At the risk of sounding to newage-y, I experience the benefits of exercising as energy balancing.
Solving problems, learning and building new things all day can be very mentally exhausting. Cardio, sports, lifting; helps re-balance the physical with the mental. I am sure there are more scientific words and biological descriptions that I lack the vocabulary for. If I get too mentally focused on a project/job/problem and go days without matching it with vigorous physical activity, I end up not sleeping as well, am less tolerant, more scattered and brain fog tends to start rolling in. If I counter it with the physical exercise or physical energy expenditure the mental clarity comes back, I sleep better, and don't have hair-triggered verbal impulse control issues. Otherwise, if I let it go for too long, lethargy sets in - which I attribute to the body/physical and mind/mental trying to rebalance itself. I dont think it cares that it makes me feel like crap overall, more that it's neutral in just wanting a balance however that comes about.
I often refer to exercise as me taking care of my mental health - as opposed to being physically fit. That could be seen as "exercise [being] the best cognitive exercise". Looking at it that way, exercise creates a mental-out imbalance, which causes the stored energy in the mind to be stimulated and need more output creating the mental sharpness. Obviously I have nothing to back up the claims other than decades of experiencing this to be true for me time and time again; though I do believe there are better biological explanations than energy.
> I often refer to exercise as me taking care of my mental health - as opposed to being physically fit.
Same. I don't care about my physical health all that much but my friends/family think i am some sort of health fanatic. It is the only thing that has gotten me through tough times, its my escape.
Same here. I do cold showers, sauna, eat fiber every day, almost religiously take supplements, and exercise most days. People think I'm a health fanatic type but really I just feel awful normally, and when I do all of this I feel okay. It's just to keep myself mentally okay. I have a theory that's why depression and anxiety are so common in humanity-- in general they force people to keep improving(until they don't).
I suspect the “all that much” is doing a lot of work here. I think I get it. Like, as long as my body is not malfunctioning or heading for a long-term catastrophe, I’m not motivated to improve it.
Malfunctions can be difficult to detect, if you're not paying close attention to your body. Our bodies have evolved to maintain homeostasis within a tight range, and can compensate for quite a lot of hidden pathology. Until you reach a threshold and decompensate, at which everything goes to hell and at that point it's too late to really fix.
I'm similar and ironically I think having exercise as a coping mechanism, if you like, is actually a way better motivator than for health reasons, and makes it easier to stick with. I think if people could get into a routine of exercising for mental relaxation, and see the benefits that way, it would make it more attractive.
When I was most stressed and semi-burned out during my career I found that martial arts was the best way to decompress.
I especially preferred the kinds that heavily relied on sparring with partners during the class. It's _really_ hard to ruminate on everything you didn't get done today when the person opposite you will punch/kick you if your concentration falters =)
It's similarly hard to start overthinking when you're too tired to think, HIIT-style circuit training in a group worked pretty well.
Nowadays I'm a bit less stressed and can manage it better - just a walk in the nature and newageyly "being in the moment" is enough, no need for the extremes of youth =)
Same stuff here. I practice tai chi and as you may know practicioners usually work in group. Keeping in sync with the others is 100% part of the practice and is impossible to do if one is not really concentrated on its surroudings. There's no way you might think about something else while doing it :-) (and I don't even talk about the sheer amount of proprioception you have to use to do the movements correctly)
There are 2 ways of practicing martial arts for health.
One way is to practice alone, at home, by doing some solo forms (a.k.a. kata) taken from the large existing number of Okinawan or Chinese origin, with or without weapons, and/or by hitting dummies or punching bags.
This way has the advantage of minimal cost, down to zero, depending on whether you buy some training equipment and weapons or not, and you can practice without following a schedule, whenever you have time or you are in the mood.
Practicing solo is easy if you have some prior experience of doing proper training sessions in some martial art. Even without experience, if the purpose is only practicing for health and not becoming skilled in real fighting, some instructional videos can be good enough for learning how to train.
