...in the elderly. And across all tasks it's only half a standard deviation, meaning the result is far from significant. There are lots of good studies on positive effects of exercise in all sorts of ages and populations, but this is not one of them.
Edit: Jesus, this thread is proof than HN techies think they know math but actually have no clue about statistics. They are easy prey for this kind of journalism.
The standard deviation referred to in the article is the effect size, and not the standard error of that estimate, which is what would be used to determine its significance.
> Point estimates for effect size on all cognitive tasks were 0.164
> (SE = 0.028, n = 96, p = .05) for control groups and 0.478 (SE =
> 0.029, n = 101, p = .01) for exercisers, suggesting that both groups
> improved between Times 1 and 2. However, the control groups’ im-
> provement was about 1/8 a standard deviation, whereas the exercise
> groups’ improvement was nearly 1/2 a standard deviation, on average.
> Both values are significantly different from zero, and from each other
> (see Table 1).
Earlier in the paper they define their effect size as:
g = (M_Post - M_Pre )/SD_P , where M_Pre is the preintervention mean task performance, M_Post is the postintervention mean, and SD_P is the pooled standard deviation.
I think the standard deviation mentioned is relative to overall population spread of cognitive performance, given that standard errors of the effect size are given separately?
> What are you talking about? Statistical significance is directly calculated from effect size and standard deviation.
But it's not about how big the effect is. It's how likely that the effect was or was not due to chance. A very small effect can be statistically significant. You missed "sample size" in your list above - a big sample size can help you show a small effect is probably not chance.
This isn't really constructive regardless of whether you're right or not. It's completely valid to e.g. both agree that exercise is good as well as criticize a specific study on the matter.
I'm pretty sure that HN skews far fatter than average, which is insane to think about since the average tech bro is far LESS fat than the average person.
I imagine the average HN user to look like Richard Stallman.
HN suffers from a peculiar obsession with theory and optimization. There's no secret to aerobic exercise: go get your heart rate mildly elevated for a while. Do whatever activity you can stand making part of your regular life, and stick with it. Do it long enough and you'll lose weight to boot. This is a simple truth. Things get complicated at the fringes, or if you want to actually train vs just get fit, but most of HN is not a fringe case unable to benefit from basic exercise. They just pretend to be to ignore that simple truth.
Half a standard deviation means going from the 50th percentile of IQ to the 69th. I'm assuming you didn't mean statistical significance since size of movement has nothing to do with statistical significance, so you must have meant significant in the sense of important.
(Just saw your rebuttal about "significance" below. Statistical significance is not how big a movement is, it is the chance that such a movement could be due to random chance. A very small movement could be statistically significant if your sample is big enough to show it's probably (e.g. 95% probably) not due to chance.)
Or, they are confusing the way that standard deviation is used in the article as the size of the effect, with the standard error of that estimate, which would b3 used to determine the significance.
> And across all tasks it's only half a standard deviation, meaning the result is far from significant.
I can't read the original article because it's paywalled, but assuming that the original claim is correct ("increased performance by approximately .5 of a standard deviation across all tasks tested") and that by "significant" you mean "statistically significant" then you are spectacularly and confidently wrong.
Imagine we have a normal distribution of IQs around 100 with a standard deviation of 15.
Imagine there were some intervention which resulted in a uniform increase in IQ by half a standard deviation across the board. Perhaps the intervention is "literally add 7.5 points to every single score in the treatment group."
You seem to be asserting that because the effect size is "only" half a standard deviation, we have no way of determining whether or not the intervention actually increased scores, no matter how much data is collected. We could collect 100 million IQ scores in the control group, and 100 million IQ scores in the "treatment" group, and see that the average score in the control group is 100 and the average score in the treatment group is 107.5, and we'd have to say "nope, the null hypothesis looks completely plausible here, because the effect size was just half a standard deviation."
> Edit: Jesus, this thread is proof than HN techies think they know math but actually have no clue about statistics. They are easy prey for this kind of journalism.
And yet you are the one confusing the standard deviation of an effect size with the standard error of a point estimate...
I'm the opposite - exercise makes me feel terrible both physically (exhausting) and mentally (boredom), both during and after. I've never experienced "runner's high" or the similar feeling some people describe from lifting weights.
If it wasn't for the health and aesthetic benefits, I'd choose to never to exercise again.
I was you once. Once I achieved a high level of fitness and a motivation to push the limits, then I understood what people mean when they say exercise can make you high.
I'm still like that -- sort of. I'm a busy dad of three active kids and have always been athletic and active, but sometimes family obligations prevent consistency for periods of time. When restarting from a low fitness level (whether, in my case, it's cycling or running) I always feel demotivated and pretty crap until I'm about 3-4 weeks into a regular (5+ day/wk) routine and have built my aerobic capacity back up to a point where I actually feel like I'm really running (or biking) again. It's demotivating for the first few weeks, but I've been through this routine enough times to know the light at the end of the tunnel isn't very far away. I think a lot of people who don't have athletic backgrounds and are just starting their fitness journey are mentally hampered by not knowing how the journey progresses, and when they can expect to start feeling and seeing changes. Also, running is non-trivial. People assume it's a natural movement pattern for humans (and it is), but it's definitely not for adults who live largely sedentary lives and are not already fit. It can be downright dangerous if not approached carefully, especially compared to lower impact aerobic activities like cycling & swimming (or elliptical or stairclimber).
tldr: people who never push themselves will never likely achieve an exercise high. Also, people starting at 0 have a much harder slog of it than those with a decent base & athletic background.
