Anyone who has incorporated sport into their routine will have experienced firsthand the benefits of exercise for mental health. Training helps lower cortisol levels and to generate endorphins and dopamine, which translates into less stress and anxiety, better mood, and greater mental clarity. In fact, often these consequences, more than the physical ones, are what motivate many to stay committed to this habit.
However, the advantages of sport for your head are not limited to mental health. Your brain is one of the main beneficiaries of moving the body and can come to thank you in ways you may not imagine, for example, improving your work situation. This is something that Desi Lozoya, a graduate in CAFyD and founder of BuildMode, discovered at the moment when he started to get bored with his profession and decided to delve into the relationship between physical exercise and cognitive development.
«The click happened when I discovered that it is not only physical training that improves the cognitive part; it also depends on how you move and the intensity with which you do it«. From this revelation arose the idea of creating BuildMode, “a club created for founders, freelancers, and people who run companies, where training becomes a strategic tool to improve mental clarity, the ability to make decisions, and emotional stability.” And indeed what Desi saw in these data is that, effectively, he could put sport at the service of a better work management for many people.
What Desi Lozoya saw when planning this concept was nothing other than the brain’s response to movement. «It is a biological and physiological process. What is being demonstrated is that movement influences the synapses (the connections that exist between neurons) and improves neurogenesis (the creation of new neurons). If the neuron connections are more fluid and, in addition, new ones appear, the ability to make decisions will be better», he affirms.
How to Train to Achieve Better Cognitive Performance
The proposal could not be more attractive, especially for those who want to optimize their work performance to the maximum, but not everything goes. To enjoy these benefits it is essential to consider how, when, and based on what the activity is developed. «Just as there are training routines that are more or less effective for losing weight, there are others that are better or worse for cognitive improvement«, says Desi Lozoya.
For him, the most important thing is to take into account what level the nervous system is at for each person, and to evaluate both how each one is and the way they execute the sporting routine. «There are two opposite poles: the person who is near stress or in a state of stress and the one who is going through a more apathetic moment. The training must adapt to each context», he explains. In fact, for Desi the nervous system and the professional situation take precedence over other “residual” differences such as gender, because these are the factors that influence cognitive improvements.
At BuildMode they focus mainly on profiles such as freelancers or businesspeople, but its founder states that this method is valid for any profession. The essential thing is to consider the intensity of the exercise and where it sits in the routine. The professional states that the best moment to exercise is in the morning, although he concludes that it is much more important to be able to integrate it into the routine so that it becomes a priority.
What is worth noting, if you are seeking real cognitive improvement with tangible consequences in work life, is the intensity with which you perform each exercise. «For physical goals, if you train a lot and push too hard, you will need a recovery period, but you will find physical adaptations. However, regarding the cognitive part, the graph is like an inverted U: if you push too hard the cognitive benefit can be zero», meaning that in this case more does not necessarily mean better. »You will obtain results if the program you undertake is oriented toward cognitive improvement«, he concludes.
How the activity is developed is fundamental to the culmination moment of the process and at which the cognitive improvement that is reflected in work performance is truly tested: the after. According to BuildMode’s founder, after training there are two hours of maximum mental clarity— something they take full advantage of at the center, which also includes a coworking space—where the brain is more predisposed to give full attention to those tasks.
Why does this phenomenon occur? Desi Lozoya explains it to us: «When you exercise, the prefrontal part of the brain stays in a kind of stand by, the body needs more blood and the brain prioritizes that. When you are in this state for an hour, two things have happened in your brain: you haven’t been ruminating and your prefrontal part has reset in a clean and focused way. This kind of reset allows there to be a improvement in the ability to make decisions, to analyze something, or to think, and it is quite superior to how it was before exercising«.
The secret for sport to be your best ally when it comes to improving at work lies precisely in knowing how to seize this moment, which in turn happens when training is adapted to the state of the nervous system and the appropriate intensity. While it is true that not all jobs allow such flexibility, Desi Lozoya encourages trying to find the gap and prioritizing this way of training. In the long run, he assures, it is worth it.
