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Comment by vinceguidry | Hacker News Reader

The conclusions presented by the article gel with my experience. There is nothing like cardio for helping me think better. Anything more intense forces my mind to concentrate on the exercise. Less intense and I don't really get any benefit from the exercise, might as well be sitting or laying down.

When I did HIIT-style cardio, the train of thought would be broken during the intense periods. I found that doing longer periods of less-intense activity was perfect for braining.

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And alas we live in an age where we are scored by a cargo-cult process that mostly rewards sitting at a desk for 8-12 hours a day over producing actual results yet it is somehow called "agile."

Evidence: my last job watching the t-crossers and the i-dotters get promoted over the engineers doing the heavy lifting hence why I left.

What's "a t-crosser and an i-dotter"?

It's kind of like a Nexus 6 that instead of going on the run in search of a cure for its 2-year lifesppan, its happily sits at its desk filling out TPS reports and their ilk right up to its last day whereupon it conveniently punches out the clock just before it punches out it own clock.

Since we're discussing anecdotes, here's mine.

I find aerobic exercise / running extremely boring. My ADD kicks in and my mind wanders like crazy. I find it hard to do because it's so boring.

Anaerobic exercise / lifting weights is the opposite. I focus intensely on what I'm doing. I shut out the world. Time flies by. It's like intense meditation for me with the bonus of building muscle.

Reasonable intensity cardio might facilitate thinking while you're doing it, but which of the three (high, mid, or low intensity) facilitates your average ability to think when you aren't doing it?

I'm not saying that the answer isn't still mid-intensity, just pointing out that you're not answering the same question.

Probably the same. Haven't done anything like a controlled study on it, so it's hard to tell with any kind of rigor.

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