The problem most people (in my experience) have is that they don't actually start training with any intention of becoming half decent, which both psychologically and physiologically limits their potential outcomes.
This is a silly stance and honestly condescending. Not everyone works the same way you do. I've competed at the national level and I often find the workouts strenuous and boring, not fun. Projecting your own experience onto others is a great way to demotivate, not help them.
I went through this when I quit caffeine. I had been exercising nearly daily for two decades, loved almost every second of it, literally always caffeinated. Then I quit caffeine for digestive reasons and my god it's like any form of exercise is pure torture. Finally starting to come through the other side, had to drastically simplify what I was doing to make it palatable (basically just running + yoga at this point.)
Try different exercises. I abhor running, but love swimming, for example. Group sports are more appealing to some people. Small groups, like padel, pickleball (never played) or tennis (love it). Large groups, like indoor soccer or volleyball.
To each its own, but don't lump exercise into a single class. Try some variety!
Agreed. Pure agony. Afterwards I am so exhausted that I often find myself at the edge of tears. Worse it seems to turn off my immune system and I often get sick.
But I do have a clearer head for a few hours after a run so I keep doing it.
You may be ramping up too quickly. It doesn’t need to feel like torture. Drop any preconceived notions of what counts as an “exercise session”. Go as slow as you need. Let your body adapt.
When I first got back into running 2 years ago after a long hiatus, I had to learn the painful lesson that I was being way too hard on myself. I eventually figured out that I can slow down and start with just a very slow 0.5 - 1 mile jog. I can even stop and stretch in the middle of the run if I'm feeling tight. It sounds silly, but I didn't realize that was allowed. There are no rules. If anyone judges you, that's there problem. You do you.
Here’s one of many, many possible examples:
* Walk for 10 minutes 3x a week for a few months.
* Walk for 15 minutes 3x a week for a month or two.
* Walk for 20 minutes 3x a week for a month or two. Stretch for 5 minutes before or after walking.
* Walk for 5 minutes, then jog VERY SLOWLY for 5 minutes, and then walk for 5 more minutes. Stretch for 5 minutes before / after.
* You get the idea…
And if running isn’t your thing, try something else. The only that matters is that you move and use your body. There are a million ways to move the body! I bet you can find one you like :)
———
More philosophical / technical approach:
Treat it like a puzzle. You have a System in State A (your body and your current behavioral patterns).
How can we get the System to State B? Or wait, perhaps State C or D are just as good or even better! We just didn’t realize those were possibilities.
Consider dropping old assumptions. Experiment! Try different things :) What are different ways of interfacing or evaluating the system? Perhaps some of the old interfaces and metrics aren’t as useful or applicable to the current state?
> Maximal effects were found for tasks related to executive functions, (i.e., aspects of higher cognition principally associated with the functions of prefrontal cortex).
Oh good, exactly what I'm looking for. If only the executive dysfunction didn't mess with my ability to form any kind of stable exercise routine.
I don't say this to sound dismissive, which I think is all too common in discussions like this.
If we're talking about aerobic exercise, you don't need to "form" anything. It's a monostructural movement. Buy a treadmill and jog on it for 20 minutes when you wake up. Buy a rower and do 5k every morning, or evening, or over lunch. Get a stationary bike and do 10 minutes on that whenever you remember to do it.
This isn't strength training which benefits from having an actual program to follow put together by someone who knows what they're doing. Just pick a thing that you can do for 20 minutes without wanting to kill yourself, and do that thing for 20 minutes a few times a week. The most important part (in what the kids today would call "my lived experience") is to push yourself hard, sweat a lot, and do it at least 3 or 4 times a week. More is going to be better, especially at the beginning to build a habit, but twice a week is just sporadic enough where it's too easy to miss one and 2 becomes 1 becomes "once every 4 weeks."
"Stable" also doesn't need to be the same amount of time at the same time of day on the same days every week.
Maybe. I'm more describing making this important enough to you that you start looking for places to slot it into your day. Yes, a routine will likely form out of that but I think it's secondary to getting you to want to do the thing, which is harder (at least for me).
> I'm more describing making this important enough to you that you start looking for places to slot it into your day
I get where you’re coming from, and I think you’re missing the point. Executive dysfunction (for me at least) means I can “want to do the thing” a LOT, heck I can even have the motivation, but getting my brain and body to actually do the damn thing can feel insurmountable. There are certainly ways to work with and around executive dysfunction, it’s just difficult that one of the key aspects of it is that it makes the act of executing feel incredibly difficult.
I am the same kind of person, and believe me, it's a lost battle to try to explain how impossible it is to get to do something every day. People who are normal in that sense will never understand. Their concept of laziness or of that "ah, it's going to be hard to get on that treadmill today" feeling is completely different from ours. Their brains are wired differently.
Just read the answer below
> The only thing ever stopping you from going out the door and running is putting on shoes and shorts, its easy to form a habit!
For people like us, this is akin to "if you are depressed, just cheer up!". It's ridiculous, bordering on the offensive.
Yep I replied to that one too lol. My roommate and I listened to a podcast episode the other day about the challenges of executive dysfunction and ADHD and it was validating to say the least. The podcast is called Struggle Care with KC Davis
One approach is to put your body on auto-pilot. Just do the thing for 5 minutes or whatever, without consideration for whether you want to or not. The desire and will will typically develop over time.
