Exercise & Health


"A variety of studies released since 2012 continue to show that the “exercise hormone” irisin (also known as FNDC5) has wide ranging health benefits." - Psychology Today (Feb 2014)


"What Happens To Your Body After Just One Workout"  -  Huffington Post (Jan 2014)


"Exercise has benefits for every body system; it is effective both as a treatment and for prevention of disease. It can improve memory and concentration, lessen sleep disorders, aid heart disease by lowering cholesterol and reducing blood pressure, help sexual problems such as erectile dysfunction, and raise low libido. Exercise does it all. Even with cancer, particularly colon and recurrent breast cancer, the data show clearly that exercise is a deterrent. Newer studies on a glycoprotein called Interleukin 6 suggests that general body inflammation, a factor in almost every chronic disease, is reduced by regular exercise."  -  Slate (Dec 2013)


"Exercise can be as good a medicine as pills for people with conditions such as heart disease, a study has found."  -  BBC (Oct 2013)






Exercise & Obesity


"The more aerobic exercise that overweight or obese children got in a randomized trial, the less likely they were to develop prediabetic insulin resistance, researchers said... More exercise was also associated with larger reductions in total body fat and in visceral fat, the researchers reported in the Sept. 19 obesity-themed issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association." - MedPage Today (Sept 2012)


"Physical activity reduces the effect of the obesity gene in adolescents" - eScience News (May 2010)






Exercise & Emotions


"Physically active adolescents reported significantly better health-related quality of life (QOL), whereas their sedentary counterparts scored lower on multiple domains of the same quality-of-life scale, Australian investigators reported."  -  MedPage Today (June 2012)


"Evidence is mounting for the benefits of exercise, yet psychologists don’t often use exercise as part of their treatment arsenal. Here’s more research on why they should."  -  APA (Dec 2011)





Exercise & Addiction


"Trivedi is in the middle of a two-year randomized clinical trial to study the effects of intensive exercise to treat addiction to cocaine, amphetamines, and other illegal stimulants."  -  Alternet (Jan 2012)


"The results: Participants who had gone for a walk ate half as much chocolate as those who had simply rested."  -  Psychology Today (Jan 2012)


"Now new evidence that suggests a way to make their efforts easier: exercise. In a study involving 233 teens aged 14 to 19 in West Virginia (which has one of the highest smoking rates in the country, at more than 22%), teens who participated in a smoking cessation program combined with exercise were on average up to three times more likely to quit smoking than those who were provided only minimal stop-smoking counseling.  -  Time Healthland (Sept 2011)  and  Psychology Today (Oct 2011)  and  Reuters (Sept 2011)


"Aerobic exercise may protect against binge-like patterns of cocaine use, suggests a new study. Rats allowed access to running wheels self-administered less cocaine than did rats that were not."  -  Science Daily (Nov 2010)






Exercise & Aggression


"Can Exercise Moderate Anger?" - New York Times (August 2010)


"Results offer some support to the belief that engaging in weight training, or at least engaging in voluntary physical activity, may have an effect on reducing inmate aggression levels." - Sage Journals (March 1999)






Exercise & Intellect


"Exercise Is ADHD Medication. Physical movement improves mental focus, memory, and cognitive flexibility; new research shows just how critical it is to academic performance." - The Atlantic (Sept 2014)


"Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have found more evidence that physical activity is beneficial for brain health and cognition. The findings were published December 2, 2013 online in Behavioural Brain Research. The new study suggests that certain hormones, which are increased during exercise, may help improve memory." - Psychology Today (Dec 2013)


"Scientists Discover Why Exercise Makes You Smarter. Researchers have found an exercise-induced molecule that improves cognition." - Psychology Today (Oct 2013)


"Better Motor Skills Linked to Higher Academic Scores" - Psychology Today (Oct 2013)


"Regular exercise boosts teenagers’ school grades — and particularly helps girls in science, a British study said Tuesday." - Raw Story (Oct 2013)


"Aerobic fitness linked to better academic performance. " - Psychology Today (Feb 2013)


"BDNF plays a key role in creating new neurons. The gene that turns on BDNF is activated by a variety of factors, including physical exercise. Lab rats that exercise have been shown to produce far more BDNF in their brains when compared to sedentary animals. And, there is a direct relationship between elevation of BDNF levels in these animals and their ability to learn and remember." - Psychology Today (Dec 2012)


