Coaches and trainers of all fields tell us that if we would just do some physical activity, we will feel better. If nothing else, a little bit of exercise is supposed to be good for us. So just try it, no?

My role as a business coach and mentor has forced me to dig deeper into this theory. After all, I cannot merely rely on the miraculous air of Jerusalem, where several of my clients hang out, to get them and their businesses into shape.

There is now plenty of literature that establishes a clear link between exhaustive activity and (ironically?) better thinking. As Melissa Dahl summarised, run and “new cells pop up in the hippocampus, a region of the brain associated with learning and memory.”

She continues:
Other post-run changes have been recorded in the brain’s frontal lobe, with increased activity seen in this region after people adopt a long-term habit of physical activity. ….. After about 30 to 40 minutes of a vigorous aerobic workout – enough to make you sweat – studies have recorded increased blood flow to this region, which, incidentally, is associated with many of the attributes we associate with “clear thinking”: planning ahead, focus and concentration, goal-setting, time management.

And I have proved this with my own clients. There have been times, when the standard meeting has proved uninspiring, I have invited them – not giving them much of a chance to refuse – to a quick yet stirring physical challenge. This is usually greeted with initial disbelief. However, as one person remarked to me twenty minutes afterwards, “Michael, I don’t know what you have done to me, but my head is rushing with ideas.”

Neuroscientist Hannah Critchlow confirms that neurogenesis, the birth of new brain cells, takes place in adults, particularly when running. However, she takes her research a stage further.

There’s a huge amount that seems to be hardwired into us and predetermined. You are born with a particular brain and that shapes your perception, shapes what you are hardwired to find rewarding. You are brought up in a particular environment and that reinforces what you are born with. (Thus,) if your perception of the world is based on prior experiences and hardwiring, then that shapes your reality, which goes on to affect your decision-making. A large amount of your decision-making taps into your reward system in your brain. Although there is scope to change certain behaviours, you have to make a real conscious effort in order to break habits and change how your reward system affects your motivation. I think neuroscience can be very empowering in that, in making me go for a jog rather than reach for a bottle of shiraz.

I have written previously about my own running efforts. There is no doubt that I can record the positive change that they have had in my career. I would like to sign off with a very different case study, which refers to a very brilliant yet fidgety individual, who has been asking me to help create a new professional path for him.

He realised his mistake only after he had told me that he used to run marathons, although you could not tell that from his current bodily outline. He has since run tens of kilometers – for me and for himself. And as per his running, his pace of commercial progress has also increased noticeably.