If I could put my body on auto pilot in the way that I want to I’d be golden. Do I sit in front of my computer for hours at a time rewriting code I don’t need to rewrite? Sure. Do I knit and listen to the same podcast until I’m falling asleep? Yep. Can I autopilot myself into walking once a day? Nahhhh.
I do get out to walk occasionally, and I absolutely love it, and nothing about that makes it “easy” to turn into a habit. I’m working on it, but it’s a slow process. The thing with executive dysfunction is that the desire and will are often there, they just aren’t making the call.
For me, my executive dysfunction makes one part MUCH more difficult than the rest: transitioning from one thing to another (especially if I have negative emotions attached to the other thing).
The 5 minutes (or even 30-60 minutes) is the EASY part. I have no problem with that. It's my brain screaming at me with every ounce of its energy that the effort of stopping what I am doing and starting something else is insurmountable. The length of the thing is mostly irrelevant.
Meditation may help. Taking advantage of windows of time when your feelings may be more neutral may help. Discarding judgemental thoughts in favor of more neutral thoughts may help.
It's a battle for most people, some more than others.
As someone who's been there, and now leads an active lifestyle, I'd say it's best to avoid looking at things as black and white. The ability to build habits is a skill you can learn, just as you can learn to ride a bike, program a computer, or cook a meal. It comes more or less naturally for different people, but if you can a fixed mindset instead of a growth mindset, it won't come at all.
One lever I used was self hatred. Instead of babying myself, I decided I was pathetic and worthless if I couldn't even manage to exert myself for 10 minutes every day. Maybe not a psychologically healthy viewpoint in the long term, but it creates the leverage I needed to get out of that dark place.
Sometimes, emotional leverage helps. I sometimes use anger at perceived slights. I think it's OK if you leave it on the exercise bike or treadmill and don't carry it through your day.
Yep - executive dysfunction is... difficult, you short circuit your mind in a strange loop of fighting yourself.
It's like writers block or when you try to go to sleep but can't and the harder you try the harder it feels. So it's... Difficult to even do things, even when you DO want to (I have been meaning to play solo board games I bought but ... just can't... My ADHD has gotten far worse over the years compared to my youth). I think people who don't have to deal with it don't understand what it's like.
That sounds rough! I’ve only been diagnosed for a few years so it’s nice to have a label to the way my brain has worked since forever. The exercise one is hard to get going though I’ve done some here and there, weirdly one of the hardest ones for me is allowing myself to start a new tv show by myself. Can’t do it. Doesn’t matter how hyped I am, my brain’s like “nope, not allowed”. Meat bags is weird
This is a misunderstanding of what executive dysfunction means; somebody with executive function problems is not going to buy a treadmill much less use it every day.
I struggle with executive dysfunction; when people describe a more aggressive routine than I could manage, I just mentally translate the numbers and level of consistency into what's achievable rather than berate them. Their point was: start with what's possible for you and go from there, because you don't need to achieve a certain threshold of activity or knowledge for the exercise to benefit you.
Executive dysfunction is different for everybody. I'm sure GP's comment is well intended, but advice in the form of "Just go DO the thing even if it's small" is about as helpful as telling a depressed person "Have you tried smiling?".
Because it varies, there’s even less reason to be upset. You know there are people whose dysfunction looks more like perfectionism or overplanning and the advice is meant for them. You understand that variance in individual cases means that not every general discussion will match yours.
I tried a rower for the first time a couple days ago, and found immediate relief from ADHD-like symptoms that lasts a few hours.
I'm not diagnosed, but have pretty severe trouble getting into a task-oriented mode, so much that dishes go unwashed, and my home is a mess. I feel the mess wearing away at me, but just can't deal with it. I'm not overly busy or tired, just procrastinating.
After 5 minutes on the rower my mood drastically improved and I was much more productive than usual, and the effect lasted about 3 hours. I've had a few more sessions since then with similar effects.
Also, it's a little spooky how often a subject comes on my radar, and then a few days later the subject surfaces on HN. Feels too frequent for it to be a coincidence.
Exercise definitely helps my symptoms, but it's an absolute roll of the dice whether it's immediate and significant, or just tires me out. Really I need to keep up with a few times a week for at least a month to reap the benefits.
> The most important part (in what the kids today would call "my lived experience") is to push yourself hard, sweat a lot, and do it at least 3 or 4 times a week.
I wouldn't even say you need to push yourself hard. Getting yourself into 120-150 bpm for 30-60 minutes 3x per week will get you most of the benefits.
Have one. Plus chin up bar, and there's always bodyweight.
> and jog on it for 20 minutes when you wake up.
That's a routine.
> Whenever you remember to do it.
That's more akin to how my brain functions. But "when I remember" (/ have energy/motivation) is a huuge variable I struggle with.
I understand you mean well but this is a thing I've struggled with for years. It tends to be boom or bust. I can go months with going to the gym regularly and it helps, then things get chaotic and it all falls apart, and it's exceptionally hard to restart, probably because of exactly such an executive deficit such exercise would help with.
