of a runner's high is attributed to a category of neurotransmitters known as endocannabinoids. Endorphins become the primary component of a runner's high when the body becomes structurally damaged, like when marathon runners struggle to remain standing and lose the ability to concentrate (note the similarities to heroin consumption). The feelings of well-being and the Zen-like state that comes about from running a few miles is almost entirely due to endocannabinoids, similar to when someone has consumed cannabis.

xivusr 10y ago

I've been running since XC in HS, but reconnected in my mid twenties to overcome addictions. Since then I've more or less just substituted one for the other, but the running seems to have better long-term effects. The activity is closely connected with my work and personal life -- in that when I don't run, the rest of my life suffers.

rokosbasilisk 10y ago

I would like to see this study replicated as the sample size of 22 seems low, and I have a strong suspicion nutrition plays a very large role as covariate here. Just not sure how generalizable this is. Ive been doing some data analysis internship for a similar study but more brain vs circadian cycles. The human data is often messy and does not replicate. The clonal mouse studies data is often more consistent, and what Im building an in silico model for.

oryak 10y ago

This doesn't sound like a good study to me because of the two groups they are comparing. Even in the original article (which I only had a brief look at), it seems they didn't do a really fair comparison but compared two completely different groups with each other. With the same study, they could also have said "people with more brain connections feel a stronger urge to run long distances". A better study would have been to take a group of lazy people, divide them into two groups, one will do long distance running in the next year, one won't, and an additional group of current runners divided into the same groups. Then I would start believing this. Right now it sounds just like a flawed first-time study an undergrad did.

woutervegter 10y ago

if you really want to improve your brain during exercise, try dancing like jazz/modern/lyric/ballet/street. A nearly common characteristic of dancing people I know is that their mind is quite bright some arguments: http://neuro.hms.harvard.edu/harvard-mahoney-neuroscience-institute/brain-newsletter/and-brain-series/dancing-and-brain http://neuro.hms.harvard.edu/harvard-mahoney-neuroscience-in...