The second way is to practice with a sparring partner. Sometimes this might be possible to do with a friend, if you happen to have an appropriate space, but this is quite unlikely, so you normally have to go regularly to some martial arts training hall or club.
In this case the choice of the martial art may be determined less by some intrinsic qualities, but more by what martial art training place happens to exist close enough to your home, to avoid wasting time with transportation.
Moreover, especially when practicing for health purposes, it may be less important which is the origin of the martial art, but much more important is how competent is the instructor that happens to teach at the club that you find near you.
Unfortunately, for a beginner it is difficult to distinguish competent instructors from incompetent instructors, but after some experience the differences will become evident.
Which martial art is more appropriate depends also on the age. For someone older, a training that puts less emphasis on striking/kicking, but more on throwing and breaking falls, e.g. aikido/judo/jujutsu, is more appropriate. Also training with weapons can be appropriate for older people, as in that case the weapons are not used against humans, unless they wear protective gear.
When practicing any kind of sport, it is necessary to do it in such a way as to avoid accidents.
While it is possible to train in a careless way and suffer consequences, the straining of the wrists and of other articulations in aikido is actually very useful for avoiding the loss of articular mobility that happens to most old people, unless they do regularly other kinds of mobility exercises.
For someone who types a lot, regular mobility exercises for wrists and fingers are very important for avoiding the injuries caused by typing and by using a mouse, which are much more frequent than the aikido injuries.
As a personal anecdote, I have practiced for some time aikido without any kind of injuries, but later, when failing to do regular exercises, I have developed some tendon problems in my right middle finger from the scrolling wheel of the mouse (which I have healed by switching from using a mouse to the use of a stylus on a Wacom tablet in mouse mode; now I wonder why I have used mice/trackballs/touchpads/trackpoints for so many years, because a stylus is much more comfortable).
Not OP, but I’ve taken up training Muay Thai and it’s a lot of fun. It can look pretty intimidating from the outside, but everyone I’ve met at the gyms here in Brooklyn have been super welcoming and kind.
I also have had a long standing, 5x per week yoga practice which is a great way to strengthen and open the body. I’d look for a yoga school that mentions ashtanga if you’re looking for something more intensive, it’s a challenging practice.
Pretty much everyone I’ve ever met who actually knew how to fight well was very friendly and kind. Traveling and showing up at random MMA or BJJ schools is almost always a fantastic experience.
Subjecting the ego to much needed reality checks makes for some nice folks.
Seconded. I worked with a professional MMA team while they appeared on The Ultimate Fighter and met a lot of fighters who came to their gym to train, even spent some time living in a communal house with some of them. All but one of them would be in the running for the “nicest person I ever met” award.
I have been kind of deep down these rabbit holes of how it works physically. It comes down to some kind of simple principles. Exercise gives your brain more blood. Lifting puts static pressure and conditions vessels and such. Many pro-brain-health hormones get released. The physical actions force a degree of indirect distraction that lets your sub-conscious work as well. These things all combine to promote brain health and problem solving. The brain uses a ton of energy so the blood flow just keeps it well fed.
E: it also makes sure junk from metabolic processes are cleaned up etc.
And when you exercise, certainly in HIIT, parts of your brain go to a lower usage, but at the same time there is a ton of blood going through the tissues, so the cells probably get to recharge with all the extra blood and nutrient/energy transport going on.
Plus when you're done with exercise, the entire metabolic engine keeps going for 30-60 minutes (or even more depending on how hard you go), which also gives the opportunity for brain cells to recharge.
There was a rather compelling pathway proposed years ago: skeletal muscle activation leads to the secretion of a protein in the blood called Irisin. This protein then crosses the blood-brain barrier and upregulates brain-derived neurotrophic factor.
Yet there are always examples of extraordinary minds of people who either despise physical exercise it are even wheelchair-bound. Steven Hawkins comes to mind. Maybe those are just exceptions.
I see no reason to think that people don't have different cognitive baselines. It's not difficult to imagine two people having such different cognitive baselines that even if exercise improves the cognitive ability of one, it will still be lower than the cognitive ability of the other without exercise.