I don't have executive function disorder, but I have found the best thing for me is just, simply, running. You can reduce the friction getting from A to B a lot if from the beginning you resolve to be minimalist about it. Just buy shoes (don't think too much about it, go to running store and get fitted) and shorts, and... thats it. Don't try to get any other products, and don't even worry too much about how you do it. Just run, and measure your runs by time and not distance EDIT: The thing about time vs distance is that helps in running slow, very slow, slower than you think is appropriate, and you should take walking breaks as much as needed. You should not feel uncomfortable/destroyed at the end of a run, and at most minimally uncomfortable during.
The only thing ever stopping you from going out the door and running is putting on shoes and shorts, its easy to form a habit!
Only bad part is you get depressed when you don't get to run.
EDIT: if you suffer from executive dysfunction disorder, this is not good advice, but running is awesome either way and will change your life in a small but significant way if you have the appropriate amount of neuro-typicality.
I don't think they were talking to you specifically. They're probably just talking from their perspective, and don't have the knowledge of where you're at.
If you feel invalidated, those are your feelings coming from inside you, not something they planted in you. Perhaps it's a sign that you have things you need to work on.
They were responding to someone who started off saying they’re dealing with executive dysfunction. I do not know exactly how it affects GP, but I do know that typically it creates a crappy system of inaction despite intention, motivation, etc. And yes, I indeed have things I’m working on.
Oh geez I am so sorry. Truly. I guess I had a false notion that "executive dysfunction" was a softer term/catch-all for various problems around procrastination/focus, not something that is diagnosed explicitly such that you could feel this invalidation. Really sorry. I will edit accordingly.
It’s something that comes along with things like ADHD (that’s where I experience it). It just makes tackling sometimes simple seeming things feel insurmountable. It’s not a constant, and it effects everyone who experiences it differently. For me, self-care in some regards feels like an uphill battle (particularly maintaining dental hygiene and exercise - yaaaaay!). There are things I can do to make those things more accessible and “doable”, yet forming a routine and sticking to it is haaaaaaaard.
And I appreciate your response - the invalidating part was just that it’s “easy” to start a running routine with just shoes and shorts. It probably is for most people, and for me the shoes would sit there as a reminder of an investment in myself that I can not seem bring myself to take advantage of more than once or twice a year.
This may work for some people, but not others. For me, nothing is as unpleasant as running. Back when I tried to forcd myself to do it as part of my gym routine, I was actively dreading it the moment I woke up, after a week or two. It took all my willpower every time to run another minute, another 100m, etc. No other exercise I tried is as unpleasant and demotivating to me.
Yes, this is super important! And, at least initially, stopping to walk is perfectly good too. Whatever pace and time it takes to not feel bad during or at the end of the run is what you should go for.
And you will be surprised how quickly you scale from wherever you begin.
Tried slow running, tried sprint+walk cycles, tried various combinations. Tried both treadmills and running outside. The sensation of being out of breath is just very unpleasant to me, and you always end up out of breath if doing any kind of running for more than a few minutes.
Sprinting was the least unpleasant actually, but only for a short while for the first time and only once/day.
Thankfully strength training is much more enjoyable, as is walking, so I'm relying on this combination. Plus some swimming occasionally.
I found that using a calendar or some kind of tool where I can add a mark every time I do something I want to form an habit of, it helped.
Especially with the fact that I also add my mark even if it's only 5 minutes. So it reduces the pressure tremendously if I fail, or change my mind.
I moved from being mostly sedentary to being able to run 10km, swimming regularly, joining a field hockey team, doing archery. I also do hiit 3 times a week. Still my schedule is fucking chaotic, so beside the field hockey training which is on a fixed date, the other activities are done at, let's say, interesting and random time.
Medication doesn't fix them though. It makes it possible for them to /be/ fixed -- but a lifetime of ingrained habit from when it was much more challenging is still a mountain to overcome.
Consider biking short distances if possible. Perhaps start with an ebike if your fitness level demands it. Since I've gotten fairly fit, I will outpace cars in city centers during busy times since I am not as influenced by traffic. Exercise becomes a time savings.
I can’t articulate this as a how-to, but I’ve found that I can occasionally rewrite some low-level assumptions about myself in such a way that let me accomplish stuff. Like I convinced myself that working out every day isn’t a choice, it’s a default. It’s how I am. This means that the choice is to not work out, and that’s kind of lame, so no choice == working out.
Atomic Habits phrases this more or less as telling yourself e.g. "you are a runner" and then every time you could work out is an opportunity to prove it to yourself.
This trick has helped me a lot. I think to myself "I'm the type of person that . . . " And it helps overcome the mental anguish of should I or shouldn't I. "I'm the type of person that works out everyday," and the decision has already been made.
I found setting a really low Google Fit step goal and just trying to meet that daily goal 6/7 days a week was really helpful in just getting a basic foothold. And that basic foothold is kind of necessary when you're doing something you don't immediately want to do.
After that, I came up with fun ways to meet that goal, like specific paths I might take or things I might do. It feels much less like work if there's some sort of reward along the way, like a coffee or something.
> If only the executive dysfunction didn't mess with my ability to form any kind of stable exercise routine.
It's not actually about any difficulty in establishing a stable routine. It'd be very easy for almost anyone to maintain a routine of eating snacks and watching Youtube for 20 minutes per day.
The root issue is we've become conditioned to avoid discomfort. Collectively our mental fortitude relatively weak in this area. Engaging in an activity which requires enduring discomfort will be strongly avoided even if the benefits are clear. We need to figure out how to strengthen our mindset.
Exercise is medicine! And requires exertion and discomfort.
