This article was originally published on  ARETE schools' web page.

Some fourty years ago, neurologists firmly believed that the brain could not grow in an adult but rather, however slightly, would diminish over the years. they believed that this was a safe conclusion seeing that brain autopsies seemed always to suggest that the brain lost rather than gained in structural diversity and even seemed to shrink to a certain extent.

So when children would overhear their grandparents or even parents quip "I must be getting old" they would take their word for it that old age was coupled with loss of mental faculties - and in fact this would work like a self-fulfilling prophesy, if you firmly believe old age to be synonymous to becoming senile then your body would obey as much as it would if you believed the contrary. But we will leave the subject of autosuggestion and what it can do for you till a later article in this series.

Today we want to show you how working out can increase your intelligence ...

A study conducted by Swedish scientists in 2006 found that there was a direct relation between exercising and increased IQ levels. While it is not a direct causal relationship like "if you do so many push-ups your intelligence will increase by x points" it is a statistical relationship, i.e. those who exercised regularly and to some extent would eventually increase their IQ levels. This seems to be the result of growth stimulated in the hippocampus region of the brain as a study by Dr. Josef Bischofberger from Freiburg University (Germany) found. It is due to certain brain cell growth factors who are stimulated by bodily exercise. What's more: new brain cells are more likely to learn and learn faster than older ones. So there are several benefits of working out:

• your brain and body get more oxygen, which in itself tends to increase brain performance
• certain growth factors are stimulated that lead to new cells eager to learn "new tricks"
• and most sports activities tend to increase the speed with which you react in general (e.g. if a child happens to cross your vehicle's path you're quicker to brake), and this speed is also loosely related to IQ levels, the faster you can react, the more intelligent you tend to be (of which we'll report in another article).

Sources: "Schlau durch Sport - Neurophysiologen stellen Zusammenhang her zwischen Bewegung und Intelligenz" in: Freiburger uni-Magazin, vol. 2/April 2006, p. 13 (Freiburg University, Germany ISSN 0947-1251).

Exercise Grows New Brain Cells, by Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Staff Writer, posted: 28 June 2007 12:25 pm ET

Further reading: Paul Reeve "How to Supercharge your Energy Levels through Exercise"