I never did turn into a super genius after a run. But I can focus for a few hours and if it was an easy run or even a hard strength training session, it is a productive few hours :)
I don't really know where it came from - but there was this idea that if you are smart you neglect sports - if you are sporty you neglect smarts.
There was jocks vs nerds as a general dichotomy.
Last years we find it more and more to be a false dichotomy.
Just think that you can find "brasilian ju jitsu nerds" or software developers that work out quite a lot.
Not to mention pro-gamers who are not only practicing playing their game - but get physical workout in their training regimen to really go to the top.
Being physically fit IS caring about mental health there is nothing newage-y about it.
There is no mind-body separation, mind is body whether someone likes it or not. If you exercise your muscles to move in a specific way you exercise your mind as well. That is known phenomenon in strength sports - one can build up muscle mass as much as they want but they also have to adapt neural pathways for strength - which is mind.
I notice that if I perform a large amount of physical activity during the day, like playing soccer, I'm tired (obviously). However, the lack of energy applies to both physical and mental tasks.
I’ve gone through years of working out daily to years of basically only walking and not exercising much.
The honest truth is if I’m truly coding a lot, working out is a strict downgrade in my long term output holding for all other variables.
Working out is good for you, but it’s a big detriment to mental energy. Perhaps working out late in the day solves this, but then again I’m most productive as a coder late at night. Days where I work out in the afternoon wreck my night time productivity.
>> Working out is good for you, but it’s a big detriment to mental energy. Perhaps working out late in the day solves this, but then again I’m most productive as a coder late at night.
My experience matches this when I tried to workout first thing in the morning. Then I tried lunchtime spin class before moving to working out and playing recreational sports after work/in the evening. I was far less productive when trying to spend the physical energy during the morning/afternoon than I was when releasing it at night. The biggest mental benefit (in terms of production) for me is rarely in the moments after working out and happen more in the next day(s). If I skip it for weeks it would take a few days of consistent, and preferably, high intensity physical activity to get both back to where I am most productive.
Lack of skeletal muscle is extremely dangerous for long-term health. Muscle is a key component of the endocrine system, acting as a sink for blood glucose and preventing insulin resistance (type 2 diabetes). Lack of muscle needed to stabilize your movements also greatly increases the risk of debilitating falls and other skeletal injuries. It's important to build up a good amount of muscle when you're young because hormonal changes make it increasingly harder as you age (unless you take anabolic drugs, which carry their own health risks).
I'm struggling to take these comments seriously. Do you guys have any scientific or even anecdotal basis for believing that gaining muscle is detrimental to programming ability, or are you all just talking out of your asses?
If there is no basis for it, please stop spreading this stuff. I am trying to build my programming career and build muscle at the same time, and I don't need people being prejudicial towards me because they read some misinformed comment on HN telling them bulking is detrimental to coding.
If you are happy building muscle then build muscle. It isn't like you need to be smart at programming jobs, I brought up competition winners since at that level you have to be in top shape mentally, but workplaces are full of obese programmers etc nobody cares.
Getting very muscular will earn you all sorts of judgements, that’s humanity. It certainly will reduce attraction from women most stages of life as it’s a stronger indicator of insecurity and low self confidence more than it’s an indicator of physical fitness / competence. If you add in this sort of touchy and sensitive reactionary attitude it will only worsen that.
Most important thing in life is to do things out of genuine interest and do them with confidence. Know the prejudices and know they exist for good reason so you can laugh at them, rather than running around trying to ref the world.
We’re just going over anecdotes and learned experience about the reality of physical exertion taxing total mental energy. You got very sensitive about it for some reason and are demanding data but no one said anything about data just lived experience (more valuable than data anytime it comes from someone experienced - I trust a single person who ate at every taco stand in LAs review way, way more than the average of every review on Yelp).
No one will feel sorry about “prejudice” against fit people, it’s like complaining about prejudice against rich people. If you don’t get why those exist and are valid then the world will rag on you (rightly) for being naive, it’s first-world-problemism at its finest.
