Exercise to combat stress: More studies

 An article described research into how exercise helps create resilience to deal with stress. 

Bottom line: "Exercise helps animals cope with stress by enabling an uptick in a crucial neural protein called galanin, the study suggests. This process influences stress levels, food consumption, cognition, and mood."

Points to consider:

• "...increased exercise doesn't impact our immediate feelings of stress, but does allow us to cope with stress in a healthier way."
• "The amount of time the mice spent exercising in the third week correlated with the amount of galanin in the locus coeruleus, which in turn correlated with their degree of stress resilience."
• "...the increased galanin didn't influence other aspects of the mice's behavior, suggesting galanin may be recruited only during periods of high stress."

Putting it to use: "Aerobic exercise (like walking, running, biking, swimming) probably has a greater effect on stress resilience than non-aerobic exercise (like weight lifting)."

Read the article to get the whole story.

Nordic Walking Guy was right

 Nordic Walking Guy's first rule is: Walk with purpose. An article described a study that reached that conclusion.

Takeaway: "...walking with a purpose makes people walk faster and feel healthier more than walking for leisure."

Findings from the study:

• "...people who walked primarily to places, like to work or the grocery store, reported better health than people who walked for fun, relaxation, or just the fun of it. They also got where they were going quicker than those on a leisurely stroll."
• "...walking for any duration or any purpose, but especially walking to work, makes people feel healthier."
• "...people who walked more frequently and for longer, for whatever reason, had higher self-assessed health scores."
• "...city planners should consider how to create interventions that encourage people to walk within, to, and from their neighborhoods, Akar says. This could manifest as more sidewalks or rest areas for commuters and recreational walkers."

Walking with purpose requires focus, something that helps Nordic walkers move more briskly. Focus makes Nordic walkers more aware of their technique, moving their arms more decisively and pushing off with more strength.

Keto for long term cardio

 A former professional cyclist tried a 100-mile bike ride while doing the keto diet. Most people may think they have to load up on carbs, so he wanted to see what would happen on keto.

He cut it short at 90 miles due to the heat, but his overall conclusion: "I was certain that I was going to bonk catastrophically and need to be driven home... But literally nothing went wrong. I was able to churn out the watts, my heart rate didn't go crazy, I didn't get heatstroke. I did do the ride at a low intensity, so I didn't give it 100 percent up every climb, but I did have periods where my heart rate went up to 170 and I went super hard."

His disclaimer about his personal experiment: "Diet is so personal. What works for me will not necessarily work for you."

Given the article was about one person's personal experiment, it would have been nice for the article to include a summary of research on that topic to give readers a context for appreciating what the cyclist was trying to do.

Nordic walkers may be interested in these kinds of things because there may be implications for optimizing one's nutrition practices.