Maximize your mood with the right exercise... weights or cardio?

Have you ever wondered why some people are drawn to certain types of exercise?

Some people love cardio type exercises and can perform them for hours upon hours each week. While some would rather have their right foot amputated before they would run 2 miles. Personally, I have always found solace in the weight room and now we are beginning to learn why.

Everyone can attest to the mood boosting effects of exercise. Going for a nice walk, crushing leg day in the gym, a nice WOD or a yoga class all boost mood and help you feel better. This article is going to detail some theories emerging (some my own and some in the research arena) on the intensity levels and how you can formulate your workouts for what you want to accomplish with your mood and brain.

Simply stated, it appears high intensity exercise leads to increased brain activity in the emotional processing areas of the brain. On a surface level, this makes sense. When you are emotionally stressed, odds are you want to ‘get those emotions out’. Boxing classes, weight rooms and lifting heavy or aggressively pushing really hard and even performing cardio based exercises with a large increase in intensity. Emotions heighten intensity.

I do have a theory based in biochemistry and do think it will be proven in the years to come, if not already being tested. I believe the reason for this is because of BCAAs and Serotonin. The more intensity you bring to the exercise, the more BCAAs will be used up and depleted, leading to a larger increase in serotonin release following the conclusion of the exercise session. This higher release in serotonin will have effects in the areas of the brain more sensitive to serotonin, which ultimately are the emotional processing areas.

Low intensity exercise seems to modulate areas of the brain heavy related to attention and cognitive processing. This would be your run of the mill cardio based exercises. Exercising while still being able to carry a conversation would be a practical way of gauging low intensity.

Applying this to real life I always come back to some of my personal experiences. When I have a high mental load, like preparing to give a seminar, I have to avoid high intensity exercise like CrossFit. It burns my brain out which leads to much less creativity and ability to process thoughts and formulate ideas. Albeit, I find myself almost needing daily walks or low intensity bicycling to keep my brain focused.

Is it the increased blood flow, but not to the point of burning out BCAAs and leading to a higher serotonin release? Possibly. I also find that people can only have a certain amount of neurotransmitters. For example, if you are looking to drive up dopamine with supplementation and diet, you generally see a drop in serotonin based feelings and effects. It is as if the brain has a bucket of neurotransmitters and once that bucket is full you can’t add more. So supporting one will lead to a drop in another.

Staying with this theory, high intensity requires a lot of dopamine to stay focused. Thus, after the exercise your brain will want to replenish with other neurotransmitters to maintain a full bucket, leading to a larger increase in serotonin. Low intensity exercise won’t burn the dopamine out as fast, thus leading to more dopamine post workout in the attention and cognitive areas.

Yes, these are some of my thoughts, and may or may not be fully right. Although they do offer some insight and are all very plausible. This new research is cool and leading us down roads to help understand how the body works. Begin to test this out and report back. Would love to hear your thoughts.

-Dr. Kurt

Reference ID: PMID: 31970059