> It's not actually about any difficulty in establishing a stable routine. It'd be very easy for most on here to maintain a routine of eating snacks and watching Youtube for 20 minutes per day.
From GP's executive dysfunction reference I am assuming something like ADHD, and...you'd be surprised.
Respectfully, you seem likely to not have ADHD. If I had "snacks and Youtube" on my calendar for 20 minutes every day, I would spend the preceding hour stressing about what video I would watch on a given day, and struggle to make myself go down to the kitchen to grab a snack when the time came. It's not even the discomfort, I enjoy exercise, it's overcoming the activation energy to get started.
Executive dysfunction is fundamentally different from laziness in a way that a lot of people have trouble grasping.
Maybe the Youtube and snacks example was a bit misleading in that perspective. In my head exercise is in the same category of routine as brushing your teeth, showering, getting dressed, and feeding yourself. If one struggles with those on a daily basis then I agree that's a whole different issue. Putting a time slot for exercise on the calendar may work for some but in my view it's a more fundamental part of living.
Have you tried approaching it with the idea that you don’t have to form a stable routine? The next time you’re sitting around with >20 minutes to kill, go for a run instead of doing social media/HN/Netflix/whatever it is you might do to kill time. If you found you woke up an hour early and can’t get back to sleep, go for a run. Maybe it’ll eventually lead to a routine, but maybe it won’t and that’s fine, too, you’re not trying to win a marathon. Running once is better than never, so no need to put pressure on yourself to form a stable routine.
This is how I managed to get weight lifting into my daily life. Worked for nearly a year. After which ?something? happened and now I've not done it in years.
adhd sucks - i bought one of these pedal boxes so I could exercise while watching tv (i know, better than nothing though) and it was great until I moved it out of the way, now I can't see it I don't do it, and I remember when I'm not in front of it, think "oh i'll put it back" and then instantly forget.
If I don't work out every weekday I get cranky. But it took me years to discover exercise that I would consistently do, besides running. (I like running outside, exploring new routes, listening to audiobooks.)
Turns out it was video fitness classes (and strength training with dumbbells). It's hard for me to figure out exactly what exercises to do and how to keep it interesting and varied. The different Apple Fitness instructors all have a different approach and I rotate through them.
You also missed very low intensity exercise. Studies talking about the harms of sitting for long periods have been prominent in the news recently. Effects appear even in those who exercise regularly.
Some recommend 3 hours of walking or equivalent a day. 10,000 steps is an similar recommendation.
Hard for a desk job like most of us have. OTOH, as long as you're getting other exercise just standing instead of / as well as sitting might be enough if you're otherwise active.
> strength/resistance training: to build and keep muscles; one benefit of which is better stability at age and metabolic regulation.
Also hugely important for delaying bone density degradation, which starts declining after age 30, which is part of why the strength training should be reasonably heavy.
The amount of zone 2 that one should get is frustratingly large. I love my cardio - more than most, but it can be a real struggle to fit that in when you have a young family. I'm doing great on the strength training side, but the time demands of cardio are hard!
It doesn't help that when I do get outside that I tend to go "comfortably hard" and I'm in the no-man's-land somewhere between zone 2 and 5, not really capitalizing on the full benefits of either regime yet maximizing fatigue.
Those are heart rate zones, high intensity interval training (HIIT) is zone 5. Here's the first description I found: https://www.polar.com/blog/running-heart-rate-zones-basics/
Since it's interval training, just doing 10mins hard is not what's prescribed. It's more like doing repetitions of, say, 2 mins easy and 30s sprints.
Strength training done right with full range of motion can be considered both stability and stretching/mobility work.
Like squatting with hundreds of pounds on your back is inherently unstable and forces you to have good balance, and moving your body under load is literally weighted stretching, which is one of the most effective ways of increasing your range of motion if your current range is insufficient for your needs.
Problem for me is i have a herniated disk from an old football injury that comes around occasionally when i do heavy aerobic exercise. So i usually stick to lighter impact things like the elliptical or weight lifting
I struggle with getting exertion headaches whenever my heart rate goes over 170 bpm for more than a minute or two. It's incredibly frustrating to have to hold back and moderate my physical activity, knowing that if I don't I'll have a rather debilitating headache for the rest of the day and potentially into the next day.
I do get a lot of exercise, but I keep it in the lower zones to avoid this complication and I still feel like I get such a great mood boost and improvements to my cognitive abilities wrt to work.
that was always very obvious to me, cause I can't count the days where I was having a crap day and after a good workout (cardio + weight lifting) I was feeling a lot better.
I don’t know how good it is for the brain, but I put myself to exercise every single day even though most of the days I’m not in the mood. If I could be healthy or healthier without exercising, I’d very likely choose that. But I know that’s not possible, at least for me. Yet, I’ve been exercising for several years now without a break. I still don’t look forward to it. It’s not a lot. It’s just about 45 minutes a day. I just workout at home following video instructions (I get distracted or bored otherwise).
There are three things that made a difference: a) realizing that exercise can potentially make a positive difference to health [1] and that not exercising would turn out be a bigger waste of time in the future, b) getting an Apple Watch and closing the rings everyday [2], and workouts (with apps) on video by instructors so that I don’t get bored and keep looking at the time or figure out what exercises I should do. [3]
[1]: no guarantees because of complex factors like genetics, stress, environment, etc.
[2]: there was a brief period where the addiction to close the rings was done by just letting the watch be in workout mode without me working out, but that kind of lying to myself got boring too.