"Thanks to brain-imaging studies in humans and neurochemical studies in animals, scientists have found evidence that exercise actually makes a stronger brain. Physical exertion induces the cells in the brain to reinforce old connections between neurons and to forge new connections. This denser neuron network is better able to process and store information, essentially resulting in a smarter brain."  -  Psycholodgy Today (June 2012)


"Go for a brisk walk before studying and your memory of the material is likely to benefit."  -  BP Research (Aug 2011)


"Looking for a way to boost your brain? Guess what! The solution may be right at your feet. A moderate amount of walking on a daily basis can help strengthen your brain and maybe even your memory. There's encouraging news from a controlled study on the walking-brain-memory connection in older adults. The research, led by University of Pittsburgh psychologist Kirk Erickson, was published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."  -  Psychology Today Blog (Feb 2011)


"The research team discovered that the hippocampus (part of the brain inside the temporal lobe that plays an important part in memory and learning) tended to be significantly larger in the kids who were physically fit. What's more, the fit children performed better on a memory test than youngsters the same age who were out of shape."  -  Natural News (Oct 2010)


"College students who want to boost their grades can start by boosting their level of exercise, new research suggests." - The New York Times (June 2010)


"Children who had the best average scores in standardized tests in reading, math, science and social studies were fit at the start and end of the study, researchers found. The next best group, academically, in all four subjects, was made up of children who were not fit in fifth grade but had become fit by seventh grade. The children who had lost their fitness levels between fifth and seventh grades were third in academic performance. Children who were not physically fit in either the fifth or seventh grades had the lowest academic performance." - Science Daily (March 2010)


"Older women who did an hour or two of strength training exercises each week had improved cognitive function a year later, scoring higher on tests of the brain processes responsible for planning and executing tasks, a new study has found." - The New York Times (Jan 2010)


"Physical Activity May Strengthen Children's Ability To Pay Attention" - Science Daily (April 2009)


"Exercise boosts brainpower by building new brain cells in a brain region linked with memory and memory loss, U.S. researchers reported on Monday." - Reuters (March 2007)


"Allow a laboratory mouse to run as much as it likes, and its brainpower improves. Force it to run harder than it otherwise might, and its thinking improves even more." - New York Times Blogs (Sept 2009)


"Preschool children who were enrolled in a creative dance movement program as part of their Head Start experience had greater gains in social competence and more reductions in behavior problems than children who were given a cognitively-based program of learning to control attention that did not include a body sense component." - Psychology Today Blog (Oct 2009)


"Cardiovascular Fitness is Linked to Intelligence" - Psychology Today Blog (Dec 2009)


"Research Finds Vigorous Exercise Equals Better Academics" - Science Daily (Aug 2006)






Exercise & Assorted


"However, in the past few years there have been a wide range of studies showing that the physical health and fitness of the father at the moment of conception can greatly impact the physical health of his offspring." - Psychology Today (Jan 2014)


"Think you don't have enough time for exercise? Good news: The body of evidence supporting short, high-intensity workouts continues to grow. According to a small new study commissioned by the American Council on Exercise (ACE), Tabata-style workouts done for just 20 minutes provide measurable cardio benefits." - Huffington Post (Oct 2013)


"All kids need exercise, but there are specific reasons for autistic kids to get active: Autistic adults cite exercise as critical for self-regulation and helping to process their environment, exercise can provide social opportunities with less emphasis on verbal interactions, exercise can help moderate some medication side effects, and exercise can help moderate autistic kids' greater and earlier tendency towards obesity." - Blogher (Oct 2013)  and  Psychology Today (March 2014)


"Using a large sample of 5042 Finnish twin males, the study aimed to investigate the direct effects of physical activities on long-term labor income and earnings.   The results showed that being physically active positively influenced long-term (15 year) income, with physically active males receiving incomes some 14-17% higher than less active males." - Psychology Today (August 2013)


"The results showed that individuals who engaged in higher levels of exercise at midlife were less likely to develop Alzheimer's than those who exercised at a lower level." - Psychology Today (March 2013)  and  Annals of Internal Medicine (Feb 2013)