Brief Summary
This video discusses the relationship between exercise and energy, dispelling common myths about adrenal burnout and presenting the biological mechanisms that link physical activity to increased energy levels.
- Exercise releases adrenaline, boosting both physical and mental energy.
- The idea of adrenal burnout from exercise is a myth; the body can sustain adrenal function even under stress.
- Certain brain areas that control movement enhance adrenaline release, particularly through compound exercises.
Exercise significantly increases energy levels by stimulating the adrenal glands to release adrenaline. This hormone enhances physical energy and focus by activating specific pathways in the body and brain. Exercise not only improves physical stamina but also aids in cognitive function, allowing individuals to perform better in tasks following physical activity.
The process starts with movement, which triggers the adrenal glands to release adrenaline. This release occurs through two parallel pathways, leading to elevated energy levels. Adrenaline acts on areas of the brain like the locus coeruleus, contributing to an increase in arousal and attentiveness relevant for both exercise and learning.
Contrary to popular belief, exercise does not lead to adrenal burnout. The body has the capacity to manage stress and prolonged challenges without depleting adrenal energy. While adrenal insufficiency is a real syndrome, the general idea that activities like exercise can overtax the adrenals is misleading; they actually enhance adrenal function.
New research identifies three key brain regions that communicate with the adrenal glands, promoting adrenaline release. These regions involve cognition, emotional states, and motor control. Each category plays a role in how the body accepts and reacts to movement, underlining the complex link between exercise and emotional health.
Movement creates a feedback loop where the decision to engage in exercise triggers adrenaline release. The brain areas that activate during exercise are the same ones that control muscle movement, particularly in the core. This loop enhances overall energy, alertness, and focus, suggesting that movement is crucial for improving mental performance.
Engaging the core muscles during workouts is particularly effective in stimulating the adrenal glands. The brain areas responsible for controlling core movement significantly influence the levels of adrenaline released, leading to better physical and cognitive outcomes. Therefore, exercises that activate these muscles can amplify energy levels.
To optimise energy levels, focusing on compound exercises, such as squats, deadlifts, and bench presses, is imperative. These movements engage multiple joints and activate significant muscle groups, resulting in a more considerable release of adrenaline and neurochemicals like norepinephrine and dopamine, which are vital for motivation and energy.
It's crucial to view exercise not merely as a physical activity but as a powerful tool for neurochemical modulation. The movement stimulates various brain pathways that enhance arousal, focus, and overall brain health, illustrating that exercise has far-reaching benefits beyond just fitness.
The video touches upon the concept of trauma impacting the body and vice versa. Specific emotional and cognitive factors can influence physical responses, including adrenal activity. This highlights the interconnectedness between mental health, physical health, and bodily movement.
Finally, the video encourages individuals who experience low energy to combat it through exercise. Engaging in movement, particularly involving the core and compound exercises, can facilitate an increase in energy levels and clarity. Regular physical activity is promoted as a preventive measure against fatigue and cognitive decline.
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Transcript
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0:02 if you've ever heard that exercise can give you energy this is the basis of that statement right many people in fact myself for many years thought okay I definitely have to sleep well in order to have energy and focus that's absolutely true still true will always be true I should maybe have some caffeine be hydrated you know well-nourished all this stuff in order to have the energy to exercise but it's also true that exercise gives us energy and this is how it gives us energy when we move our body the adrenals release adrenaline and the adrenaline acts through two different so-called parallel Pathways within the body but again it doesn't cross the bloodb brain barrier so then there's a series of what we call signaling relays or circuit relays up to the locus culus and then a sort of analog it's different but an analog to
0:48 epinephrine nor epinephrine is released within the brain and lo and behold we have elevated levels of both bodily energy and brain energy in Focus that we can devote to that exercise but also to the learning that comes after that exercise so the next time you're feeling a little tired and you don't want to work out remember exercise gives you energy through the pathways that I just described now anytime I talk about the adrenals people start talking about adrenal burnout they say you burn out your adrenals you know there're these crazy theories that you'll hear out there you know coffee burns out your adrenals not true you'll hear that if you exercise too much it might burn out your energy or your adrenals look you have enough capacity within your adrenals to survive relatively long famines to survive long bouts of challenge stress of many many different
1:34 kinds short challenges and so on you're not going to burn out your adrenals there is something called adrenal insufficiency syndrome which is a real syndrome there are diseases of the adrenals but that's not what we're referring to here you have plenty of adrenaline in your adrenals that you can deploy through movement through exercise to get the elevation and arousal attention and so forth that we've been talking about in fact there's a set of biological Pathways that were just recently discovered that will allow you to understand how to use movement in order to engage your adrenals so that then those adrenals can release adrenaline impact your vagus impact the organs of your body the locus cerus and elevate your levels of attention and focus and a lot of the core components of these pathways are highlighted in a paper that I absolutely love another
2:21 paper I absolutely love this is from Peter stricks laboratory at University of Pittsburgh which is entitled the mindbody problem circuits that link the cerebral cortex to the adrenal Medela what they discovered is that there are essentially three categories of brain areas all of which communicate with the adrenals and can cause them to release adrenaline to create this elevation and arousal and attention those three brain areas include areas of the brain that are involved in thinking what we call cognition areas of the brain that are related to what are called effective states which is just kind of a more General category that includes emotions okay if you saw the hubman Lab podcast episode I did with Lisa Feldman Barrett she explains beautifully the distinction between affective States and emotions