[3]: I know there are several programs with instructions and progressions that are freely available, but I get distracted and bored if I have to do something by myself and there’s no audiovisual guidance. I don’t like going to a gym either.
Alan Couzens (former Australian swim team coach) is a great follow on X for learning about athletic performance and the importance of exercise for longevity and health. A big thing he emphasizes is heart rate variability based training, and monitoring that as a signal of stress and adequate recovery.
Here are a few recent posts I loved.
https://x.com/Alan_Couzens/status/1726591761277943959 - Death zone health metrics to avoid and an aside demonstrating that an elite VO2max in the Mount Everest Death Zone is equivalent to a very old/unfit person teetering on the edge of death.
https://x.com/Alan_Couzens/status/1720437671623868878 - Decrease in all cause mortality directly correlated to MET-hours/week. MET-hours is effectively a measure of exercise level energy use you put your body through. It's also why people with a lower VO2max have to put in more hours to receive the same benefit, because a person with a high VO2max can do moderate exercise which would be an extreme effort for a less fit person, thus stacking MET-hours more quickly.
There’s a common saying, “you can’t outrun a bad diet.”
I hate this saying so much. I can’t imagine how many people don’t bother to exercise because they already have a bad diet, read stuff like this, and think “what’s the point then” and give up. Despite the fact that exercising on a bad diet is so much better than not exercising on a bad diet.
I went from pretty sedentary to training everyday - the thing that helped me set the habit was a pre-workout at lunch. Aside from the extra energy, I think Huberman mentions this but something about the pleasurable effects of the caffeine causes you to build up an association with the activity.
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[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 184 ms ] threadEdit: Jesus, this thread is proof than HN techies think they know math but actually have no clue about statistics. They are easy prey for this kind of journalism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance
> Point estimates for effect size on all cognitive tasks were 0.164 > (SE = 0.028, n = 96, p = .05) for control groups and 0.478 (SE = > 0.029, n = 101, p = .01) for exercisers, suggesting that both groups > improved between Times 1 and 2. However, the control groups’ im- > provement was about 1/8 a standard deviation, whereas the exercise > groups’ improvement was nearly 1/2 a standard deviation, on average. > Both values are significantly different from zero, and from each other > (see Table 1).
Earlier in the paper they define their effect size as:
g = (M_Post - M_Pre )/SD_P , where M_Pre is the preintervention mean task performance, M_Post is the postintervention mean, and SD_P is the pooled standard deviation.
I think the standard deviation mentioned is relative to overall population spread of cognitive performance, given that standard errors of the effect size are given separately?
But it's not about how big the effect is. It's how likely that the effect was or was not due to chance. A very small effect can be statistically significant. You missed "sample size" in your list above - a big sample size can help you show a small effect is probably not chance.
I imagine the average HN user to look like Richard Stallman.
(Just saw your rebuttal about "significance" below. Statistical significance is not how big a movement is, it is the chance that such a movement could be due to random chance. A very small movement could be statistically significant if your sample is big enough to show it's probably (e.g. 95% probably) not due to chance.)
I can't read the original article because it's paywalled, but assuming that the original claim is correct ("increased performance by approximately .5 of a standard deviation across all tasks tested") and that by "significant" you mean "statistically significant" then you are spectacularly and confidently wrong.
Imagine we have a normal distribution of IQs around 100 with a standard deviation of 15.
Imagine there were some intervention which resulted in a uniform increase in IQ by half a standard deviation across the board. Perhaps the intervention is "literally add 7.5 points to every single score in the treatment group."
You seem to be asserting that because the effect size is "only" half a standard deviation, we have no way of determining whether or not the intervention actually increased scores, no matter how much data is collected. We could collect 100 million IQ scores in the control group, and 100 million IQ scores in the "treatment" group, and see that the average score in the control group is 100 and the average score in the treatment group is 107.5, and we'd have to say "nope, the null hypothesis looks completely plausible here, because the effect size was just half a standard deviation."
Does that seem like a reasonable claim?
And yet you are the one confusing the standard deviation of an effect size with the standard error of a point estimate...
If it wasn't for the health and aesthetic benefits, I'd choose to never to exercise again.
tldr: people who never push themselves will never likely achieve an exercise high. Also, people starting at 0 have a much harder slog of it than those with a decent base & athletic background.
To each its own, but don't lump exercise into a single class. Try some variety!
But I do have a clearer head for a few hours after a run so I keep doing it.
When I first got back into running 2 years ago after a long hiatus, I had to learn the painful lesson that I was being way too hard on myself. I eventually figured out that I can slow down and start with just a very slow 0.5 - 1 mile jog. I can even stop and stretch in the middle of the run if I'm feeling tight. It sounds silly, but I didn't realize that was allowed. There are no rules. If anyone judges you, that's there problem. You do you.
Here’s one of many, many possible examples:
* Walk for 10 minutes 3x a week for a few months.
* Walk for 15 minutes 3x a week for a month or two.
* Walk for 20 minutes 3x a week for a month or two. Stretch for 5 minutes before or after walking.
* Walk for 5 minutes, then jog VERY SLOWLY for 5 minutes, and then walk for 5 more minutes. Stretch for 5 minutes before / after.