> It certainly will reduce attraction from women most stages of life as it’s a stronger indicator of insecurity and low self confidence more than it’s an indicator of physical fitness / competence.
You have already lost me. This is totally made up and most likely the opposite of the truth, and I would like to see some evidence for this claim.
> If you add in this sort of touchy and sensitive reactionary attitude it will only worsen that.
So you're saying I should just be okay with you making hateful stuff up and posting it, and that if I ask you for evidence I am being "sensitive" and "reactionary"?
Sorry I am not okay with you insinuating that `$fit = dumb` without evidence. You haven't provided any, which leads me to believe that your beliefs stem from your own insecurities more than anything.
I don't actually think this is as much of a false dichotomy as you believe.
In my experience that separation between physical ability and smarts has always existed on some level. Yes of course there are engineers who work out, and soccer players who code, but I've generally seen that the best engineers do not work out much, and the best soccer players do not code much.
Some of that may in fact just come down to time and how much they're spending it on their craft. At the end of the day though, the very brightest and most talented software devs I know are simply out of shape.
I agree that best coders don't do 2x a day workouts and best soccer players don't play chess 4h a day.
But there is an idea where you do 3 workouts per week, do things each day to be productive in your trade and augment it with exercise to be even more productive.
And if I would just exercise I would remember that exercise would solve the problem... but I don't have the mental foresight to do so, so I let it go for another day, and another...
I agree with this. I hate exercise so I go into the office a few days a week and I cycle to get there and back which is roughly 10 miles in total. Without that commute I'd be too tempted to do nothing by way of exercise.
Yes, this helps a lot! For me, it also helps to have a training plan, or simply calendar events that remind me what exercise I should do at a given day. Usually this allows me to trick my mind and avoids the decision whether or not I should exercise and I will "stupidly" do what the calendar says. This made it much easier to develop a habit.
The entire book is filled with training plans I hadn't even considered before - this particular one has worked really well for me in a way other plans have not.
I think you just have to make yourself do it for a prolonged period of time, all the while making sure that you do not overexert yourself. Make it pleasant on every occasion, and lower the intensity once it starts feeling like a struggle. There are theories on how long it takes to establish a new habit. The numbers may vary, but I'd say if you can keep at it for around three months, it should be possible, for anyone really, to establish regular exercise as a habit that you both enjoy and look forward to, rather than something that you dread or put off.
Having a schedule really helps. For years I’ve just promised myself that I’d work on my physical practices at least 4x per week — if I’ve gotten to Wednesday and I haven’t done anything, that means Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday I need to do something. And because you need rest days, you end up just planning to spread things out. Stick to it for a few months and all of a sudden it’s been years and you can’t imagine not doing it.
Just make sure it’s a thing you really enjoy, and think of it more as practicing getting really good at something rather than a chore.
Just set multiple reminders on your phone throughout the day to get up and do a little bit of exercise. A five minute walk, two minutes of jumping jacks, and three push-ups are better than nothing.
Get a cheap magnetic exercise bike (Sunny has a good one) and start with 10 (or even 5) minutes a day at the same time (or event, waking up, finishing work, something like that) every day.
10 minutes is nothing, especially if you read or watch TV while doing it.
It'll get easy eventually, and the habit will be established. Then you up it to 15, and keep doing that until you hit at least 30 mins every day.
Then you have a nice habitual time period that you can add, swap, or integrate other exercises into.
You probably answered why people don't maintain a healthy routine for decades.
A gerbil-wheel exercise in extreme environments, perhaps (due to pollution, crime, extreme hot/cold weather, etc), but after an extended period, is that really how natural detergents in the body are made?
It's not about sticking with gerbil-wheel exercises, it's about developing the habit of scheduling exercise into one's day. Once one establishes the habit of scheduling exercise it makes sense this lowers the barrier to enriching exercise.
Although for me it's been the other way around: find an enriching exercise first and then schedule around performing it. For me, my only limit to participating in my exercise of choice is body recovery. If I had no recovery time I'd be in the gym for hours daily. As it is now I'm limited to 1.5-2.5 hrs every other day.