3:06 but these are brain areas that basically relate to what we are feeling or how we're perceiving our environment and how we're reacting to it these sorts of things and then there's a third category of brain areas that most robustly communicates with the adrenals and these are a collection of brain areas that are all involved with movement of particular areas of our body these areas are broadly referred to as the motor Networks so these are areas of the so-called cerebral cortex which are in the outer portion of the brain and they send these wires down the spinal cord there's a little relay in the spinal cord called the IML if you're interested in the anatomical details I'll put the link to this paper in the show note captions in any case these brain areas that are involved in motor movement send
3:51 axons those wires down to the spinal cord then from the spinal cord they send a relay out via What's called the coleric pre ganglionic neurons basically what ends up happening is that acetylcholine which is a neuromodulator is released from these neurons that originate in the spinal cord onto the adrenal Medela and then the adrenal Medela the so-call adrenals same thing adrenal Medela adrenals releases adrenaline that creates these effects in the body on the heart the muscles and other tissues and then as described before that adrenaline also acts on the Vegas the Vegas up to the NST Locus culus and we have this elevation and alertness so this paper and papers that came subsequent to it really explain how it is that the movement of our body AKA
4:36 exercise allows us to have this elevation in arousal and alertness it's a loop okay the adrenals release adrenaline they do these things by these two parallel Pathways I've been talking about but your decision to engage these motor areas to move particular areas of your body is what deploys that adrenaline now you might be thinking well duh okay when I exercise there's adrenaline release in order to exercise I need to move my body and these brain areas control the movement of my body but it's not a duh it's actually very profound because it turns out that the specific brain areas that best activate the adrenals are the brain areas that control the muscles closest to the midline the core musculature and the Brain areas that are involved in generating the sorts of movements that
5:22 we would call compound movements at least in the context of resistance training or that are responsible for moving multiple joints at the same time so what this means in the practical sense is if you are feeling sluggish you want energy or you're simply exercising both for bodily effects and for brain effects you need the deployment of adrenaline of epinephrine you need the deployment of norepinephrine in the brain and by the way anytime you have a deployment of norepinephrine in the brain almost always there's a coordinated action of release of dopamine which most people have heard of by now dopamine is involved in motivation as well as movement Etc ET so the simple takeaway here is if you want to get the arousal that comes from exercise in order to use that arousal to
6:08 leverage it towards better cognition brain health Etc the key thing is to make sure that you're doing exercises that are compound exercises so these would be the movements you can look these up just say compound exercises you can put that anywhere and you'll see that that includes things like squats dead lifts you know bench presses dips pull-ups rows and yes of course you want to train your whole body so that you have you know symmetry of a function of strength and you want to offset any injuries and things of that sort or aesthetic reasons perhaps but the idea here is if you want energy from exercise you want Focus you need the deployment of the neurochemicals that we've been discussing most notably epinephrine and norepinephrine and through the identification of this motor Network as well as the effective and cognitive networks that converge on this area of
6:54 the spinal cord and then send communication to the adrenal Medela you can essentially control the levels of arousal that your body and brain produces so in describing this my hope is that you'll no longer think about exercise as just elevating your heart rate or you no longer think about exercise just as moving your body but rather that the movement of your body is creating specific neurochemical outcomes both in the body and the brain that create the arousal that initiates the improvements in focus and attention that allow you to learn better and that contribute generally to brain Health and Longevity and by the way for those those of you that are interested in things like psychosomatic disorders trauma and how trauma can quote unquote be stored in the body and not so much stored in the body but how it can impact the body
7:40 and then how the body itself can impact the brain this paper has also been used as support for the idea that indeed those effective areas those emotional areas those cognitive areas have a route by which they can communicate with the adrenal Medela to cause the release of adrenaline when we have specific thoughts it was always known that if we have specific thoughts it can quote unquote stress us out our heart rate can go up Etc this paper also provides a reasonable anatomical substrate for that phenomenon you know I never want to make too much of any one single paper or finding but I will say that after I read that paper from stricken colleagues and through some of the subsequent discussions about that paper that I overheard at meetings and so forth it really made me think differently about exercise and now anytime that I'm feeling tired provided that I'm not
8:25 chronically sleep deprived or something of that sort I remind myself that if I start moving my body in particular if I engage core muscles that was one of the key findings in that paper that the areas of the brain that control the core muscles as well as do compound movements I move multiple joints I start you know warming up in a way that includes some you know maybe even just air squats or some running in plays or jumping jacks things of that sort that the increase in energy that I'm perceiving is real it's based on the same neurochemical outputs that would occur had I gone into the gym or to the run or whatever workout with tons of energy it would just have increased the level of adrenaline further so this idea that we can actually control our body with our mind and to some extent our mind with our body that's absolutely true and this is
9:10 one of the tools that I find particularly useful anytime I want to overcome that wall of kind of resistance to not doing the physical exercise that I know I and basically all of us should be doing [Music]