* You get the idea…
And if running isn’t your thing, try something else. The only that matters is that you move and use your body. There are a million ways to move the body! I bet you can find one you like :)
———
More philosophical / technical approach:
Treat it like a puzzle. You have a System in State A (your body and your current behavioral patterns).
How can we get the System to State B? Or wait, perhaps State C or D are just as good or even better! We just didn’t realize those were possibilities.
Consider dropping old assumptions. Experiment! Try different things :) What are different ways of interfacing or evaluating the system? Perhaps some of the old interfaces and metrics aren’t as useful or applicable to the current state?
hold up gym bros! I don't want your technique. I want a drug like Ozympic that alters my behavior towards that lifestyle change.
disrupted, some might say
Oh good, exactly what I'm looking for. If only the executive dysfunction didn't mess with my ability to form any kind of stable exercise routine.
If we're talking about aerobic exercise, you don't need to "form" anything. It's a monostructural movement. Buy a treadmill and jog on it for 20 minutes when you wake up. Buy a rower and do 5k every morning, or evening, or over lunch. Get a stationary bike and do 10 minutes on that whenever you remember to do it.
This isn't strength training which benefits from having an actual program to follow put together by someone who knows what they're doing. Just pick a thing that you can do for 20 minutes without wanting to kill yourself, and do that thing for 20 minutes a few times a week. The most important part (in what the kids today would call "my lived experience") is to push yourself hard, sweat a lot, and do it at least 3 or 4 times a week. More is going to be better, especially at the beginning to build a habit, but twice a week is just sporadic enough where it's too easy to miss one and 2 becomes 1 becomes "once every 4 weeks."
"Stable" also doesn't need to be the same amount of time at the same time of day on the same days every week.
I don't think GP meant "routine" as in an elaborate set of exercises, but rather the daily/weekly routine of doing any exercise at all.
I get where you’re coming from, and I think you’re missing the point. Executive dysfunction (for me at least) means I can “want to do the thing” a LOT, heck I can even have the motivation, but getting my brain and body to actually do the damn thing can feel insurmountable. There are certainly ways to work with and around executive dysfunction, it’s just difficult that one of the key aspects of it is that it makes the act of executing feel incredibly difficult.
Just read the answer below
> The only thing ever stopping you from going out the door and running is putting on shoes and shorts, its easy to form a habit!
For people like us, this is akin to "if you are depressed, just cheer up!". It's ridiculous, bordering on the offensive.
Get an easy win.
I do get out to walk occasionally, and I absolutely love it, and nothing about that makes it “easy” to turn into a habit. I’m working on it, but it’s a slow process. The thing with executive dysfunction is that the desire and will are often there, they just aren’t making the call.
The 5 minutes (or even 30-60 minutes) is the EASY part. I have no problem with that. It's my brain screaming at me with every ounce of its energy that the effort of stopping what I am doing and starting something else is insurmountable. The length of the thing is mostly irrelevant.
It's a battle for most people, some more than others.
One lever I used was self hatred. Instead of babying myself, I decided I was pathetic and worthless if I couldn't even manage to exert myself for 10 minutes every day. Maybe not a psychologically healthy viewpoint in the long term, but it creates the leverage I needed to get out of that dark place.
I struggle with executive dysfunction; when people describe a more aggressive routine than I could manage, I just mentally translate the numbers and level of consistency into what's achievable rather than berate them. Their point was: start with what's possible for you and go from there, because you don't need to achieve a certain threshold of activity or knowledge for the exercise to benefit you.
Anything that gets your activity up will help. Lots of low intensity stuff is probably even more valuable than 20 minutes of moderate effort.
I'm not diagnosed, but have pretty severe trouble getting into a task-oriented mode, so much that dishes go unwashed, and my home is a mess. I feel the mess wearing away at me, but just can't deal with it. I'm not overly busy or tired, just procrastinating.
After 5 minutes on the rower my mood drastically improved and I was much more productive than usual, and the effect lasted about 3 hours. I've had a few more sessions since then with similar effects.
Also, it's a little spooky how often a subject comes on my radar, and then a few days later the subject surfaces on HN. Feels too frequent for it to be a coincidence.
I wouldn't even say you need to push yourself hard. Getting yourself into 120-150 bpm for 30-60 minutes 3x per week will get you most of the benefits.
Have one. Plus chin up bar, and there's always bodyweight.
> and jog on it for 20 minutes when you wake up.
That's a routine.
> Whenever you remember to do it.
That's more akin to how my brain functions. But "when I remember" (/ have energy/motivation) is a huuge variable I struggle with.
I understand you mean well but this is a thing I've struggled with for years. It tends to be boom or bust. I can go months with going to the gym regularly and it helps, then things get chaotic and it all falls apart, and it's exceptionally hard to restart, probably because of exactly such an executive deficit such exercise would help with.
The only thing ever stopping you from going out the door and running is putting on shoes and shorts, its easy to form a habit!
Only bad part is you get depressed when you don't get to run.
EDIT: if you suffer from executive dysfunction disorder, this is not good advice, but running is awesome either way and will change your life in a small but significant way if you have the appropriate amount of neuro-typicality.
I’m not sure that you do, because
> The only thing ever stopping you from going out the door and running is putting on shoes and shorts, its easy to form a habit!
feels very invalidating, as someone who struggles with an executive dysfunction disorder.
If you feel invalidated, those are your feelings coming from inside you, not something they planted in you. Perhaps it's a sign that you have things you need to work on.