Golf can be a fun activity, but it doesn't really build much functional muscle strength or cardiovascular fitness. Most golf pros who stay on the tour for a while find it necessary to additional training to keep their bodies working well.
Recreational golfing is much more relaxing. I can chase personal goals while enjoying every minute of it.
We're all aware of Tiger blowing out a knee, but some stories coming out of the LPGA with pros living with excruciating pain from a relatively early age is just absurd:
Michelle Wie's interview this year with the statement of not being able to pickup her own child at times did not make sense.
There are a few more golfers in the LPGA with back injuries in their 20's, knowing they only have one back (J. Korda this week for example).
I saw a Seve Ballesteros documentary about his severe back pains on VHS and have fortunately avoided pushing past the breaking point for a few extra yards.
As a technology native, golf has always felt amazing with both hands. Even my glutes grew up my back without trying as well... Provided you know your own body :)
Effortless energy is a breath of fresh air. Not many sports have that.
I apologize but I think I'm missing what you're saying.
I'll just elaborate and say the key to what I said is making it habitual by adding into something you'd be doing anyway. The exercise bike is great because you can watch TV, read, or even play some types of games or other sedentary activities you may be doing anyway.
Habits are everything. If you make it something you can to make yourself do, it'll always be hard. Make it a daily or weekly activity. Start slow, and just make it routine. Then, after you're used to it you can increase the intensity.
I am in better shape than I've been in a few years. My exercise is more enjoyable now, and doesn't feel like a chore to do it. This year I signed up for a half dozen mountain bike races, so they were a motivator to go out and ride.
Every week my friends and I meet up and run 3.5 miles. After the run, we all hangout and have a beer at a nearby bar. The meetup spot is 6 miles away and I ride my bike hard there, and at a leisurely pace on the way back. It's nice having this activity to look forward to every week.
I haven't signed up for any races since the summer, but I have it in the back of my mind that I will start again in the spring, so that helps me make time for bike rides (which I enjoy).
My friends don't like to run in the dark, so I will probably join a volleyball league this winter for some weekly socialization and activity.
So, I think waaaay eaiser to find stuff you will like doing or at least an activity with people you like being around. Check Facebook for group rides/runs in your area.
Consider skipping the beer and dropping all alcohol entirely (but definitely still be social), you'd be surprised at how much it is holding you back fitness wise and how little you actually need it, beyond the thought that it is nice.
One way out of this is to not join a gym but learn exercises that you can do anywhere (e.g https://blog.paleohacks.com/how-to-work-out-with-no-equipmen... ). And be forgiving towards yourself too - forgot to exercise for a day or a week, fine - some days are just shitty in our life - just do one exercise today (motivation follows actions). You don't have to do the full sets of exercise, if you don't feel like it. Just focus on doing one exercise (action is the fuel required to power your motivation). Enjoy the feeling. And continue again everyday.
I started lifting a few years ago. Everything was good until this summer when I developed knee pain while squatting that was excruciating at its worst. Got that mostly fixed with some specific exercises and focus on coorect form, and then developed low back pain that I have not resolved yet. Most recently tore a muscle in my shoulder, which I am working on rehabbing. So now pretty much all daily activities are accompanied by some amount of pain. I wake up at least twice a night from shoulder or back pain.
If you’re doing heavy barbell squats there is a lot to consider. For example my pelvic proportions required a slightly wider stance that cured me of all back pain. Also always warning up with McGill big 3 helps- look them up if you plan to lift into middle age. I also had to do some supplementary glute work (bridges etc) too to correct an imbalance.
Exercise and age/experience has taught my that the body is a dynamic, connected system. I stopped working out after an injury for a couple years, and when I got back into it I was amazed to see how strength imbalances (and the accompanying pain) migrated through my legs and back. That’s still in progress, but getting better for me. Most important thing is to take it slowly.
