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If You Ever Needed Another Reason to Exercise, This is It
There’s a reason exercise is at the top of many New Year resolutions lists — it’s because there’s too much science backing up how good it is.
We know it helps us lose weight, helps to prevent heart and lung diseases, makes us stronger and helps us to deal with stress.
But there is research which suggests yet another benefit. No, it isn’t improved sleep or even better sexual health, although these are also true.
Turns out, exercise makes you more sensitive to pleasure.
Regular exercise elicits more dopamine and more available dopamine receptors, as the brain’s reward centers (which includes the nucleus accumbens among other subcompartments) are stimulated. As a result, the brain’s capacity to enjoy the good things in life increases and the brain actually anticipates pleasure more readily.
Aside from the sometimes tedious responsibilities of everyday life, everything we do is because we think it will elicit pleasure either now or later. Dr. Kelly McGonigal said on the Model Health Podcast that there is nothing that has such an effect on the brain other than deep brain stimulation, which involves a surgically-implanted electrode in the reward system of the brain.
