TED Talk Tuesday #303 – The brain-changing benefits of exercise

TED continues to spread ideas and help us all be better critical thinkers. Watching, listening and talking about TED Talks is a popular pastime for many in the CN&CO community. We visit TED.com regularly to clear our heads, have a laugh, learn or get inspired. TED Talks open our minds, spark new ways of thinking and can lead to some very interesting conversations and business opportunities. Each month we pick a favourite and publish it on a Tuesday, because we like how “TED Talk Tuesday” sounds. It’s also a way that the CN&CO team play their part in spreading ideas and helping to make the world a better place.

This month’s TED Talk was chosen by Colin Ford.

I recently started exercising regularly again after a fairly long hiatus. I joined Alan Harris’s new CResults digital boxing gym in Houghton. I’d been to a few classes at the Bryanston branch, which I found to be fun – and effective!

The first few times I went I couldn’t walk for days afterwards. I remember holding up a whole phalanx of deplaning passengers at Cape Town airport as I shuffled sideways down the stairs, one at a time.

But the more I went, the less pain I suffered afterwards. Now the after-effects are all more positive. I am stronger (I can actually manage sit-ups!), less stressed, slightly slimmer, and I have something to look forward to each week. Sometimes twice a week!

I went hunting for a TED Talk that explains the effect that exercise has on the brain and came across this one by Wendy Suzuki, a professor of neuroscience, who shifted her field of research to unpack the benefits of getting physical after a white-water rafting experience. Here’s Wendy:

If you’d like to know more about digital boxing, visit the CResults website. It’s a phenomenal 45-minute, full-body workout that you can do at your own pace. And if you’re a Vitality member you get some great discounts – even free classes. So, sign up today! Perhaps I’ll see you there.