In just 30 minutes, I can make you faster, more accurate, yield greater productivity, and inspire innovation.  This is the kind of exercise that makes you money.  The wonders of exercise reach far beyond body image, lipid profiles, and blood pressure readings.  What's good for your heart is also good for your brain.
      
   Christin Anderson, MS, wellness and fitness coordinator of the University of San Franciso, explains that exercise effects many sites within the nervous system.  "When one exercises you can think more clearly, perform better, and your morale is better.  This is pure science - stimulate your nervous system and function at a higher level," Anderson says.

   Many successful people credit exercise as not just a component of their success, but as the catalyst.  They swear by the effects it has on both their careers and their whole lives.  Such as the competitors in the CEO Challenge: a program for CEOs competing in the Ironman triathlons in which they swim 2.4 miles, run 26.2 miles, and bike 112 miles in less than 17 hours.  The title for grabs is "World's Fittest CEO."  "Most men who compete in this event say that without aerobic exercise, they wouldn't be CEO's, " says Ted Kennedy, president of CEO Challenge.

   Exercise is mentally arousing, raising one's heart rate and increasing the flow of oxygen-rich blood throughout your body and brain.  Several studies suggest that even short bursts of moderate activity have powerful effects on concentration, memory, proficiency, attention span, and mental longevity.

   For example, researchers at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK, released findings this past June on how exercise effects job performance.  In the study, 210 participants, most of whom had sedentary jobs, rated their frame of mind, work performance, and workload on seven point scales.  They utilized the company's gym and took surveys right before quitting time on both workout and non-workout days.

   Almost overwhelming were the positive results.  Researchers reported that the ratings for mental-interpersonal performance and the ability to manage time and output demands were consistently and significantly higher on exercise days.  At least 65% of the workers improved in all three areas on exercise days.  

      The body's response to exercise is to release serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, and endorphins which act as chemical messengers to reduce feelings of anxiety, stress, and depression.  Hence, the company who's employees workout can count on seeing more productive workers, fewer sick days, better attendance, and more tolerant co-worker relations.      

      According to John J. Ratey, MD, and associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and author of A User's Guide to the Brain, "Exercise is like taking a little Prozac or a little Ritalin at just the right moment.  Exercise is really for the brain, not the body.  It affects mood, vitality, alertness, and feelings of well-being."

     Preliminary animal research suggests that exercise can cause new stem cells to grow, refreshing the brain and other body parts.  Rately also states that exercise stimulates nerve growth factors.  "I call it Miracle-Gro for the brain," he says.

   Published in The Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences 2003, "Aerobic Fitness Reduces Brain Tissue Loss in Aging Humans."  As the human brain loses tissue from the third decade of life onward and results in declines of cognitive performance.  Researchers state that: "We found that losses in these areas were substantially reduced as a function of cardiovascular fitness, even when we statistically controlled for other moderator variables."

   Anyone with half a brain exercises.  The National Center for Health Statistics published a study in 2002 stating that: "Educational attainment, family income, and nonpoverty status were inversely associated with engaging in leisure-time periods of vigorous physical activity."  The study clearly showed that the higher one's education level, the more likely it is that they exercise.

     The choice is clear: exercise and dominate your life with a  sense of alertness, heightened responsiveness, and plenty of "vim and vigor" or be lazy, confused, and left behind in their dust...