Read more: \u201cRunning Is Always Blind\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n To uncover this lower bound of brain-boosting physical activity, neuroscientists from the University of Tsukuba in Japan fitted 24 healthy adults with a functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and a head accelerometer. They then tasked these participants with what they termed \u201cslow running\u201d at a pace of 3 to 6 kilometers per hour (or 1.9 to 3.7 miles per hour, which is really more of a moderate to brisk walk). The team recorded the participants\u2019 brain activity as well as their moods before and after their stroll.<\/p>\n To assess their cognitive performance, the participants took the Stroop test, which measures how well we deal with incongruent stimuli. During the test, the names of colors are flashed on a screen in colored text that may or may not match the name (i.e., text reading \u201cRED\u201d may be colored blue). The quicker participants identify the color of the text, the better the cognitive performance (you can try it for yourself here<\/a>).<\/p>\n They found that slow running yielded some surprising benefits. After just 10 minutes, participants showed a shorter Stroop time and a more positive mood. Their brains also showed increased activation in the left lateral prefrontal cortex, which governs high-level thinking, language, and executive control.<\/p>\n But most interesting was the head acceleration data. The researchers found that the greater the head acceleration, the greater the improvement in mood. In other words, the more head bobs while you\u2019re running (or briskly walking), the better you\u2019ll feel afterwards. Previous research on cycling found that light intensity exercise has only modest effects on mood, but these findings suggest that running is an entirely different experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n Altogether, this is great news for people who aren\u2019t built for CrossFit or other high-intensity workouts. But it might be bad news for people who just don\u2019t want to exercise\u2014now they\u2019ve got no excuse. Enjoying Nautilus<\/a>? Subscribe to our free newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n Lead Image: iphotothailand \/ Adobe Stock<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a growing pile of research showing exercise improves the human mind. While different studies using different methodologies…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":845712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[337,97],"class_list":["post-845711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-fitness","tag-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=845711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/845712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=845711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=845711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=845711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789252335_970_nautilus-favicon-14.png\")
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