Mental exhaustion makes workouts harder: study

By Reuters - Tue Feb 24, 3:06 PM PST
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Being mentally exhausted can impair a person's exercise performance, a finding that may help explain why it is sometimes so hard to work out, British researchers said on Tuesday. They said people who did a mentally tiresome task just before exercising reached exhaustion much more quickly than when they had been mentally rested.

Mental fatigue did not affect the performance of the heart or muscles, but it did affect their "perceived effort," Samuele Marcora, Walter Staiano and Victoria Manning of Bangor University in Wales wrote in the Journal of Applied Physiology. "Our study provides experimental evidence that mental fatigue limits exercise tolerance in humans through higher perception of effort," the team wrote. For the study, the researchers had 16 people take a demanding, 90-minute test that required close attention, memory, and left participants feeling tired and listless. Next, they rode a stationary bicycle to exhaustion, while the researchers tracked their heart rate and other vital signs. On a different day, the same group simply watched a 90-minute documentary film before riding the bike. The researchers found participants stopped exercising 15 percent earlier on average when they were mentally exhausted, even though there was little difference in their cardio respiratory or muscle function. "It provides strong evidence that brain function can limit short-term endurance performance," the team wrote. The researchers said the next step is to look at the brain to find out exactly why people with mental fatigue perceive exercise to be more difficult.
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Interesting study. I wonder if the authors wrote this article before or after exercising.

Q1: Does this mean that poor exercise performance can be "all in our heads?"

Q2: Is any other performance decreased due to mental fatigue, such as work or parenting?

I believe the answers are yes, yes and yes, but, a better question would be:

How do we get past the mental fatigue and continue to perform optimally?

As it pertains to exercise, Andy Dick of Optimal Fitness, has the following thoughts on getting past the exhaustion, or as some athletes call it, "getting past the wall".

I believe that this research points out an important point. You can (and should) only focus on so much without breaking down in one aspect or the other. Just like multi-tasking and juggling too many things at work can lead to reduced production in all of your work goals, exercise can suffer as a result of a long day at work. If one can focus on exercise as a method to relieve the day’s stress rather than as a an all-out He-Man workout, it can and should help break up the tightness in your mood. Rather than skipping the workout, re-focus on why you hit the gym!

Andy Dick
Owner, Optimum Results
(609) 304-7598
http://www.optimumresults.net/

Check out Optimum Results - Personal Training for this month's healthy tip!
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Thanks Andy!!

As I mentioned earlier, I believe mental fatigue, or as we should call it "STRESS", decreases our performance in many daily activities which then leads to phrases like "I woulda, I coulda and I shoulda." These phrases only perpetuate the stress and do not help in finding a way to release it.

My favorite stress release methods include reading a favorite book or magazine, or cooking a favorite meal, low carb of course ; )

If you have any favorite methods to reduce your mental fatigue, please visit my blog and post your annonymous methods in the comments section. This is where I hope we can all learn from each other. And I hope they are better than this next cartoon.

Steven Horvitz, D.O.
Board Certified Family Medicine
Founder of The Institute for Medical Wellness

www.DrHorvitz.com

http://drhorvitz.blogspot.com

Chocolate may be Beneficial for Chronic Fatigue

Dr. Steven Horvitz- Reading between the Lines:

Bringing you healthcare information you can trust!

February 1, 2009

Article from Natural News- Thursday, January 29, 2009 by: Sheryl Walters, citizen journalist

(NaturalNews) Regularly consuming chocolate could be beneficial to those with chronic fatigue syndrome, according to a study at Hull York Medical School. People who suffered with the illness found that they had more energy when they consumed high cocoa content.

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is an illness that has a vast array of diverse symptoms; the primary one being exhaustion. Most chronic fatigue specialists advise their clients to avoid chocolate because of the caffeine and sugar it contains.

Professor Steve Atkin, who led the study, said he had clients who reported feeling much better after swapping normal milk chocolate for dark chocolate with a high cocoa solid content. This sparked him to investigate further.

The trial consisted of 10 patients who received 45g of dark chocolate or white chocolate dyed to look like dark chocolate everyday for two months. After the month was over, they avoided chocolate for one month and then began taking the other type of chocolate for two months.

When the patients were taking a daily dose of dark chocolate, they reported significantly less fatigue, but felt the fatigue return when they stopped eating it.

Atkin was surprised at what good results were achieved. "Although it was a small study, two patients went back to work after being off for six months."

He explained: "Dark chocolate is high in polyphenols, which have been associated with health benefits such as a reduction in blood pressure. Also high polyphenols appear to improve levels of serotonin in the brain, which has been linked with chronic fatigue syndrome and that may be a mechanism."
Although more research was needed to confirm the findings, Atkin said that patients would not do themselves any harm by eating small amounts of dark chocolate. He added that no one in the study put on any weight.

Chronic fatigue is a very complex illness with many different causes including food intolerances, Candida, heavy metals and parasites. There is no single cure that works for everyone, and most people require quite a few lifestyle changes along with herbs, nutrients and detoxing.
Because of this, chronic fatigue specialists warn against believing that eating chocolate daily is going to completely solve the problem.

Most importantly, consuming chocolate with sugar in it should be generally avoided by everyone, especially those with a disabling illness.

Raw Chocolate

While dark chocolate is high in antioxidants and other nutrients, raw chocolate is even more potent since none of the nutrients have been destroyed through heating and processing. Further, raw chocolate is sugar free. Most people make raw chocolate with agave nectar, stevia or xylitol. All of these are fine in moderation for those with chronic fatigue syndrome because they don`t create blood sugar imbalances and they don`t feed the imbalances like sugar does.

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OK everyone.

First I write about breakfast shakes and now I bring you information about the benefits of chocolate. What's next? Maybe telling you that eating lots of protein and fat is healthy. In many cases it is, but that is not the purpose of today's newsletter, which is CHOCOLATE.

When reviewing a patient's diet history, chocolate almost always plays a part, and not one that most want to give up. I have also been known to rummage through the rooms in my office looking for chocolate to "give me a lift".

So should we be excited that this new research allows more chocolate in your diet?

The answer is Yes and No.

Anecdotally, many of us feel more energetic and/or get a "mood lift" when we eat chocolate. So, Yes, if this research is correct, then eating darker, minimally processed chocolate may help with chronic fatigue. So if a chocolate craving occurs, look for the chocolate with a higher cocoa percentage. These are usually the darker variety.

And, No, please do not go and start eating the normal heavily processed milk chocolate that contains more sugar and "fake fat" and that carries other risks. To be fair, this study contained only 10 people, which does not meet criteria for a valid population based study. But I am sure if they want to enroll more volunteers for a future study, that I could fill the group with my practice alone. But get in line behind me, because I am first!!

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I would like to thank everyone who read my previous newsletter and sent in their breakfast shake recipes. These recipes are now posted on my website.

Steven Horvitz, D.O.

Board Certified Family Medicine

Founder of The Institute for Medical Wellness

www.DrHorvitz.com