If your job requires good judgment and quick thinking, you'll do it better if you exercised regularly.  Some people think regular exercise is for self-centered people who want to improve their appearance, but studies show that it increases brain function.  As a "side effect," exercise reduces anxiety and depression and helps to ward-off the mental effects of aging.

A report published in the Journal of Exercise Physiology looked at fitness scores of 884,000 students.  They compared them to state-mandated test scores and found the fittest students scored much better than others.

A study of the cognitive consequences of exercise published in the journal Acta Psychologica shows that exercise facilitates thinking, especially information processing.

Other research shows that exercise can make the brains of older people act younger.  Magnetic resonance imaging scans before and after six months of aerobic exercise show that the brain activity of older people was similar to that of 20 year-olds, according to the University of Illinois.

June 2009 Newsletter, page 3