Injuries are not normal or expected regardless of when you start. The important point is to use good technique and progress slowly. Hire a qualified personal trainer or coach to show you how to do it right. And don't try to do too much too fast. Your muscles will get stronger faster than your tendons and bones, so just because you can lift a heavier weight or run at a faster pace doesn't mean you should. Take a few months at your current level before trying to move up.
It’s both expected and normal, however, yes, as you point out, going slowly will give your soft tissues time to adapt to the new stresses you’re putting them through.
I am still exercising, the main thing I cannot do at all right now is bench press or other pressing movements due to the shoulder. Squats and deadlifts I am doing at lower weights than what I was up to before the injuries, and I can do focused accessories such as tricep/bicep work, leg work, etc.
I am also an older lifter and probably should have backed down at the earlier indications that a problem was developing. However it honestly was never more than some soreness that went away with warmups, so I wasn't really concerned about it.
On the mental effects, I can say that for me that exercise doesn't change much. I am generally in a better mood after a good workout, but with the recent injuries I have been feeling more frustrated and dejected. But these feeling are pretty much the same ones I have when I succeed or struggle with a programming task or other mental work.
Shoulder girdle stabilization is super important in your lifts, the muscles even help with form on deadlifts. If you look to start a routine to work out your stabilizers on a regular basis it can help prevent future injuries and help you feel even better when lifting.
Also some exercise may, for you, turn out to not be boring. Try different things until you find an exercise (or set of exercises) that works for you. I really enjoy running, especially outdoors, and rowing, which makes it easy for me to stick with them. But for other people those things are either dull or painful and so they stall out if they only try those exercises. I also found team sports (soccer, in particular) and martial arts (BJJ) to be stimulating in a way that they never become boring. A couple I know use dance as their primary exercise (actually how they met too). There are many ways to exercise, finding the right exercise for you is critical to longterm success.
This. Between running, tennis, climbing, hiking, biking, martial arts, swimming, weightlifting, volleyball, mountain biking, soccer, etc. . . I think there is likely a “right” exercise for everyone, in the sense that it gets to flow state and doesn’t feel boring, or like work.
Very few of those on the list can be enjoyed by octogenarians.
I have enjoyed decades of golf so far with firm glutes and firm abs as an unitended benefit :)
I'm always tickled when I read these stories. I'm chasing an albatross personally to complete my scorecard (got a hole-in-one the 1st decade of playing).
The key is to start early and build up enough strength and fitness to sustain you for awhile after the inevitable, irreversible decline sets in around age 70.
And if you find a sport (like I did with soccer and BJJ), other exercises become more desirable and easier to stick with because they're complementary or supportive to the actual thing you want to do. Distance running and sprinting improved my endurance for both sports and also my recovery time after a literal sprint in soccer or the BJJ equivalent of a fast moving exchange, giving me an edge against otherwise more skilled opponents but lacking my conditioning.
BJJ sparring is like a chess match that requires complete mental focus for strategy, and the engagement and focus of every muscle in my body.
I feel like that analogy is lacking. Nevertheless, it's unlike any other sport I've played, like ice hockey, for example, which is more like driving in NYC.
Do you think BJJ is one of those hobbies that you can enjoy late in life? I’ve given it a try but always seem to get hurt, which disrupts other parts of my life (work, sleep, etc.) I also know a lot of people who’ve gathered a lot of lasting injuries from it. Any tips on staying healthy?
Find a good gym. There are some gyms where the instructors (and consequently the students) are a bit too hardcore. But at the good gyms (which I'd say are actually the average in the community, not outliers by any stretch), no one wants to injure their training partner. I've got a bad shoulder and a bad back. When someone gets my left arm in certain positions, I tap quickly and no one gets upset. I tell my partners about it, and tell them they can grab it just go extra slow.
So far my only BJJ-caused back or shoulder injuries were from early on when I was either too inflexible (and so it was easy to push it too far), or too stupid to tap (hadn't realized what "too far" was). Take it slow, find good training partners, listen to your body, and take up complementary activities (some strength training, flexibility things like yoga, core training especially for the back).
