WHY EXERCISE IS THE KEY TO WORK-LIFE BALANCE

GETTING ENOUGH EXERCISE DOESN'T JUST MAKE YOUR BUTT LOOK GOOD; IT ALSO CAN SAVE IT IN THE OFFICE OR AT HOME.

BY DRAKE BAER

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Maybe you should be asking your boss for midday workouts.

Interesting research published in the Harvard Business Review shows that exercise isn't a selfish indulgence (how dare you care about your body!). It's an asset to not only your work, but the whole work-life shebang.

After surveying a range of professionals Saint Leo University assistant professor of Management Russell Clayton found a "clear relationship" between physical activity and navigating the intersection of work and home--though we don't always agree with the dichotomy. But Clayton's point is this: if you exercise regularly, you're less likely to feel a conflict between your working life and your home life.

The reasons why show the interconnectedness of your physical and psychological state and your productivity:

• When you exercise, you can release some of the stress that's getting all pent up inside. And the less stress you feel, Clayton observes, the more enjoyable you'll find your office or your kitchen.
• When you exercise, you boost your self-efficacy, the confidence you have that you can get things done. What's more, folks with high self-efficacy are more likely to face the various tasks to be met in the day as challenges to be mastered. As one of Clayton's interview subjects told him, "an hour of exercise creates a feeling that lasts well beyond that hour spent at the gym."

There isn't a perfect time to exercise, Clayton says: some people do it upon waking so that the day doesn't overwhelm them, others get in a mid-afternoon workout renewal, while you might go for a run once you get home.

But what's crucial for managers to know, he adds, is to recognize that exercise could be integrated into the workday.

Forward-thinking companies are already putting a sweaty foot forward: AnswerLab loves a walking meeting, Overit Media gets into hourly exercise breaks, and HootSuite has turned itself into a yoga-loving maple syrup mafia. So what will you do?

Watching hopped-up kids on Halloween candy may have led many of us to suspect that sugar must be some kind of drug--but beyond that, how many of us know what sweet foods really do to our brains? A new animation bySTK films for TED-Ed, “How Sugar Affects the Brain,” explains how foods containing any of the many forms of sugar, from glucose to fructose to starch, affect the same reward systems in our brains that are activated by using drugs like heroin and alcohol or by having sex. Science confirms your suspicions: the sugar rush is real.

“You take a bite of cereal. The sugars it contains activate the sweet taste receptors, part of the taste buds on the tongue,” the video’s narrator, Michelle Snow, explains. “These receptors send a signal up to the brain stem, and from there it forks off into many areas of the forebrain,” parts of which process different tastes. The signal then activates the reward system, a complicated network of neurotransmitters--most importantly, dopamine--which subconsciously helps us decide whether or not to do something again. “That warm fuzzy feeling you get when you taste grandma’s chocolate cake? That’s your reward system saying mmm, yes.”

It’s all good in moderation--but over-activation of this reward system is what leads to those cravings and to an increased tolerance to sugar, a pattern commonly known as addiction. When we call someone a junk food addict or a sugar addict, we might not realize that on a neurochemical level, what they’re dealing with has a lot in common with what happens in the brain of a drug addict. It makes Skittles’ whisper to “Taste the Rainbow” and all that cutesy, colorful candy packaging seem a lot more sinister.