Why exercise? # 1 INCREASES YOUR FOCUS

Take a moment just now – stop – sit – listen – look… how many sounds, movements and colours are there competing for your attention? In any modern environment, we have smart phones beeping updates, advertising methods screaming at us and like days of old people talking, children fighting, partners grabbing a sneaky hug – blah, blah, blah.

The thing is all of this is taking away our focus as it creates distractions for attention. Research has found that the fitter amongst us are in fact more able to shut out these distractions and focus more effectively on the task at hand…

Since around 2004 several researches have considered the focus abilities fit individuals against less fit persons; another significant study in this matter compared over several months aerobically trained participants against non-trained participants. Each study required the participants to undertake focussed tasks in distracting settings and the results were solid with physically fit participants demonstrated increased control over their ability to focus attention as measured by a challenging cognitive task.

The positive finding here was that those who participated in the second study regardless of their initial fitness level, as they trained over the months their ability to focus become stronger as their fitness also increased!

So, the great news is no matter how fit you are (or not) then getting fitter helps you focus better!