Yes. I agree about finding a good gym. Also be especially careful when sparring with other beginners who usually rely more on strength than technique. I have been injured twice while sparring with beginners(myself being a beginner as well). A knee fracture and a broken rib. Nowadays I take it easier since I’m in my mid 40s and recovery is slower. But I’m definitely not the oldest guy in the gym.
I also do judo once a week, and that’s lots of fun but a bit scary compared to bjj. I probably won’t continue doing that when I get old, not sparring at least.
I never played soccer with colleagues, at first being too tall and sucking at it and also seeing that as a sports for another "kind" of person. But nowadays I totally feel that its a great mix of play and sport, more fun and team bonding than gym, probably less taxing than cross-fit, etc. And now that I work remotely its even harder to find people to play... (And I'm in Brazil..)
Tracking what you do can go a long way towards making the boring thing not boring.
A long walk on its own versus... a long walk where you've clicked the record button on Stava is for some reason a completely different experience. One is idle, meandering, and boring the other is (somehow psychologically) building something and fun.
Agreed, and I'll add that you don't have to be overly interested in metrics/fitness/quantified self to derive benefit from this.
For instance, I care little about the measurements of any given run or walk, I rarely even look at them when I'm done, but just the recording itself on my Apple Watch subtly motivates me to work harder and go longer. It becomes more of a 'workout' than a passive activity.
Anything <= 20 minutes away, I ride my bicycle. And yeah, I live in a suburb. The grocery store is about a 15 minute ride away, a bit uphill.
Taken from this point of view, cycling is actually multi-tasking: you're getting somewhere and getting your daily exercise. Cars don't actually save you time when it comes to these sorts of trips because they're forcing you to spend extra time explicitly exercising.
>> I experience the benefits of exercising as energy balancing.
I find that a lot of fringe stuff like that can be reframed into other fringe or even more "normal" terminology. Which words or metaphors one uses are simply what clicks for them. If "energy balance" is the word that feels right to you, use it. ;-)
I've heard there's literally some kind of electric charge going on, and your muscles play an important role in this. They might act as storage of sorts, but you need to exercise eventually so they can discharge, otherwise you get to the point where things can't function properly. Heart is supposed have crucial part in generating electrical fields too. Not much info on that topic so take it with a grain of salt.
i have exactly the same feelings/experiences. i started to ride a bike when pandemic begun and it really improved my comfort of living and ovearll "mental" attitude. its really not about fitness but more like a therapy for a brain to reset. its best to ridea in areas where you can be close to the nature as the presence of nature also contributes
If you are running or cycling it is VERY important to stretch extensively afterward. Perfectly "healthy" and trim cyclists and runners can end up with back problems that lead to all sorts of health problems because they have not stretched the legs and core regulalry. Ham strings tighten up like steel cords and can ruin your back...especially if you sit for significant periods of time each day. I have learned this the hard way.
Solving problems, learning and building new things all day can be very mentally exhausting. Cardio, sports, lifting; helps re-balance the physical with the mental. I am sure there are more scientific words and biological descriptions that I lack the vocabulary for. If I get too mentally focused on a project/job/problem and go days without matching it with vigorous physical activity, I end up not sleeping as well, am less tolerant, more scattered and brain fog tends to start rolling in. If I counter it with the physical exercise or physical energy expenditure the mental clarity comes back, I sleep better, and don't have hair-triggered verbal impulse control issues. Otherwise, if I let it go for too long, lethargy sets in - which I attribute to the body/physical and mind/mental trying to rebalance itself. I dont think it cares that it makes me feel like crap overall, more that it's neutral in just wanting a balance however that comes about.
I often refer to exercise as me taking care of my mental health - as opposed to being physically fit. That could be seen as "exercise [being] the best cognitive exercise". Looking at it that way, exercise creates a mental-out imbalance, which causes the stored energy in the mind to be stimulated and need more output creating the mental sharpness. Obviously I have nothing to back up the claims other than decades of experiencing this to be true for me time and time again; though I do believe there are better biological explanations than energy.