And I appreciate your response - the invalidating part was just that it’s “easy” to start a running routine with just shoes and shorts. It probably is for most people, and for me the shoes would sit there as a reminder of an investment in myself that I can not seem bring myself to take advantage of more than once or twice a year.
Or you actually hate running.
And you will be surprised how quickly you scale from wherever you begin.
Sprinting was the least unpleasant actually, but only for a short while for the first time and only once/day.
Thankfully strength training is much more enjoyable, as is walking, so I'm relying on this combination. Plus some swimming occasionally.
I moved from being mostly sedentary to being able to run 10km, swimming regularly, joining a field hockey team, doing archery. I also do hiit 3 times a week. Still my schedule is fucking chaotic, so beside the field hockey training which is on a fixed date, the other activities are done at, let's say, interesting and random time.
After that, I came up with fun ways to meet that goal, like specific paths I might take or things I might do. It feels much less like work if there's some sort of reward along the way, like a coffee or something.
It's not actually about any difficulty in establishing a stable routine. It'd be very easy for almost anyone to maintain a routine of eating snacks and watching Youtube for 20 minutes per day.
The root issue is we've become conditioned to avoid discomfort. Collectively our mental fortitude relatively weak in this area. Engaging in an activity which requires enduring discomfort will be strongly avoided even if the benefits are clear. We need to figure out how to strengthen our mindset.
Exercise is medicine! And requires exertion and discomfort.
From GP's executive dysfunction reference I am assuming something like ADHD, and...you'd be surprised.
Executive dysfunction is fundamentally different from laziness in a way that a lot of people have trouble grasping.
Maybe the Youtube and snacks example was a bit misleading in that perspective. In my head exercise is in the same category of routine as brushing your teeth, showering, getting dressed, and feeding yourself. If one struggles with those on a daily basis then I agree that's a whole different issue. Putting a time slot for exercise on the calendar may work for some but in my view it's a more fundamental part of living.
ADHD is a fickle mistress.
Turns out it was video fitness classes (and strength training with dumbbells). It's hard for me to figure out exactly what exercises to do and how to keep it interesting and varied. The different Apple Fitness instructors all have a different approach and I rotate through them.
- strength/resistance training: to build and keep muscles; one benefit of which is better stability at age and metabolic regulation.
- high intensity cardio/HIIT/zone 5/95+% max heart rate: to build VO2max, was also shown to reduce arterial plaque.
- normal cardio/zone 2/50-80% max HR: mitochondrial efficiency, fat burning?, endurance, memory (the current link)
Good frequencies seem to be 3x/week for normal cardio and strength, and 1x/week for HIIT.
A fourth could be stability/stretching/yoga-style exercises. I'm doing those on cardio days currently.
Not easy really. Though anything is better than nothing, so don't stress.
Some recommend 3 hours of walking or equivalent a day. 10,000 steps is an similar recommendation.
Hard for a desk job like most of us have. OTOH, as long as you're getting other exercise just standing instead of / as well as sitting might be enough if you're otherwise active.
Also hugely important for delaying bone density degradation, which starts declining after age 30, which is part of why the strength training should be reasonably heavy.
It doesn't help that when I do get outside that I tend to go "comfortably hard" and I'm in the no-man's-land somewhere between zone 2 and 5, not really capitalizing on the full benefits of either regime yet maximizing fatigue.
Like squatting with hundreds of pounds on your back is inherently unstable and forces you to have good balance, and moving your body under load is literally weighted stretching, which is one of the most effective ways of increasing your range of motion if your current range is insufficient for your needs.
I do get a lot of exercise, but I keep it in the lower zones to avoid this complication and I still feel like I get such a great mood boost and improvements to my cognitive abilities wrt to work.
There are three things that made a difference: a) realizing that exercise can potentially make a positive difference to health [1] and that not exercising would turn out be a bigger waste of time in the future, b) getting an Apple Watch and closing the rings everyday [2], and workouts (with apps) on video by instructors so that I don’t get bored and keep looking at the time or figure out what exercises I should do. [3]
[1]: no guarantees because of complex factors like genetics, stress, environment, etc.
[2]: there was a brief period where the addiction to close the rings was done by just letting the watch be in workout mode without me working out, but that kind of lying to myself got boring too.
[3]: I know there are several programs with instructions and progressions that are freely available, but I get distracted and bored if I have to do something by myself and there’s no audiovisual guidance. I don’t like going to a gym either.
Here are a few recent posts I loved.
https://x.com/Alan_Couzens/status/1726591761277943959 - Death zone health metrics to avoid and an aside demonstrating that an elite VO2max in the Mount Everest Death Zone is equivalent to a very old/unfit person teetering on the edge of death.
https://x.com/Alan_Couzens/status/1720437671623868878 - Decrease in all cause mortality directly correlated to MET-hours/week. MET-hours is effectively a measure of exercise level energy use you put your body through. It's also why people with a lower VO2max have to put in more hours to receive the same benefit, because a person with a high VO2max can do moderate exercise which would be an extreme effort for a less fit person, thus stacking MET-hours more quickly.
https://x.com/Alan_Couzens/status/1720437671623868878 - "50 and 50 goals"
His paid substack is also a wealth of valuable information.
I hate this saying so much. I can’t imagine how many people don’t bother to exercise because they already have a bad diet, read stuff like this, and think “what’s the point then” and give up. Despite the fact that exercising on a bad diet is so much better than not exercising on a bad diet.